2019 NFL Playoff Projections: Cowboys win NFC East, Rams miss playoffs one year after Super Bowl season

With Week 9 upon us, that means we’re officially in the second half of the NFL season, which means it’s time to do one of our favorite things here at CBS Sports — Figure out who’s going to make the playoffs.

The beauty of the NFL playoff race right now is that all 32 teams are currently still alive, which is news that might actually come as a slight shock to both Cincinnati Bengals and Miami Dolphins fans. Although those two teams are winless, they’re still mathematically alive, so in the immortal words of Lloyd Christmas, I’m telling you there’s a chance that your team could still end up in playoffs, Bengals and Dolphins fans.

The playoffs hopes for the Bengals and the Dolphins aren’t dead yet. Dumb and Dumber

To help you figure out who’s going to make the playoffs this year, we’re going to be publishing a projection every week for the rest of the season. These projections will be based on data from number-cruncher Stephen Oh of SportsLine.com. Each week, Oh will plug some numbers into his SportsLine computer and simulate the rest of the NFL season, and using those numbers, we’ll project the 12 teams we expect to make the playoffs.

Under Oh’s current projections, fans in New England, San Francisco, and New Orleans can go ahead and book their playoff tickets because those three teams have a 99 percent chance of making the postseason. That doesn’t mean they’ve clinched a spot, it just means that SportsLine doesn’t really think it’s mathematically possible for those three teams to miss the playoffs at this point.

Below you’ll find all 12 of our playoff projections with each team’s expected win total. We’ll also list whether or not we expect a team to make the playoffs as a wild-card or a division winner.

Alright, with all of that in mind, let’s get to this week’s playoff projections.