NFL standings 2026: Bills lead the AFC after Week 8
The Buffalo Bills sit atop the AFC at 6-1 after Kansas City's Week 8 loss in Denver, with Pittsburgh, Jacksonville and Denver leading the other three divisions.
Where the AFC stands after Week 8
NFL standings 2026 show the Buffalo Bills on top of the AFC at 6-1, the lone team in the conference without consecutive losses, after Kansas City's hot start got upended by a road loss in Denver. Pittsburgh (6-2) leads the AFC North, Jacksonville (5-2) leads the AFC South even with a bye week already banked, and Denver (6-2) leads the AFC West. Those are the four teams holding home playoff games if the season ended today, and all four got there by very different paths.
The Chiefs' loss changed everything
Kansas City dropping to Denver on the road is the single biggest reason this week's picture looks nothing like last week's. The Chiefs fell to the No. 5 seed at 5-2, even though their 5-1 record against AFC teams is better than the in-conference marks of some teams still ranked ahead of them. Denver's own edge over Pittsburgh for the No. 2 seed comes down to similar math: the Broncos are 3-1 against the conference, Pittsburgh is 3-2, and that's the whole gap between two teams both sitting at 6-2 overall. Jacksonville's point differential, a league-best plus-85, is the number Arrowhead Pride leans on to argue the Jaguars are playing better than their seed, with the early bye week the only thing holding them below the other three division leaders.
The wild card chase behind the leaders
Cincinnati (5-2) sits at No. 6 after dropping its first meeting with Pittsburgh, but the two teams play again in a couple of weeks, and a Bengals win would push Cincinnati back into the top four. New England (5-3) holds the No. 7 seed and the tiebreaker over Cleveland (5-3) on conference record, 5-1 for the Patriots against 3-3 for the Browns, a case where the won-loss column alone doesn't tell the whole story. Las Vegas and Baltimore, both 4-4, are the last teams Arrowhead Pride still lists inside the picture, and neither is more than a few results from falling out of it.
Why the standings keep flipping
A week earlier, CBS Sports had the Bills projected as the AFC's No. 1 seed and the Chiefs right behind at No. 2, with Cincinnati, not Pittsburgh, projected to win the AFC North and Jacksonville projected at No. 3 with the same 4-2 record it carried into that look. CBS even ran a season simulation that sent Buffalo to the Super Bowl. None of that is a current standing, it's a projection, and the gap between that projection and where the Chiefs actually sit a week later is the best evidence yet that this AFC race is not settling down anytime soon. Kansas City still has Buffalo, Cincinnati and New England left on the schedule, three games that will do more to decide this seed than anything written about it this week.
Facts per CBS Sports, Arrowhead Pride. Opinion is the taproom's.