As we enter the final week of the regular season, there's still plenty that needs to be decided. Five playoff spots are still up for grabs, and only four teams are locked into their current seeding. We know which two teams will have a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, but we don't know too much else. In fact, there are several peculiarities in the potential paths for the postseason that will be decided over the weekend.

The Buffalo Bills were one of the preseason favorites to win the Super Bowl and still check in only behind the 49ers and Ravens at this point of the season, even though there's a real possibility they could miss the playoffs entirely. All that would need to happen to put Buffalo on the brink of elimination heading into the Sunday night finale would be for the Steelers and Jaguars to win their games as favorites. Then, a Buffalo loss would shut them out of the postseason picture, while a Buffalo win would eliminate the Steelers from postseason contention, with the final spot going to the winner of Texans-Colts.

That's one way the Steelers could get eliminated with a win, but they could also make the playoffs even with a loss. Those scenarios come into play in the opposite situation of the one we laid out above, with the Steelers and Jaguars both losing as favorites. Then, which one of those two teams makes the playoffs surprisingly rests on the Broncos-Raiders game: if the Broncos win, Pittsburgh is in the playoffs; if the Raiders win, the final spot goes to Jacksonville. The Steelers play on Saturday and the Jaguars play at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday, so we'll know heading into Broncos-Raiders if it actually has an impact on who makes the playoffs.

While all of that is fascinating, none of it matters too much for this article. That's because we're not going to predict who makes the playoffs but rather what the spread will be of every first-round game no matter which teams face each other in the wild-card round.

This is based on my spread power ratings I maintain throughout the season, making adjustments based around injury and performance. After finding the ratings differential between two teams in a matchup, I apply my unique home-field advantage ratings to crank out a projected spread. The method has helped me get ahead of several mispriced lines and also find where my value differs from the market and potentially jump on the side with value if I'm satisfied in the circumstances surrounding a particular game.

Which potential first-round matchup is the best and worst for each team in the running to make the playoffs?  ... Join SportsLine right now to see projected Wild Card Game spreads for every possible matchup from the expert who has dominated the NFL on spread picks, finishing up more than 35 units from 2017-22!