By Dave Goldberg
The Associated Press

There has never been anything like it: Only four of the 16 American Football Conference teams have been eliminated entering the final week of the NFL's regular season.Look more closely, though, and the playoff picture is less muddled.

League officials were working with the Elias Sport Bureau for most of the day Monday just to come up with scenarios for the 10 AFC teams vying for the four remaining playoff berths.

"We know we still have a mathematical chance to be in the playoffs, and if you really look into it, it's probably very legitimate," said Mike Shanahan, coach of the Denver Broncos (8-7). "But you still don't know."

Break the scenarios down to their most basic form and this emerges:

The Oakland Raiders and Tennessee Titans are champions of the AFC West and South, respectively, and are the front-runners for the top two seeds and first-round byes.

The Pittsburgh Steelers, who played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night, needed only to win one of their final two games to clinch the North.

The Miami Dolphins can win the East with a victory in New England on Sunday. If they lose, the Patriots win the division if the New York Jets lose at home to the Green Bay Packers. If the Patriots and Jets win, New York wins the three-way tie for the East.

The Indianapolis Colts need only to beat the Jacksonville Jaguars to clinch one wild-card spot.

That leaves a second wild-card berth to everyone else: the East losers, Cleveland Browns, San Diego Chargers, Kansas City Chiefs and Denver. Even the Baltimore Ravens (7-8) remained alive, hoping for the most improbable of scenarios, a seven-way tie at 8-8.

The relevant comment comes from an NFC coach, Jim Fassel of the New York Giants, whose team improbably moved into position for a playoff berth Sunday by beating the Colts while the New Orleans Saints were being upset by the Bengals.

"Everyone seemed to bury us a long time ago," Fassel said. "That's one thing about this league: Don't count yourself in or out for quite a while."

In the NFC, only the two wild-card spots are up for grabs.

The most intriguing race in the conference might be for home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, particularly for Tampa Bay. The Bucs don't want to go to Philadelphia, where they've been knocked out the last two seasons, or to Green Bay.

The Eagles (12-3) lead the race for home-field advantage, but they have a tough game next Saturday at the Giants, who have been playing as well as any team in the league and have a playoff spot to gain with a win.

Tampa Bay (11-3) was second going into Monday night's game at home to the Steelers, and the Packers (12-3) are third.

San Francisco (10-5) is locked into the fourth spot, meaning the 49ers will host a wild-card game. The Atlanta Falcons (9-5-1), Giants (9-6) and Saints (9-6) are vying for the two remaining playoff spots. The Giants and Falcons (at Cleveland) can clinch with victories.

"We shouldn't even have gotten to this point, where we have to watch and see who loses," New Orleans wide receiver Joe Horn said after the Saints lost their third straight.