Pittsburgh's loss to Buffalo Sunday night, while not eliminating the Steelers from playoff contention, could very well come back to haunt the team.

The Steelers still hold the AFC's second wildcard spot, meaning they are guaranteed a postseason berth if they win their last two games, both on the road. But if they are unable to win Sunday against the Jets and/or Dec. 29 against the Ravens, Pittsburgh and its fans could be denied a trip to the postseason thanks to a tiebreaker not often implemented or even thought of.

Immediately after Devlin Hodges' fourth and final interception against the Bills, which clinched the victory for Buffalo, I logged onto ESPN's website to assess what the defeat had done to the Steelers' playoff chances.

I'm trying to stay positive, but also feel a bit uneasy with what I found out. The following scenario is just conjecture, but could very well play out over the next two weeks.

Hodges shakes off his very poor game against the Bills and makes enough plays to help the Steelers defeat the Jets in the Meadowlands. Meanwhile, down in Nashville, Tennessee quarterback Ryan Tannehill is unable to match Drew Brees and New Orleans pins a loss on the Titans.

So far, so good. Right? Those two outcomes would give Pittsburgh a 9-6 record while Tennessee would drop to 8-7.

But this is when things could turn on the Cinderella Steelers.

In Week 17, Pittsburgh loses at Baltimore while Tennessee finishes the season with a win at Houston. So both the Steelers and Titans end up with identical 9-7 records.

The final wildcard spot would then be determined using the NFL's tie-breaking procedure, which reads as follows:

1) Head-to-head — This would not apply since the Steelers and Titans do not play each other this season.

2) Best record in games played within the conference — This also fails to settle things as both teams would have conference records of 7-5. Next....

3) Best record in common games — Pittsburgh and Tennessee both played the Browns, Colts, Bills and Chargers this season, with the Steelers going 3-2 in those contests and the Titans managing a, you guessed it, a 3-2 record.

When will it end?

With the fourth tiebreaker, which is strength of victory. Basically, you take the average winning percentage of the teams that Pittsburgh defeated and do the same for Tennessee.

Teams that the Steelers beat this year currently have a winning percentage of just .308. Tennessee's victims come in at .446. That's a wide gap to close in just two weeks.

If that is indeed how the final AFC playoff team is determined, it would be an agonizing way to miss out on football in January.

But again, Pittsburgh can avoid any talk of tie-breakers if it can win its next two games. If it does not, then the Steelers may have to root for teams like the Dolphins, Bengals, Cardinals and Rams to bolster their strength of victory.

Confused yet?

Welcome to the NFL in December.

Derek Pyda is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle