Following a convincing 42-13 victory over Jacksonville, Cincinnati received the news that it had made the playoffs for the first time since the 2015 season when the team was under the ownership of aef027. When asked about his feelings on this accomplishment Cincinnati owner lellow2011 said this: "obviously this has been a team on the rise for a couple seasons now and coming into the season making the playoffs was going to be our first goal, we felt that we could compete for the division as well even with the defending champion Pittsburgh in our division, looking at the standing with 4 weeks left I think we are in pretty good shape to accomplish that goal as well. As for the playoffs we'll just have to take it a game at a time and see how it goes."