The NFL season is short. Sixteen games amounts to less than 20 percent of the NBA season, while a busy baseball team can knock out 16 games in two and a half weeks. With a compressed campaign, even five weeks in the NFL can be enough to move the needle. This time last season, nine of the 12 eventual playoff teams were already in position. There's still plenty to play for, of course -- the Broncos were in the playoff picture this time in 2017 -- but teams can do an awful lot to improve or hurt postseason chances in five weeks.

Before the season, FPI believed that each of the league's 32 teams had at least a 6.8 percent shot of making the postseason. The Rams and the Cardinals are the only two teams whose fate already seems sealed. ESPN's Football Power Index suggests that the 5-0 Rams have a 99.7 percent chance of advancing to the postseason, while the 1-4 Cardinals are all the way down at 0.2 percent.

Let's run through the teams that have seen their playoff chances either improve or decline the most so far this season and figure out what has gone right (or wrong). I'll begin with the teams in better shape, relative to their preseason projections per FPI.

Jump to a team

Risers: LAR | WSH | KC | CIN | CHI

Fallers: OAK | PIT | SF | PHI | ATL

The Risers

Preseason FPI playoff chances: 66.3 percent

Current FPI playoff chances: 99.7 percent

Difference: 33.4 percent

The Rams looked to be all but assured of a playoff berth before the season given their offseason investments, but remember how frequently teams that seem like playoff locks fail to make it into January. Last season, the Seahawks looked like they would have a clear path to the NFC West title, with the Cardinals as the biggest obstacle getting in their way. Things change quickly, and if Jimmy Garoppolo had stayed healthy while the Rams lost Jared Goff to injury, we would be looking at a totally different division.

Fortunately for Rams fans, Goff is healthy. The rest of the offense might not be so lucky, and if there's any reason to be concerned about the Rams' chances of coming away with the top seed in the NFC, it would be health. They lost Brandin Cooks and Cooper Kupp to possible concussions on Sunday during the narrow victory over the Seahawks, and while Goff was able to complete passes to backups Josh Reynolds and KhaDarel Hodge, the Rams are going to need all of their weapons against tougher opposition later in the season.

AP Photo/Scott Eklund

What makes this particularly important is that the Rams would prefer to avoid substituting altogether on offense. While most teams like to rotate weapons on and off the field to keep players fresh and create mismatches, coach Sean McVay wants to stay in the same 11 personnel package on virtually every snap. Over the first month of the year, McVay had nine of his 11 offensive starters -- Goff, his five offensive linemen, Cooks, Kupp and Robert Woods -- play on 97 percent or more of Los Angeles' offensive snaps. Todd Gurley played 84 percent, and his numbers were only that low because he sat out most of the second half against Arizona with cramps. Tight end Tyler Higbee was at 80.9 percent. Los Angeles is known for exclusive clubs designed to keep the riffraff out. The Rams' offense is one of them.

The Seahawks weren't good enough to beat the Rams, but teams are going to look toward their formula to try to pull off their own upset. Seattle ran the ball up and down the field, racking up 190 yards and eight first downs on 32 carries. Running against the Rams serves two masters: It attacks the weakest part of Los Angeles's defense, while keeping your own defense on the sideline, giving pass-rushers valuable rest.

The Seahawks also used play-action to take big shots downfield while isolating Los Angeles' cornerbacks in coverage. Marcus Peters is an elite playmaker, but teams can take advantage of his propensity to look into the backfield and read the quarterback by sending speedy receivers past him and running double moves. Russell Wilson was nine of 11 passing for 172 yards and three touchdowns on play-action Sunday. The Rams are allowing the league's seventh-best passer rating when teams throw without a play fake, but when teams go with play-action, Los Angeles is allowing a 154.8 passer rating, the worst mark in football.

These are good problems to have. The Rams essentially have locked up their division after five games. They have a 3.4 percent chance of going 16-0. Their first priority for the next three months is to stay healthy.

Preseason FPI playoff chances: 15.0 percent

Current FPI playoff chances: 52.4 percent

Difference: 37.4 percent

Washington has played only three games in advance of Monday night's intriguing matchup with the Saints, and with wins over the Cardinals and Packers sandwiched alongside a brutal home loss to the Colts, we really don't know a ton about it yet. The best thing you can say about Jay Gruden's team, given how many injuries it went through last season, is that it is relatively healthy through three games. It won't have guard Shawn Lauvao in the lineup and could be without receiver Josh Doctson, but this is generally a much healthier team than the one that limped through 2017.

Alex Smith has a Total QBR of 61.7 so far this season, which ranks 11th in the league. Rick Scuteri/AP Photo

Instead, Washington's rise up the charts is more a product of its division. The NFC East is a mess. The Giants are 1-4 after falling victim to a 63-yard game-winning field goal by Graham Gano on what was the largest single-play shift of win expectancy this season. The Panthers had a 19 percent chance of winning before Gano's try, with the field goal boosting their chances of winning by 81 percent to an even 100. The previous leader was Andy Dalton's touchdown pass to A.J. Green in the dying moments of Week 4 against the Falcons, which had been responsible for a 72-point win expectancy swing.

The Cowboys are 2-3 after refusing to accept the game the Texans kept trying to give them on Sunday night, with their two wins coming by a combined nine points over the Giants and Lions. Their offense is a dysfunctional mess, and while the defense has been effective, Rod Marinelli's unit has forced just four takeaways in four games. Most surprisingly, though, the Eagles are scuffling at 2-3 and look vulnerable on both sides of the ball. (More on them later.) Those three teams combined for a 92 percent shot of winning the NFC East before the season. Now, their divisional odds are down to a combined 57.9 percent.

Alex Smith & Co. can make their case over the next seven weeks, when they play each of their divisional rivals and all four teams from the NFC South. They have the talent to pull this off; if everyone is healthy, there are surprisingly few teams who could be above average both passing and running the football while stopping the pass and run on defense, and Washington's offensive line and underrated front seven give them a chance at entering that group. If the NFC East continues to self-destruct, health could be the only thing keeping Washington from a surprise run into January.

Preseason FPI playoff chances: 49.9 percent

Current FPI playoff chances: 96.9 percent

Difference: 47.0 percent

The Chargers were actually the favorites to win the AFC West before the season began, in part because they were going to face an easier schedule than Kansas City. Their chances shifted immediately after the Chiefs unleashed Patrick Mahomes on the NFL in a Week 1 victory over the Chargers, and while Los Angeles' overall playoff odds are virtually identical to where they stood before the season, the Chiefs' divisional odds (86.8 percent) make them the prohibitive favorites to win the West.

The Chiefs on Sunday won the much-ballyhooed battle of the (arguably) best offense and best defense in football, and while they were able to score 30 points against the Jaguars, it was more promising to see their defense finally show up. The difference between the league's two undefeated teams has been the quality of their defenses. The Rams have playmakers and roadblocks. The Chiefs, until Sunday, had mostly been a momentary nuisance to opposing offenses.

The Chiefs' defense played well in the win over the Jaguars, forcing five turnovers. Peter Aiken/Getty Images

While the Jaguars racked up 502 net yards during the loss in Kansas City, this was a 2015 Blake Bortles special, with most of the meaningless yardage coming late in the second half down multiple scores. After generating just three takeaways through the first four games, Bob Sutton's defense forced five takeaways of Bortles & Co. The Jaguars tried to challenge a frustrating group of cornerbacks with fade and isolation routes, and the Chiefs came up with four interceptions and 12 pass breakups. They sacked Bortles five times and hit him 11 times amid a staggering 66 dropbacks. While the Jaguars lost second-string left tackle Josh Wells during the game, the Chiefs also lost Justin Houston to a hamstring injury and still managed to get after Bortles.

The Chiefs don't need their defense to play well. They don't even need the defense to be good. They just need a unit that is going to create a takeaway per week and hand their offense a short field or wipe away a red zone opportunity, because that should be enough for their offense to win. Sunday wasn't their best performance, as Mahomes threw his first two interceptions of the season and the Chiefs kicked two field goals among their four red zone trips, but there's no way for an opponent to turn the ball over five times and do enough on defense to stop Mahomes, no matter how good that defense is.

The Chiefs face a trip to New England next Sunday night before things relatively calm down; they get a four-game stretch with home games against the Bengals, Broncos and Cardinals along with a road game against the Browns before they make their trip to Mexico City for the Over Bowl against the Rams. There are a lot of winnable games in that bunch, and if the Chiefs just hold serve, they'll be 9-2 entering their bye week.

Chiefs fans will remember that Kansas City started 5-0 last season before the offense started to slump and the team lost six of its next seven, but there's no evidence suggesting that Reid's teams are prone to get off to hot starts before struggling in October and November. If anything, the 2014, 2015 and 2016 Chiefs teams all got off to slow starts before turning the corner and improving. The most important player to ensure that the Chiefs keep things up might not be Mahomes or Houston; it's Eric Berry, who is still yet to play or practice thanks to a heel injury.

Preseason FPI playoff chances: 19.7 percent

Current FPI playoff chances: 73.2 percent

Difference: 53.5 percent

The Bengals aren't really like any of the other teams on this list. They aren't dominant like the Chiefs and Rams on offense or the Bears (more soon) on defense. Their division is playing reasonably well, although the Steelers haven't lived up to expectations. They haven't really stayed healthy, with the offense losing Joe Mixon, A.J. Green, Tyler Eifert and Billy Price for stretches.

What they've done, instead, is a bit of a dirty phrase in these parts: The Bengals have found ways to win. With the Colts driving into game-winning field goal range in Week 1, backup safety Clayton Fejedelem forced a fumble and returned it 83 yards for a score with 40 seconds left. After nearly blowing a 28-7 lead over the Ravens in Week 2, safety Shawn Williams strip-sacked Joe Flacco to set up a field goal that put the game out of reach. Carl Lawson came up with a sack to stop the Falcons from doing the same thing in Week 4, allowing the Bengals to embark on a 16-play drive with two fourth-down conversions that ended with the Dalton touchdown pass I mentioned earlier.

On Sunday, the defense came up big again. The Dolphins led 17-3 after three quarters and promptly vomited up the game. The defense did its part by scoring twice off Ryan Tannehill, once on an interception that bounced off a player's helmet, and then on a Tannehill turnover that seemed right on the border between fumble and interception. The offense scored only three points after the first play of the quarter, and even that drive involved Dalton nearly throwing an interception in the end zone. It didn't matter.

Dre Kirkpatrick and the Bengals are 4-1 and atop the AFC North. Bobby Ellis/Getty Images

Can the Bengals continue to come up with huge defensive plays late in the fourth quarter to swing their games? No, probably not. They've now created four takeaways in the final three minutes of regulation across their first five games this year. To put that in context, the league leaders in that category last season were the Eagles, who had seven. After producing four defensive touchdowns over a three-year period from 2015-17, the Bengals have three defensive scores in five games.

After getting off to a 4-1 start, though, it might not matter. At the moment, FPI projects the 6-seed in the AFC to be the Chargers, who would have an average of 8.9 wins in that scenario. The Bengals would need to go only 5-7 over the rest of their schedule to get to nine wins, which should be enough to get into the postseason as a wild-card team. They still have winnable home games to come against the Buccaneers, Browns, Broncos and Raiders to help the Bengals get there. FPI projects Marvin Lewis' team for for 10.1 wins right now. Ten wins would be a virtual playoff lock.

If they want an express train to further credibility, of course, the Bengals can overcome their own nightmares this week. When I talked to Bengals writer Katherine Terrell last week on my podcast, she suggested that everyone from the national media to the Bengals themselves wouldn't truly take Cincinnati seriously as the division leader until they beat the Steelers. The Bengals, of course, are 6-20 against the Steelers since that infamous playoff loss in the game in which Kimo von Oelhoffen tore Carson Palmer's ACL.