Watching the AFC Playoff picture I was wondering if H-2-H was the first tie breaker when talking about the Playoffs. Does it make a difference if your talking about a division winner or a Wild Card team?

Also, what would happen in a 3 way tie for the last wild card spot?

Just Curious.

http://www.nfl.com/standings/tiebreakers

not necessarily.

All ties are first broken at a divisional level, and then there is specific 3 team tiebreaker procedures that involve 3 teams not in the same division.

For instance, if pitts and SD win out, and jacksonville loses 1 more game, all 3 would be tied, for 2 spots. The first tiebreaker that would work for all 3 would be conference record, and the steelers would be out. So theoretically they could have a head 2 head tiebreaker vs the Chargers that would actually be meaningless.

For instance, if pitts and SD win out, and jacksonville loses 1 more game, all 3 would be tied, for 2 spots. The first tiebreaker that would work for all 3 would be conference record, and the steelers would be out. So theoretically they could have a head 2 head tiebreaker vs the Chargers that would actually be meaningless.I don't think this is right. The first tiebreaker that applies for Jacksonville/San Diego/Pittsburgh is conference record, but they will take the best conference record and award the top wild card spot to that team, which would be Jacksonville. Then they would start the process over with the two remaining teams, and the first tiebreaker is head-to-head, which the Steelers have over the Chargers. If the Steelers win out, they make the playoffs. The Chargers need help to get in.

Edit: Basically, the tiebreaking steps put teams into the playoffs, not knock them out. That's why the conference record tiebreaker won't hurt the Steelers.

nice to see that pumpy can figure this out, but the dufus announcers on the pitt game today could not. randy cross is a serious goof ball. serious.

Edit: Basically, the tiebreaking steps put teams into the playoffs, not knock them out. That's why the conference record tiebreaker won't hurt the Steelers.

This is not true. If any of the tiebreaking steps has two teams tied for first in a given tiebreaker, then the third team is eliminated, and those two go on to the two team tiebreakers. In fact, in the first real step of a three teamer (assuming all three are from different divisions) is head to head sweep. If any of the three teams has defeated both of the other two, they win the tiebreaker, but if any of the three has lost to the other two, they would be eliminated and the two remaining start at step one of the two team tiebreaker.

DOLA - both Jacksonville and SD have 7-3 conference records and two conference games left. Pitt is 6-5 with one conference game left. If J'ville goes 1-1 and both Pitt and SD win out, SD would have the best conference record (there is no h2h sweep between these teams). Thus, if those three are all 11-5 and second in their divisions, SD would have a 9-3 conference record, Jacksonville 8-4 and Pittsburgh 7-5.

SD gets the #5 seed on conference record. Pittsburgh and Jacksonville go to the two team tiebreaker for the #6 seed. Jacksonville beat Pittsburgh in OT in week 6 and would get the #6 seed. Pittsburgh would miss the playoffs.

The answer is "yes."

I don't think this is right. The first tiebreaker that applies for Jacksonville/San Diego/Pittsburgh is conference record, but they will take the best conference record and award the top wild card spot to that team, which would be Jacksonville. Then they would start the process over with the two remaining teams, and the first tiebreaker is head-to-head, which the Steelers have over the Chargers. If the Steelers win out, they make the playoffs. The Chargers need help to get in.

Edit: Basically, the tiebreaking steps put teams into the playoffs, not knock them out. That's why the conference record tiebreaker won't hurt the Steelers.


Actually pittsburgh is screwed even with 2 victories, if Jacksonville loses.

Ugh. Well, I guess I'm wrong. I'll go crawl into my hole and enjoy the fact that the Broncos are in the playoffs no matter what.

The reason that I obviously messed up is that the original news recap of the Steelers-Vikings game said that the Steelers control their own destiny. Well, I didn't just take that as gospel, so I tried to figure out how that would be the case. Unfortunately, I misread the standings and thought that Jacksonville would have the best conference record (clearly wrong if all of those teams end up 11-5), so I made an error at the beginning and it snowballed into a big mistake by the end. Sorry, guys. :)

Still, I'm sticking with the thought that the tiebreaking procedures put teams into the playoffs, rather than knocking them out. The head-to-head sweep thing is an exception. If all three of those teams are tied at 11-5, the Chargers are first awarded #5 because of their conference record. The Steelers would not be eliminated because of their conference record. The Steelers would be eliminated because of their loss to Jacksonville. This is where I get that:

OTHER TIE-BREAKING PROCEDURES
1. Only one club advances to the playoffs in any tie-breaking step. Remaining tied clubs revert to the first step of the applicable division or Wild-Card tie breakers. As an example, if two clubs remain tied in any tie-breaker step after all other clubs have been eliminated, the procedure reverts to step one of the two-club format to determine the winner. When one club wins the tie breaker, all other clubs revert to step 1 of the applicable two-club or three-club format.
When it says "if two clubs remain tied in any tie-breaker step after all other clubs have been eliminated," I read that to mean that a club can be "eliminated" from a tiebreaking procedure by being put ahead of the other teams, not necessarily behind them. Only one club advances to the playoffs in any one step. Again, just like I was wrong before, I could be wrong on this one, but I feel pretty sure that they start at the top and work their way down. You see who goes into the #5 spot, then you see who goes into #6. You don't see who goes into #7 and then see who goes into #6.

Or am I wrong here too? :confused:

Still, I'm sticking with the thought that the tiebreaking procedures put teams into the playoffs, rather than knocking them out. The head-to-head sweep thing is an exception. If all three of those teams are tied at 11-5, the Chargers are first awarded #5 because of their conference record. The Steelers would not be eliminated because of their conference record. The Steelers would be eliminated because of their loss to Jacksonville. This is where I get that:


When it says "if two clubs remain tied in any tie-breaker step after all other clubs have been eliminated," I read that to mean that a club can be "eliminated" from a tiebreaking procedure by being put ahead of the other teams, not necessarily behind them. Only one club advances to the playoffs in any one step. Again, just like I was wrong before, I could be wrong on this one, but I feel pretty sure that they start at the top and work their way down. You see who goes into the #5 spot, then you see who goes into #6. You don't see who goes into #7 and then see who goes into #6.

Or am I wrong here too? :confused:

You're sort of wrong there too, but only in the way you are interpreting that sentence. When they same "after all other clubs have been eliminated" they mean eliminated for consideration for the spot currently being decided by finishing behind other teams at any given step.

In the example of the three way tie, if two of the three teams happened to be tied for best conference record, the third would be eliminated from that tiebreaker and the teams who tied for that would go to the two team tiebreaker, the third having been "eliminated" from it.

You are correct in that any team eliminated from any one tiebreaking procedure is still eligible for any others, and thus being eliminated from any one does not necesarily mean elimination from playoff consideration. If, in this two team example, three teams were tied for #1 WC, and two of those were tied for best conference record, those two continue down the line for #1 WC. Once that is settled, the team that lost that, and the team eliminated in the first step of the three team would then go through a two team tiebreaker for the #2 WC. In this case, "eliminated" very much has contextual meaning.

From what I understand, Only 1 team advances in any given step. Team A conference 7-5, B 7-5, C 6-6 then A & B revert to the 2 step tiebreaking steps. Team A and B wouldn't automatically go.. after breaking the tie between A & B you then go back to compare the other team to C...


Edit: Ya.. what Samdari said.. :D

OK, I get it now. I probably would've figured most of that out if I hadn't misread the standings and thought that Jacksonville would have the best conference record of the three (if all three were 11-5). I am humbled.

The main thing that confused me about the whole scenerio is that CBS said that the Steelers controlled their own destiny during the game. Which is simply not true. You'd figure they would have enough people working in their sports crew that could accurately break down the situation. I guess not.

I wish someone would write a freeware program that would figure all this stuff out. Sure, you'd probably have to input the schedules and scores yourself, but it could be in Access format or something, and then someone could create the file and just distribute it to anybody. Then you could play with different scenarios and see what would happen. If I were a programmer, I'd go ahead and do it. The algorithm can't be that hard. It's just a matter of knowing how to write the code to perform the procedures.

Anyway, after all these years, I'm really amazed that I haven't ever seen a program that's designed to do this.

The main thing that confused me about the whole scenerio is that CBS said that the Steelers controlled their own destiny during the game. Which is simply not true. You'd figure they would have enough people working in their sports crew that could accurately break down the situation. I guess not.

other networks were and are saying the same thing.

Going back to what I'd said about writing a program to figure this stuff out, I just discussed the project with my wife (Computer Science Ph.D), and she has laid out a lot of the problems that would be involved in designing this program. Now I realize how terribly difficult it would be to get that done. Even more alarming to me is that her research focus was software design, so when she described all the problems with the design, I knew it was going to be trouble. She admitted that the coding wouldn't be a big deal, but the design would be pretty rough.

Oh well.

The main thing that confused me about the whole scenerio is that CBS said that the Steelers controlled their own destiny during the game. Which is simply not true. You'd figure they would have enough people working in their sports crew that could accurately break down the situation. I guess not.
other networks were and are saying the same thing.
I think these networks should hire Cthomer5000 and me, we've been a great team on figuring out playoff scenarios for the IHOF multiplayer FOF league. :cool:

-Houston
-Tennessee (Jacksonville's final 2 opponents)
-Cleveland
-Detroit (Steelers final two opponents)

Jacksonville and Pittsburgh both have one road game left. The Jags go to Houston and Pitt goes to Cleveland.

Were I a San Diego fan, I would not be buying playoff tickets....