Playoff Implication Game Thread

To clarify various scenarios with Pit, NYJ and Ten all tied at 9-7:

1. Head-to-head doesn't apply in this case because Pit didn't play NYJ or Ten.
2. Conference record -- all the teams would be tied at 6-6.
3. Record in common games -- This needs 4 or more games to apply. There are only 2 or 3 games among common opponents(Mia and Jac), so it doesn't apply. (FWIW, NYJ is 1-1, Pit and Ten 1-2.)
4. Strength of victory -- Ten leads now, and probably would keep the lead after beating NE and Buf. Cheer for the teams we beat.

So, Ten would finish ahead of Pit and NYJ in a 3-way tie, even though they would finish behind either individually.

How does Pit beat Ten in a 2-way tie? The tiebreakers are in the same order as above. However, Pit and Ten have 4 games against 3 common opponents (Mia, Bal, and Jac) -- Pit will be 2-2 if they win out, Ten 1-3.

Thanks to ezeblazin for the nfl.com conference standings, and to Titans2004 for pointing out 9-7 KC would finish 2nd in the West over 9-7 Den. I endorse all of Titans2004's posts in this thread, assuming he knows that 2-loss Jets + 2-win Steelers = bad.

 

Sure we can..

We can tie with the jets as long as other teams do. A tie of more than 2 teams doesn't take into account head to head unless the jets beat everyone.

Kimble has got it except for conference record, we need the bengals or broncos to lose out because they have the best conference records if they also finish 9-7. The broncos are 7-4 in the afc, if they lose their one remaining confernece game that puts them at 7-5, we can only finish 6-6 in the conferance. The bengals if they finished out 1-1 the last 2 games would also have the better afc record at 7-5.

Since the bengals and broncos play each other next week we have to hope that whoever loses will lose their final game. If both those teams finish 9-7 they are in ahead of us. We want the broncos to beat cincy because cincy finishes against the steelers while the broncos play the 49ers.

For the titans to make the playoffs..
Broncos or cincy lose out and finish 8-8.
Jets-fags both lose one game and finish 9-7.
Titans win out and finish 9-7.
That makes the final playoff spot a tie between titans-jags-jets and possibly the steelers and or chiefs.

Chiefs would be done because they would only be 5-7 in the afc. That would leave us and the remaining 9-7 teams which would all have 6-6 afc records.

Next tie breaker won't apply because there are not enough common games.

Strength of victory would give the titans an edge with wins over indy-fags-bills-giants-philly-pats..

We would be the #6 seed and our likely opponent the hated ravens. Yes!

 

Note..

The chiefs-broncos finish in the standings will matter if 3 or more teams have the same records. Then 2nd place teams would only be considered. Of course this is the scenario we want several 9-7 teams but KC winning out could be a way to eliminate denver who has the afc record tie breaker advantage over everyone else.

Calrification..

If there are 3 teams or more at 9-7 and the jags are one and we are one we will eliminate the jags by finishing higher in our division with the better division record. That could hurt us because it potentially could leave just us and the jets for the tie breaker.

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

 

How about this scenario..

Bengals win out eliminating the steelers and giving the broncos a 7th defeat.

Bengals get 5th seed.

Broncos beat 49ers and finsh 9-7

Titans win out and are 9-7

fags go 1-1 and end at 9-7

Chiefs win out and finsih 9-7

Jets go 1-1 and finish 9-7

The broncos and fags would be eliminated because based on division tiebreakers they are 3rd place teams. That leaves the titans-jets-chiefs. The next tie breaker is afc record because the chiefs never played the titans and jets never played the chiefs which would eliminate the chiefs. The next tiebreaker would be strength of victory. I don't believe we revert back to head to head after eliminating a team that way. Do we?

Titans would get in right?

It's far more complicated than just hoping those other teams lose..

 

This is all good stuff RollTide.

Against the Bills though we may face our toughest test yet. Fortunately we have Titanbouy as our GoTitans lucky mascot at the game )

 

I know one thing, if the steelers end up tied with the Bengals, then the Bengals would eliminate them due to common games.

 

Steelers and Bengals are in the same division. Best division record breaks that tie.

 

Soxcat..

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

According to this all the third place teams would lose consideration. The tiebreaker in the division is of course division record.

"1. Apply division tie breaker to eliminate all but the highest ranked club in each division prior to proceeding to step 2"

If you had just 2 teams with the same record from different divisions that would not apply. You just go to the tiebreakers in order beginning with head to head. This process can help or hurt us. If we finsih with the same record as the fags they are done. We know there will be more than 2, 9-7 teams vying for at least one playoff spot.. Could be as many as 7.

 

RollTide: In a 3-way tie with the Jets and Chiefs at 9-7 for the 6th seed:

So, KC would be 8th by conference record, and the Jets and Titans would go through the tiebreaker procedure again, which the Jets would win head-to-head.

By my count, we need 7 out of 9 games left to go our way -- our 2, 1 more loss by the loser of Cin/Den*, 1 loss by Jacksonville, and either 2 Jets losses + 1 Steelers loss or 1 Jets loss + 2 Steelers wins. I'm excited.

* or Denver losing to Cincy, winning the next week, and the Chiefs winning twice.

 

So Basically, If the Bengals win this week, then we would need

1)Jets to lose both games 2)Broncos to lose the last game, or the Chiefs to win the next 2. 3)Jags to lose 1 game

*note that if the steelers win the final 2, then they would be tied with the Bengals, and the Bengals would eliminate them because it would come down to common games. So the Jets would then get the tiebreaker over us.

If Denver wins this week, there are still many situations we could get in, and even get the 5th seed. Its a little too complicated to write out.