Breaking Ties
Often, teams will finish a season with identical records. It becomes necessary, therefore, to devise means to break these ties, either to determine which teams will qualify for the playoffs, or to determine seeding in the playoff tournament. The rules below are applied in order until the tie is broken. If three teams are tied for one playoff spot and the third team is eliminated at any step, the tie breaker reverts to step one for the remaining two teams. If multiple playoff spots are at stake, the rules are applied in order until the first team qualifies, then the process is started again for the remaining teams.
The tie-breaking rules have changed over the years, with the most changes being made in 2002 to accommodate the league's realignment into eight four-team divisions; record vs. common opponents and most of the other criteria involving wins and losses were moved up higher in the tie-breaking list, while those involving compiled stats such as points for and against were moved to the bottom.
The current tiebreakers are as follows:
Divisional tiebreakers | Conference tiebreakers |
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Read more about this topic: National Football League Playoffs
Famous quotes containing the words breaking and/or ties:
“Whats breaking into a bank compared with founding a bank?”
—Bertolt Brecht (18981956)
“The ties between gentle folk are as pure as water; the links between scoundrels are as thick as honey.”
—Chinese proverb.