Football Gurus, Commish in need of NFL rule clarification

[Twisted Sister]

Ok I know we have some bright people here on the cafe, so I hope I can get some feedback.

When it comes to wildcard seeding, the NFL has the following as one of the criteria:

Best won-lost-tied percentage in common games, minimum of four.

The example the NFL gives is very simple and staightfoward, but it is too simplistic.

My question & example -

Let's say Team A and Team B are in this tie-break sitation.


Now, both teams have played teams X, Y, and Z.

However, team A has played team X twice... but team B played all three just once.

Does this mess up the tiebreak since team A is being evaluated on 4 games and team B is being evaluated on 3 games???

X,Y,Z are the common teams... but they are played a different amount of times.

Please help - been searching all over the internet for an example.

[mattb47]

If they didn't both play 4 games against similar opponents, then it cannot be used. So unless B also played 2 games against that same opponent, they would only have 3 common games and it cannot be used as a tiebreaker.

To put it simply, this is how it would break down:

Team A played X
Team B played X

Team A played Y
Team B played Y

Team A played Z
Team B played Z

Team A played Z again
Team B did not play Z again

You must take them individually like this, act like the last 2 games against team Z aren't the same team, that's how you have to look at it.

[Twisted Sister]

If they didn't both play 4 games against similar opponents, then it cannot be used. So unless B also played 2 games against that same opponent, they would only have 3 common games and it cannot be used as a tiebreaker.

To put it simply, this is how it would break down:

Team A played X
Team B played X

Team A played Y
Team B played Y

Team A played Z
Team B played Z

Team A played Z again
Team B did not play Z again

You must take them individually like this, act like the last 2 games against team Z aren't the same team, that's how you have to look at it.

Hold on, so you're saying the whole tiebreaker is bust... or do I just exclude games played against team Z. So it would be the best record against teams X and Y.

If I include only one game played against team Z... what on earth do I do if Team A went 1-1 vs team Z... which game would I pick?

[mattb47]

If they didn't both play 4 games against similar opponents, then it cannot be used. So unless B also played 2 games against that same opponent, they would only have 3 common games and it cannot be used as a tiebreaker.

To put it simply, this is how it would break down:

Team A played X
Team B played X

Team A played Y
Team B played Y

Team A played Z
Team B played Z

Team A played Z again
Team B did not play Z again

You must take them individually like this, act like the last 2 games against team Z aren't the same team, that's how you have to look at it.

Hold on, so you're saying the whole tiebreaker is bust... or do I just exclude games played against team Z. So it would be the best record against teams X and Y.

If I include only one game played against team Z... what on earth do I do if Team A went 1-1 vs team Z... which game would I pick?

The rule you are using states that this is used only when there are 4 common games minimum. There were not 4 common games here. If you want to extend that further by making it only 3 common games minimum then go ahead, but I wouldn't do that in this situation since one team played one of the teams in question twice.

The only possible way I would use this type of rule in this situation is if Team A went 2-0 or 0-2 against team Z, in which case you could just call it a win or a loss in comparing the teams' record against those common opponents. Idealy, however, it is best to have at least 4 common opponents used because 3 games just doesn't quite give you enough to go on.

If it is a division type of league, I think that divisional record is a better indicator than using the "common opponents" argument personally, but if not then I would probably look for something else to use as a tiebreaker.