While ties between divisions in the National Football League are uncommon, the NFL has a number of procedures in place in order to determine the seating arrangements during the postseason. Recently, these procedures had to be changed due to the addition of the Houston Texans into the NFL, resulting in the league splitting into eight separate four-team divisions.
Postseason Seatings
In order to determine the seating of each team during the postseason playoffs leading up to the Super Bowl and the game schedule for the following season, the teams from each division are ranked by their overall performance that season. The division champion with the best overall record, keeping in mind that a tie is worth half a win and half a loss for both teams, receives the first spot. The second, third, and fourth best records receive the second, third, and fourth seats, while the last two seats are awarded to the wild card team with the best record, and the wild card team with the second best record.
Division Tiebreakers Steps 1-4
If two teams finish the season with the exact same win to loss ratio, including ties, there are 12 steps taken to determine a winner. The first tiebreaker goes to whichever team has a better win to loss ratio in games played between the two teams. If it is still even, it moves to the best overall win-loss ratio in the division, followed by the best ratio in common games. If a winner still hasn't been determined, it goes to overall games won within the conference.
Division Tiebreakers Steps 5-8
If a winner still hasn't been declared after the first four steps, the NFL continues on. The fifth step determines the winner by the overall strength of victory, which is essentially the teams overall winning percentage. If that doesn't confirm a winner, it goes to the strength of the overall schedule from the previous season. If this step is unsuccessful, the NFL chooses the team with the best cumulatively ranked ratio of points scored to points allowed within the conference. If that also doesn't work, the next step is points scored to points allowed amongst all teams in the NFL.
Division Tiebreakers Steps 9-12
If a winner still hasn't been called after the eighth step, the NFL looks at the team with the most points scored overall in common games. If there still isn't a winner, it goes to the team with the most points overall in all games, followed by the team with the highest total touchdowns in all games played. If in the extremely unlikely event that none of these 11 steps results in a winner, the postseason seat is awarded by a coin toss.
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