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The Play-Off Picture


KC_Guy

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Well, we do know the Chiefs are in the playoffs ... but after that: what if ...

Exhibit A: Winning the division

Obviously, whichever team between the Chargers and the Chiefs wins more of the remaining two games takes the division title and may be in the race for the #1 seed. But WHAT IF both teams win the same number of games?


1. Head-to-head (best won-lost-tied percentage in games between the clubs).

TIE 1-1

2. Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the division.

A: Both teams win out: Chiefs WIN - 5-1-0/4-2-0
B: Both teams lose out: Chiefs WIN - 4-2-0/3-3-0
C: Both teams end up 1-1:
- C1: Chiefs win against OAK, lose to SEA: Chiefs WIN 5-1-0/4-2-0 or 3-3-0
- C2: Chiefs win against SEA, lose to OAK:
- - C2A: Chargers win against BAL, lose to DEN: Chiefs WIN 4-2-0/3-3-0
- - C2B: Chargers win against DEN, lose to BAL: TIE 4-2-0/4-2-0

Bottom line: Chiefs can't lose on this tiebreaker!

3. Best won-lost-tied percentage in common games.

We'll do this the other way round: The team with the worse percentage in non-common games wins. Relevant games:

Chiefs vs. NE and HOU: 1-1 -> common games: 11-3-0
Chargers vs. BUF and TEN: 2-0 -> common games: 10-4-0

Bottom line: In case of situation C2B on the second tiebreaker the Chiefs WIN on this tiebreaker which means they can't lose the division title unless the Chargers win more games than the Chiefs do.

Weird thing: The ESPN Playoff Calculator has the Chargers winning the NFL West in this case. I have no clue why unless I miscalculated somewhere. May be they still use the old procedures where conference game percentage played a bigger role.

All other tiebreakers are irrelevant:

4. Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the conference.
5. Strength of victory.
6. Strength of schedule.
7. Best combined ranking among conference teams in points scored and points allowed.
8. Best combined ranking among all teams in points scored and points allowed.
9. Best net points in common games.
10. Best net points in all games.
11. Best net touchdowns in all games.
12. Coin toss

I'll take a look at the #1 seed situation a bit later.

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2 hours ago, onejayhawk said:

It is not even arguably the worst because they aren't as bad as Oakland. TB and Atl deserve to be in the discussion before we do. 

J

Atlanta, TB and Oakland are ranked 26, 27, 28 on ESPN's defensive team stats. Chiefs are last in passing yds/game with 282.5

Chiefs have given up 5732 yds. including the 400+ from last night. Oakland, TB and Atlanta are at 5099, 5043, 5030 respectively. That puts KC some 700 yds worse than the teams you cited (before this weekend)

KC is an NFL 5th. worst at points/gm (27.1), while the teams you mentioned are worse (29.8-28.2) than KC. I take no solace in this fact simply because Cincinnati is the NFL's worst and Cincy/Oakland's offenses stink, making their defenses suffer for it.

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4 hours ago, mayanfootball said:

Chiefs defense will stop this team in its tracks. KC has the best offense but arguably also the worst defense. This bodes ill for any Super Bowl hopes. Until Bob Sutton is fired, i'm afraid it will always be this way. This QB and this city deserve better. How about it Andy?

I'm not sure this thread was about discussing the defense AGAIN ... guess we all know your point of view by now.

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10 hours ago, mayanfootball said:

Atlanta, TB and Oakland are ranked 26, 27, 28 on ESPN's defensive team stats. Chiefs are last in passing yds/game with 282.5

Chiefs have given up 5732 yds. including the 400+ from last night. Oakland, TB and Atlanta are at 5099, 5043, 5030 respectively. That puts KC some 700 yds worse than the teams you cited (before this weekend)

KC is an NFL 5th. worst at points/gm (27.1), while the teams you mentioned are worse (29.8-28.2) than KC. I take no solace in this fact simply because Cincinnati is the NFL's worst and Cincy/Oakland's offenses stink, making their defenses suffer for it.

I'll take this as a concession that the Chiefs are not the worst defense in the NFL. Thank you for that at least.

J

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On 12/14/2018 at 6:43 AM, KC_Guy said:

Well, we do know the Chiefs are in the playoffs ... but after that: what if ...

I guess I followed up on your question/scenarios. It really doesn't matter to me much what scenario plays out. We're limping into the playoffs AGAIN. I'm sorry if I dirtied up your sandbox.

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3 hours ago, mayanfootball said:

I guess I followed up on your question/scenarios. It really doesn't matter to me much what scenario plays out. We're limping into the playoffs AGAIN. I'm sorry if I dirtied up your sandbox.

We had a playoff spot locked up in what, week 14? I wouldn't call that limping in.

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On 12/14/2018 at 6:43 AM, KC_Guy said:

I'll take a look at the #1 seed situation a bit later.

On, this, it's pretty basic assuming we beat Oakland. More complicated if we lose to Oakland. I don't know the exact tiebreakers we win/lose on some, but....

If we win out, we get the #1 seed. Plain and simple.

If we go 1-1, we need some help. If we lose to Seattle, we need LAC to drop a game and New England to drop a game. LAC would have a record advantage, NE would have the HtH tiebreaker. But if both lose a game, we'd have a record advantage over New England and a divisional record advantage over LAC.

If we go 1-1 and lose to Oakland, that gets worse. We need LAC to lose to Denver specifically to keep our divisional record advantage. Their other game becomes irrelevant to us. We'd still need one loss from NE. Then we'd also need one loss from Houston, as if Houston wins out, we go 1-1 with a loss to Oakland, they'd tie our record and have a better conference record.

If we lose out and go 0-2, we could still get it, but we'd need basically all of the other teams above to also lose 2 games. Would have us and LAC at 11-5, we'd win on division record. We'd need NE at 10-6 because of HtH. We'd need Houston to either lose 2 games or lose one of the in conference games. Them losing to Philly wouldn't be enough. No one else below that could catch us, though.

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8 hours ago, mayanfootball said:

I guess I followed up on your question/scenarios. It really doesn't matter to me much what scenario plays out. We're limping into the playoffs AGAIN. I'm sorry if I dirtied up your sandbox.

If it makes you feel better to think that way, fine.

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So New England loses to the Steelers - which more or less takes them out of the race for the #1 seed - unless a whole lot of teams struggle mightly.

The decision will be made between the Chiefs, the Chargers (see above) and the Texans - who after an 0-3 start to the season have a massive run going for them.

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