Explaining NFL Playoff Scenarios

I’ve done this a few different times over the years since there is kind of a lull in college football action, at least among the top teams. Also, I like solving the puzzles presented by tiebreaker scenarios. It’s like sudoku except fun and informative.

SECTION I: TEXT EXPLANATIONS

NFC

I’m going to start with the NFC to get it out of the way. The AFC if you get into some of the tiebreakers is very difficult to follow, but the NFC is pretty simple.

The division winners are the Saints, the Rams, the Bears, and the Cowboys. The Seahawks will be one of the two wild card teams.

The Saints are definitely the top seed (and as a result will have a first round bye, followed by playing the lowest-remaining seed), and the Cowboys are definitely the fourth seed, who will play the better of the two wild card teams in the first round.

Saints QB Drew Brees escapes the Steelers’ pass rush in New Orleans on Sunday. As a result of the Saints’ win, New Orleans clinched the #1 seed and put the Steelers on the brink of elimination from playoff contention.

The Rams have the inside track for the #2 seed, which entails a first-round bye. They clinch if either they win or the Bears lose. If neither of those happens, the Bears will be the #2 seed since Chicago beat Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago.

The Seahawks have the inside track on the #5 seed, the top wild card. They clinch with a win or a Vikings loss. If the Seahawks lose and Vikings win, the Vikings will take the #5 seed.

The Vikings have not clinched the playoffs yet, but they have the inside track against the Eagles. Minnesota would have to lose and Philadelphia would have to win for the Eagles to take the last playoff spot. In that scenario, the Seahawks wrap up the #5 seed regardless of the outcome of their game.

I don’t think any charts are even necessary for the NFC.

AFC

Intro and Making the Playoffs

The AFC, simply put, is a mess. It’s very weird to only have one known division champion of the four divisions. And that one known champion could be the best division winner or the worst division winner, so even that doesn’t clarify things as much as usual.

In the discussion below, except for one clearly marked paragraph, I will basically be pretending ties aren’t possible.

In order to finish as a top-4 seed (which also means your first game will be at home), you must win your division. So I’ll start by covering what needs to be done in order to win each division.

The one team I referred to who completed this process is the Patriots of the AFC East.

Patriots QB Tom Brady throws over the middle of the Bills defense in a lackluster win in Foxborough, Mass., on Sunday. With the win, the Patriots clinched the NFC East for the 10th year in a row.

In the AFC North, the Ravens only have to win in order to clinch. But if the Ravens lose and the Steelers win, the Steelers win the AFC North. If both lose, the Ravens win the AFC North. Without a tie, neither the Ravens nor the Steelers can make the playoffs as a wild card team.

In the AFC South, there are three potential champions. The Texans are one win away. If the Texans lose, the champion will be the winner between the Colts and the Titans (again, I’m excluding ties, but for that one I looked it up).

The AFC West is the only division that is tied going into the final week. Since the Chiefs have lost two games outside of the AFC (to the Rams and Seahawks) and have lost only once (against the Chargers) in the division, they hold the tiebreaker. So the Chargers would need to win and hope the Chiefs lose to the Raiders.

I’m going to reserve discussion of how the divisional champions will be seeded until the end since it’s the most complicated.

Wild Cards

An AFC wild card team would have to finish 10-6. I mentioned that the Texans haven’t clinched the division, but they have clinched at least a wild card spot. Both possibilities in the AFC West have clinched at least a wild card and could not fall below #5, which is the top wild card team.

The winner of the Colts and the Titans will get the last remaining playoff spot. As mentioned earlier, the playoff spot could be a division champion and in the case of the Titans could be as high as #2. Regardless, the loser is out.

For this one paragraph, I did look up what happens in the event of a tie in that game. First of all, the Texans would win the AFC South regardless of the outcome of their game since they start out a full game ahead. If the Titans and Colts tie and the Steelers win, all three will have the same record. If in addition to that the Ravens win, the Steelers will then have to compete for a wild card (if the Steelers win and the Ravens lose, the Steelers win the division and don’t compete for the wild card). The way the tiebreakers work is ties within a division are resolved first. The Colts beat the Titans earlier in the year, so they would eliminate the Titans. Then the Steelers would win the tiebreaker against the Colts with a better record in common games. If the Steelers lose, the Colts would take the spot.

Number One Seed

That wasn’t even the trickier aspect of the AFC. The real headache is how the division winners would be seeded in the event of ties. As many as five teams could finish with 11-5 records, and as many as four teams could finish with 10-6 records.

These are the main scenarios (“AFC West” refers only to Chargers and Chiefs.):

Two AFC West losses + Patriots win = Patriots #1 (Patriots would win tiebreakers against the Chiefs and/or Texans)

Chiefs lose + Chargers win = Chargers #1 (Chargers would finish with the best AFC record outright regardless of other outcomes.)

Two AFC West losses + Patriots lose = Texans #1 (Texans would win tiebreaker over Chiefs.)

Any other scenario = Chiefs #1

Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes looks to throw against the Seahawks in Seattle on Sunday night. Despite two losses in two weeks, the Chiefs have one more chance to wrap up the #1 seed against the Raiders next Sunday.

Number Three and Number Four Seeds

I’m putting the scenarios for #2 last since that’s the most complicated.

I’ll start with the simplest and most likely situation. If the Patriots and either (or both) the Chiefs or the Chargers win, this will be the Texans’ to lose.

If the Patriots lose, Houston will be in the top two with a win though. In that case, the Ravens would pass up the Patriots for the #3 spot.

If Houston does lose, they would not be in the running for a top four seed. The Ravens and Titans could then rise as high as #2 with wins, and the Colts could rise as high as #3 with a win. It’s likely that the Patriots would keep all of the above an additional spot lower with a win though.

A three-way tie between the Patriots, Colts, and Ravens (meaning the Patriots lose while Colts and Ravens win) would make the Ravens #2 and the Patriots #3.

A three-way tie between the Patriots, Titans, and Ravens would make the Ravens #2 and the Titans #3.

In the event of a loss, Houston would lose the tiebreaker to the Titans/Colts winner for the division, so the Texans would fall to the second wild card (#6 seed).

Number Two Seed

In the discussions above, I mentioned a couple of routes to the #2 seed.

If one of the two relevant AFC West teams win, the simplest route to #2 would be for either the Patriots or Texans to win and finish as the only 11-5 team (which would require the other to lose). If both win to finish 11-5, the Patriots win the head-to-head tiebreaker.

I mentioned in the previous subsection that if both the Patriots and Texans lose to finish 10-6, the Texans become a wild card team and the Patriots would end up tied with the Titans/Colts winner and/or the Ravens.

I covered the three-way ties, but the Patriots would lose a two-way tie for the #2 seed with the Titans but win a two-way tie with the Colts. The two-way tie is what happens if the Ravens and Patriots lose.

If both AFC West teams lose and the Texans win, the Texans don’t necessarily finish ahead of the Chiefs. As mentioned in the “#1” subsection, if the Patriots win in this scenario, they will take the #1 seed since they beat both the Texans and the Chiefs (who have not played each other).

The next step – and this is what I’ve been saving for last – is to resolve the tie between the Chiefs and the Texans. I mentioned they didn’t play each other, so the next step is common opponents. Both lost to the Patriots and beat the Browns. The Texans beat the Jaguars twice and the Chiefs beat the Jaguars once, which gives the Texans a half-game lead. But in return the Chiefs beat the Broncos twice, and the Texans only beat the Broncos once. So both teams are 4-1 in total against the 4 common opponents.

How a Chiefs-Texans tie in the standings would actually be resolved if everything favorable to the Chiefs happens. The italicized teams are involved in the five game the Chiefs would need to go in their favor. The bolded teams are involved in games where it won’t matter either way because the numbers at the bottom wouldn’t change. The numbers at the bottom would be the final strength of victory for the respective teams.

The next tiebreaker is “strength of victory”. If it were strength of schedule, the Chiefs would win regardless of any other outcome, and there would never be a need to talk about any NFC games (the Texans and Chiefs played completely different NFC teams, but since every team of one conference only plays a single division of another conference and every division has two intra-divisional games in the final week, none of the outcomes would matter), but the NFL apparently thinks strength of schedule is a completely useless way to resolve a tie between two teams.

Since the teams that beat the Chiefs were all very good, this takes the better teams away from the Chiefs’ average. As a result, strength of victory (which is an assessment of who beat the best collection of teams) gives the Texans a clear edge.

That edge can be overcome, but only if the Ravens and both of the NFC teams who lost to the Chiefs (the Cardinals and 49ers) win and both of the NFC teams who lost to the Texans (the Cowboys and Redskins) lose. I’ll warn you that ESPN’s “Playoff Machine” contradicts me here, so if I’m missing something, let me know. I checked my numbers thoroughly (I even briefly thought I made a mistake in one of the records. I doubt Excel is wrong in its computation.

Same key as the chart above, but the games below the thick black horizontal line are the games that were (or would be) lost. Even if every relevant game were changed to an unfavorable result for the Chiefs, the Chiefs would still win the tiebreaker. I think it’s a sign of a better team if you only lose once to a team with single-digit wins rather than three times, but the NFL didn’t ask me.

The Cardinals and the 49ers winning would be bizarre results, especially since they’re both playing much better teams with something meaningful to play for, but remember that we don’t even have this conversation unless the Chiefs and the Chargers both lose, so we’re pretty far down the rabbit hole anyway.

Finally I have a historical note to make this a little weirder. The original nickname for the franchise that became the Kansas City Chiefs was the Texans. Those were Dallas Texans though.

Team Possibilities

This is the range of possible outcomes for the various AFC teams, excluding ties:

The Chiefs could get the #1, #2, #3, or #5 seed.

The Patriots could get the #1, #2, #3, or #4 seed.

The Chargers could get the #1 or #5 seed.

The Texans could get the #1, #2, #3, or #6 seed.

The Titans could get the #2, #3, #4, or #6 seed (or nothing).

The Ravens could get the #2, #3, #4, or #6 seed (or nothing).

The Colts could get the #3, #4, or #6 seed (or nothing).

The Steelers could get the #4 seed (or nothing).

SECTION II: AFC SCENARIO LISTS

I already covered a couple of these when I discussed the AFC #1 seed, but this is a more mathematical way of explaining the various scenarios (again, this is ignoring ties; and “AFC West” refers to the two competitive teams, the Chiefs and the Chargers). This is also kind of my proof of the last subsection:

Patriots win + at least one AFC West win = Patriots #2

Chiefs win + Patriots lose + Texans lose + Titans lose + Ravens lose = Chiefs #1, Patriots #2, Colts #3, Texans #6

Chiefs lose + Chargers win + Patriots lose + Texans lose + Titans lose + Ravens lose = Chargers #1, Patriots #2, Colts #3, Texans #6

Chiefs lose + Chargers lose + Patriots lose + Texans lose + Titans lose + Ravens lose = Chiefs #1, Patriots #2, Colts #3, Texans #6

Patriots lose + Texans win + at least one AFC West win = Texans #2

Patriots win + Chiefs win + Texans win = Texans #3

Patriots lose + Texans win + Ravens lose = Patriots #3

Patriots lose + Texans win + Ravens win = Patriots #4

Titans win + Patriots lose + Texans lose + Ravens lose = Titans #2, Patriots #3, Texans #6

Titans win + Patriots lose + Texans lose + Ravens win = Ravens #2, Titans #3, Patriots #4, Texans #6

Patriots win + Texans lose + Ravens win = Ravens #3, Titans/Colts winner #4, Texans #6

Patriots win + Texans win + Ravens win = Ravens #4

Titans win + Patriots win + Texans lose + Ravens lose= Titans #3

Titans win + Patriots win + Texans lose + Ravens win = Titans #4

Titans win + Patriots win + Texans win = Titans #6

Colts win + Texans lose+ Ravens lose = Colts #3

Colts win + Texans lose+ Ravens win = Colts #4

Colts win + Texans win = Colts #6

Steelers win + Ravens lose = Steelers #4, Ravens eliminated

Steelers lose = Ravens at least #4

SECTION III: AFC CHARTS

This is mostly from the New York Times, except I had to add the Eagles/Redskins game to the flow chart of the Chief’s various routes to their playoff seed. Previously, it said “50% chance of div. champ” on the right after “the Ravens win”. In this scenario, the Chiefs would already be the division champs, so that’s not really true (#fakenews); but I guess that was like an error message trying to tell the makers of the chart they didn’t provide enough information. The red box around “#2 BYE” means in that scenario the #1 team is the Texans. The blue box means in that scenario the #1 team is the Patriots. Where it says “#3 DIV. CHAMPS,” that would mean the Patriots are #1 and the Texans are #2. The various scenarios to the right of the red asterisk only apply to breaking the tie between the Texans and the Chiefs.

I’m starting with the most complicated situation since that is what seemed like it may require a chart the most. Also, it covers the Patriots’ and Texans’ potential routes to #1 seeds. Also, if the Chargers win, they would be #1 under the scenario above where it says “#5 wild card”.

As a supplement to that, these are the potential results if the Texans win and the Patriots lose. If the Texans and the Patriots both win, the Texans lose the tiebreaker and stay at the #3 spot.

It’s also pretty simple if the Patriots win. They’re #2 unless the Chiefs and the Chargers both lose, in which case they would be #1. But it gets a little more confusing if they lose, so here is the chart to cover that situation. The Patriots win the tiebreaker against the Colts but not against the Titans. If either the Patriots win or the Texans win, that game doesn’t really matter to anyone except the teams involved though.

The Ravens would win a tiebreaker against either the Titans or the Colts, so that game wouldn’t matter to them even if the Texans lose. They do want the Texans to lose though, because that will move them up a spot, either from fourth to third or from third to second.

How the NHL Should Handle Divisions and Scheduling

I do have various thoughts about the college football bowl games and also about a certain coach I’ve loved to hate for about the last 15 years.  However, since there is a full week before even the uninteresting bowl games start, my mind has wandered to other topics, like hockey.  (By the way, I updated my college football ratings site after the Army/Navy game.)

If you’re not familiar with my work here, college football is what I normally write about.  I watch a variety of sports at least on occasional, but sports like hockey don’t leave enough time between games to ruminate like I like to do, so I usually only write about the big-picture items for those sports.

I’m hoping people who actually somewhat follow hockey will read this, but I’ll try to make sure I cover all the bases (or the five hole or whatever the hockey analogy would be) for those who don’t.

If you haven’t heard, the NHL has recently decided to join the NFL at 32 teams (by expanding to Seattle). I hope the league takes this opportunity to enact some realignment like the NFL did when it went to 32 teams (except without adding divisions).

The logo and color pattern of the Seattle Metropolitans, who won the Stanley Cup in 1917. The logo of the new team has not been determined.

Historical Context

I did previously write about this topic in 2014; but as that was before the expansions to Las Vegas and Seattle, I no longer think that the Red Wings should be put back in the Western Conference.  I have a section below about what I would do if the geographic balance were to change in the future.

I also wrote about the topic in 2011, but (in addition to being before the expansion teams were awarded) that was before the most-recent realignment and the reduction to two divisions (which took place after the 2012 season).  At that time, it would have been necessary to have American teams from outside of the Pacific time zone play in the most-western division if they did go down to four divisions.  Part of that blog also had in mind expansion teams in the Midwest and Eastern Canada, which the NHL obviously chose not to do. 

I still think there may be some merit in splitting North America into four geographic quarters in the future (obviously with the Western ones being much wider); but with exactly half of the teams (once Seattle joins) being in the Eastern time zone, the border between the Eastern and Central time zones makes the most sense as a boundary between the Eastern and Western Conferences.  It also makes sense for continuity because that’s the current boundary.

I also think it’s a good thing that under my current suggestion three of the four divisions will have an “original six” (I’ll talk about what that means later) member.  The exception would be the West Coast/Pacific Division, but there were four teams from the West Coast who won or tied for the Stanley Cup (the 1919 Finals were cut short by the flu epidemic) between 1915 and 1925 (two represented Seattle, one represented Victoria, and one represented Vancouver). 

During that time, the NHL champion played the WCHL or WHL (for West Coast or Western Hockey League), which went out of business in 1926.  Thereafter, the NHL has had exclusive possession of the Stanley Cup.  For obvious logistical reasons, it did not make sense to add West Coast teams to the NHL at that time.  The NHL would not expand to the West Coast (with the Los Angeles Kings and Oakland Seals) until over 40 years later, and Vancouver did not have a team again until 1970.  The new team will be the first NHL team in Seattle, and there has not been one in Victoria.

Current Playoff Format and Western Conference

I’ll start with what makes sense right now.

The first thing I wouldn’t change is the playoff format.  I like that the top three teams in the each division make it onto each side of the playoff bracket, and I think it’s reasonable to have the two wild cards to address any imbalances between the divisions.  The early-round games are more fun when there are natural rivalries involved.

The current alignment in the west is fine except adding Seattle would give the pacific division too many teams, so Arizona makes the most sense to move over. This seems to be the NHL’s intention, but I’ll explain why.

Arizona is admittedly only partially in the Mountain Time Zone (for about 4 months a year since most of the year is now daylight savings, which Arizona does not have; so during daylight savings, Arizona is the same time as Pacific Daylight Time).  

Calgary and Edmonton (both in the province of Alberta) do have daylight savings, but it just makes too much sense to have the three western Canada teams together (with Seattle going forward), in my opinion. The Alberta teams are closer to Vancouver (in British Columbia) and Seattle than they are to Minnesota and Winnipeg (in Manitoba).

Arizona isn’t really driving distance to other teams either way.  Dallas and Colorado are short flights away, so it’s not a huge change in travel, although they will have more.  Playing more eastern teams may be better for Phoenix residents who moved from the Midwest, Texas, or Colorado.  I don’t know how long they’ll stay there since they’ve consistently been one of the worst-performing teams for attendance anyway.  For now, the NHL seems to want to keep them there so these are still things worth considering.

This is the current format. Except for Phoenix (black dot on purple), the NHL teams are represented by purple dots on the map. If you need labels, those are on the map of my suggested alignment below. Arizona is purple because it’s expected that Phoenix will be moving from the westernmost division to the more eastern division of the Western Conference.

Conference Alignment and Possible Changes

I already covered why I would want to keep the teams in their current conferences barring a new round of expansions or a team moving.

I did want to address the possibility of the Coyotes moving east.  If it were not to the East Coast or eastern Canada, they’d be fine where they are. If they (or another Western Conference team) were to move to the East Coast or to eastern Canada, I’d suggest moving Columbus to the Western Conference given relative proximity to Chicago, St. Louis, and Nashville.  Another possibility would be moving Detroit to the Western Conference, where they played until 2012; but I now think separating them from the New York (including Buffalo) and eastern Canada teams makes less sense.

It seems unlikely, but if a team were to move from east to west, the best team to change conferences would be Nashville given relative proximity to Columbus, Carolina,and the Florida teams (Florida [Miami area] and Tampa Bay).

Problems with Current Eastern Conference Alignment

Anyway, the only criticism I have of the current alignment is in the East. The extreme northeastern teams (the three Canadian teams [Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto], Buffalo, and Boston) were added to Detroit and the two Florida teams.  I would prefer that these changes be made before the expansion since expansion won’t affect the Eastern Conference.

Columbus and Detroit

Detroit had previously been in a Western Conference division with Chicago, St. Louis, Columbus, and Nashville.

No one should worry about whether people will attend games in Detroit; it’s more about the interests of the players as far as travel and time.  As mentioned, it’s probably best for them not to be the only Eastern Time Zone team in the Western Conference.

I also think it’s a good idea for the Red Wings to be a representative of the “original six”in the more Southern division in the East. So one shouldn’t be worried about attendance for their home games like I said, but their presence on the schedules may help with attendance of their road games.

I would also note that none of the other major leagues have Detroit in the Eastern seaboard/Northeast division. They’re with Midwestern teams.  In the NFL, Detroit plays Chicago, Green Bay, and Minnesota in the same division.  In the NBA, they play Milwaukee, Indiana, Cleveland, and Chicago.  In the AL, they play Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, and Minnesota.

Columbus is kind of a stand-in for Cleveland, and obviously there are rivalries along the Michigan-Ohio border, so I like the idea of Detroit and Columbus being in the same division again.  I don’t think anyone currently in the same division places much priority on Columbus as a rival.  The Pennsylvania teams make some sense geographically, but I would keep them in the same division as Columbus anyway.

I’ll admit it made some sense to put Detroit with Buffalo and Toronto, but I still think on balance this is better.  Detroit also moved from the East (where they played Toronto and New York) to the Central at one point in baseball.

Proposed NHL divisional format. The two-letter combinations in black without punctuation are postal codes. The NHL teams are given three-letter abbreviations or initials mostly in white. Since it was hard to see white on yellow, those franchises are given black letters. There wasn’t room to mark New Jersey or the District of Columbia within the geographical boundaries, so I just put black boxes around those postal codes..

Florida and Tampa Bay

The Florida teams had previously been in a division with Carolina, Washington, and Winnipeg (who moved from Atlanta; about 20 years ago the previous Winnipeg team moved to Phoenix to become the Coyotes)

I think people should worry about Florida and Tampa Bay.  If you’re going to have teams in such places, an effort needs to be made to attract fans (like me) who have not grown up playing or following hockey.  Florida was a bad team for a long time; but the five years before divisional realignment they were no worse than 25^th in attendance, and the last three years before realignment they were no worse than 22^nd in attendance.  They did have a relatively high number of points (wins x2 + OT/shootout losses) in 2011 (94), but they had two of their worst teams (of the last 10 seasons anyway) in 2010 and 2012.

The year after realignment wasn’t really fair to judge on its own because it was the worst full season of the last 10 years (2012 was only 48 games, but they would have been projected to do worse over a full season), but the troubling thing is attendance has never gone back to 21^st and 22^nd.  The Panthers were last in the league in attendance in 2014 despite 91 points.  They recovered to 24^th in 2015 when they would earn 103 points; but when they did almost as well in 2017 (96 points), they were only 28^th in attendance. 

103 is the average number of points Tampa Bay has had since 2012, and their attendance has been in the top 10 consistently.  This is a significant improvement from the average of 80 points (by projecting the shortened season) in the five seasons before, but I think the increase is due to the better performance of the team.  It also helps that there isn’t an NBA team in the immediate area. 

I thought it would be interesting to divide attendance by number of points for the two Florida teams.  This isn’t a perfect measure because attendance will look good during really low number of appoints even if it’s one of the worst attendances in the league and bad during right high number of points even if it’s one of the best attendances in the league.  It’s a good measure for the more medium seasons, and I think five years on each side is a good sample.

Florida is represented by a thick yellow line with lighter blue dots over a field of red.  Tampa Bay is represented by a darker blue line.  In the two years in which Florida had a noticeably better ratio, I added black dots and a thin blue line to connect with the rest of Tampa Bay’s numbers. 

See the text above for the explanation.

You can see that they both peaked the year before realignment.  

Since it wasn’t a good year in points for either team, I’m not focusing on that one year though.  Two of the four other years on the left side of the graph for Tampa Bay are better than all five full seasons since realignment. 

Despite being a lot better the last four years, Florida’s worst three results on this graph are all in the last four years.

2016 was a little bit better for the Panthers’ ratio, but that’s probably because of the previous season.  They likely sold more season tickets (and early single-game tickets) in the wake of the 103-point season, so despite dropping 22 points there was not a corresponding decrease in attendance that large.

Tampa Bay is selling out its games, and I’m sure that would continue regardless of alignment if they keep winning at this rate (absent some drastic economic decline).  I still think it’s doubtful that if they return to the 80-point-per-year average that things would look like the left side of the graph again with the current alignment.

The Lightening’s 113 points last year is the only reason the Panthers’ dismal showing last season doesn’t look worse on here.  There wasn’t room for Tampa to add more fans to compensate for the increase in points.

So you can compare oranges to oranges (because Florida), I would note that 2008 and 2011 were about the same number of points for the Panthers as 2014 and 2017.  You can see the difference.

2010 was the only good year for the Lightening on the left side of the graph (and there are no bad years on the right side), so it’s harder to make a good comparison.  2014 and 2010 were similar in points, but I would say the reason 2014 was a slightly higher ratio was because it followed a four-year average of 89 points with 101 points the prior year while 2010 followed a four-year average of 78 points with 80 points the prior year.  I certainly don’t think it’s because fans were more excited to see Buffalo and Ottawa than they had been to see Carolina and Washington.  The 2010 season was kind of a turning point for Lightening fandom.  Even though the team wasn’t good the next couple of seasons, the successful 2013 season was just in time to keep fans from losing interest.

Anyway, I think it’s fairly clear that if you want to keep both Florida fan groups interested even in the relatively lean years, it would be better to have more games against teams that are closer geographically.

Other Teams

I already mentioned the Pennsylvania teams.  I think it’s important that they continue to play each other in the same division even though I don’t think the Flyers would be necessarily thrilled about the move since for obvious reasons Philadelphia teams generally play with teams like New York in other leagues.  In other leagues they don’t try to have a Pittsburgh team play a Philadelphia team (since Pittsburgh is more of a Midwestern city) divisionally, but I think it’s good that the NHL does.  Philadelphia is in the same division as the Washington teams in other leagues though, so that makes sense here.

Philadelphia/New Jersey was a particularly good series, but I think getting northern New Jersey interested is more important than southern New Jersey.  So the Devils would be in a division with the three teams from the state of New York instead.

Having a New York team play Boston is a no-brainer in other leagues, so why not hockey? 

The other two North Carolina teams (the Carolina Panthers and the Charlotte Hornets) play opponents in Florida in their division, so again, why not in hockey?  New Orleans and Atlanta don’t have NHL teams,so the North Carolina-Tampa Bay connection is the only thing that can transfer over from the NFL.

Scheduling Format

Whether it realigns or not, the additional team will mean a tweak to the scheduling format.

Even though I’m only more than a casual hockey fan, I’m a longstanding fan of enough sports to have some strong opinions about matters such as rivalry and scheduling. 

I also like to look at maps and numbers.  I’m more of a nerdy sports fan than one who drinks a lot during games and pounds on tables if you didn’t know or couldn’t guess…not that I’m above showing emotion.

One thing I agree with about the way the NFL schedules is every team has the same number of divisional games (6).  Even before expansion, every team played its divisional rivals exactly twice each.

I also agree with the NFL’s uniform rules about how many inter-conference games are played (4), and every team within a division plays the same opponents.  

With 82 games,the NHL has the luxury of having at least one home and home with every other team. It’s just a matter of how many (if any) more than that you have with teams in your conference and/or division.

Some prefer to have a divisional super rival, one you might play 5 or 6 times instead of 4, but I think there is more concern with playing other teams too few times than with not playing a divisional rival enough. It also should be a reasonably level playing field within the division since most playoff seedings are based on where you finish in your division.

For that reason, I think the easiest and best solution is to add two games. 82 games started in the 1995 season, when there were only 26 teams. I don’t think with six extra teams added in the 24 years since (by the start of next season) that adding two games is unreasonable.

If it stays at 82, that’s 32 games against the other division (each with the minimum of 2 games).

If they follow my suggestion and also have the uniform 4 games against each divisional rival,that would mean two of the eight teams in the other intra-conference division could only be played twice instead of 3 times.

They could just have a rotation regardless of proximity, success, or any other measure.  That’s basically what they do now, but that’s boring.

Another option is (also following the NFL principles) to punish success, but it would be relatively very minor: eliminating 2 games out of what would be 84 versus 6 games of 16 that change completely based on the prior year in the NFL (at least that’s how many games change if you finish in the top two versus the bottom two in your division).

If you don’t follow, the NFL has 6 intra-conference cross-divisional games. Those 6 are dependent on where you place the season before.  If you’re in the top 2 of your division, you’d play the top 2 of the other three divisions in your conference.  If you’re in the bottom 2, you’d play the bottom 2 of the other three divisions in your conference.

So applying this to the NHL would mean 1 and 2 wouldn’t play 7 and 8 an extra time, and 3 and 4 wouldn’t play 5 and 6 an extra time.

I think an even better solution would be proximity.  So even though Arizona still goes to another division, they can still play everyone in the pacific division 3 times except for Edmonton and Calgary.  Put Nashville in that boat too.  Dallas and Colorado can skip playing Vancouver and Seattle the extra time.  Anaheim and L.A. can skip Minnesota and Winnipeg.  San José and Las Vegas can skip Chicago and St. Louis.

In the East, Florida and Tampa can skip Ottawa and Montreal.  Carolina and Washington can skip Boston and the Islanders.  The Pennsylvanias (meaning Philadelphia and Pittsburgh) can skip Buffalo and Toronto.  The Rangers and Devils can skip Detroit and Columbus. It’s bad enough that Rutgers plays Michigan and Ohio St.every year now. (Had to get in my college football reference.)

Original Six

Evolution of logos of the “original six” NHL teams. Except for Toronto, I prefer the old ones.

I tried to pair up non-original-six with original-six so as not to take too many original-six opponents away from any one team.  

If you’re not an NHL fan, “original six” is a misnomer, but it’s the six oldest teams in continuous operation and who were the only NHL franchises between 1942 and 1967: Toronto, Montreal, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, and the New York Rangers.  I won’t go over the various permutations before that, but it’s interesting reading if early-20th-century professional athletics is your cup of tea.

Anyway, fans like to see these teams.  A lot of people have been multi-generational fans of one of them.  Others move around and may have become a fan by living in one of those cities even briefly.

It’s like how if you’re an MLB or NBA fan, it’s just different if you go to a game against the Yankees, Red Sox, Lakers, or Celtics, for instance.  Even teams around since the 1960s (there are a couple exceptions in the NFL at least) have trouble replicating that kind of impact and support when they go on the road.

CFP got top 4 right; Pre-Bowl Top 25

As far as #1, I had mixed results between the weighted system and the unweighted system. The top 4 is the same in both, but Clemson is ahead of Alabama in the unweighted system.  I’ve mentioned how Alabama didn’t have a particularly good schedule despite playing in the SEC.  Their best non-conference opponent finished with a losing record, as did one of their two regular-season SEC East opponents.  However, Georgia by itself deserves more consideration than just one game out of 13 (as does LSU), so that’s why I didn’t use the unweighted system by itself below. 

Even though I generally support the SEC, I want to make clear I don’t like Alabama; and I feel like they’re given unfair treatment by the officials in just about every game (though they rarely need it). Nonetheless, it’s important for me to figure out who on paper has accomplished more while taking into account losses (which only applies to one of the top 4 teams). 

A questionable review on this alleged touchdown by Josh Jacobs kept the Tide in the game. As usual, they took full advantage to eliminate the Bulldogs.

I think I would do teams like Alabama a disservice by failing to acknowledge their strength of resume; and both ratings had their strengths and weaknesses, so what I did was combine the two ratings.Since the two systems create very different numbers, I multiplied the unweighted ratings by 15 and then averaged the two. The top 50 teams on average got a number about 15 times higher in the weighted system than in the unweighted system, so I thought this was fair.

These averaged ratings were directly incorporated into my top 25 below without any subjective input.  This isn’t covering new ground, but it’s worth reiterating that this is purely about how good the numbers made the teams look in that formula.  It doesn’t matter how anyone was projected in preseason or how good the public perception of an opponent was at the time they were played.  It doesn’t matter which teams, coaches, and players I like, or which ones I thought got a raw deal in officiating or could beat better teams if only they’d played them, or anything like that. 

Margin of victory only has a slight impact where a home team won by 3 or less in regulation (meaning if they won by 8 in overtime it’s still considered a win with the home advantage) since that’s the average advantage by playing at home, and it also happens to be the smallest number of points typically scored in one play (I don’t know of any two-minute drills to get that key safety to win the game if you’re down by 1 late).

I let the numbers guide me the same way in my rankings below, but another thing I hesitated to do was to put Ohio St. (even though I have strongly disliked the Buckeyes for some time) below Oklahoma.  It’s no question whose best wins came against the better two teams.  Michigan has lost to two teams, and those two teams have a total of one loss between them, and Penn St. isn’t far behind.  The key problem for the Buckeyes is their loss to Purdue. The Boilermakers had to win their final game just to finish 6-6.  I know Texas isn’t spectacular; but if they played Purdue in a bowl game, the Longhorns would probably be favored by double digits.  Texas also lost to a mediocre Big Ten team to be fair; but had Maryland been their only loss, I’d be explaining why Ohio St. deserved to go ahead of them right now.  But I’m not comparing a team with a loss to Maryland to a team with a loss to Purdue: I’m comparing a team with a loss to Texas to a team with a loss to Purdue. 

To give credit where it’s due again and to explain how close it is, the second win for the Buckeyes is also strong.  To get to the next best win for Ohio St.though (Northwestern), I have to go outside of the top 25 and even outside of the top 35.  To get there, I pass up four teams that Oklahoma has beaten: Army, West Virginia, Texas, and Iowa St.  I really don’t know if it’s harder to beat four teams who are better than Northwestern but in the top 15 or to beat two teams who are in the top 15 and none others who are better.  I suspect the former is more difficult; but that loss breaks the tie if it’s just as difficult, so I will defend the outcome here.

As an LSU fan, I know a lot about playing top-15 teams and playing teams somewhere between #16 and #40.  I’d rather have two tough games to focus on against teams in the top 15 than the week-after-week onslaught of #16 to #40 teams.  LSU beat 3 top-10 teams, although I acknowledge two of them didn’t belong anywhere near the top 10 in hindsight.  Although Alabama beats us every year, we had a mediocre team take them to overtime a few years ago.  Georgia definitely belongs in the top 10;they were a play or two away from making the playoff.  We lost to Florida, but I think that’s a better team than Penn St.  If that were the only other game we had needed to get up for and we didn’t play Alabama, I think we would have won. Ohio St. beat Penn St. by 1, and we trailed Florida by 1 before a late “pick six” made the final score a loss by 8. 

The loss to Texas A&M (questionable though it was) and similar losses over the years (such as losing to Kentucky and Arkansas in our 2007 championship year and losing to a mediocre Florida team in our 2003 championship year) would result in increased nerves over Oklahoma’s schedule than Ohio St.’s.  If we had a 45%chance to beat Michigan and a 55% chance to beat Penn St., for instance, that gives us a 25% chance to win both.  (These numbers are just off the top of my head.) If we had a 70% chance to beat Army, a 60% chance to beat West Virginia,a 60% chance to beat Texas, and an 80% chance to beat Iowa St., we’d only have a 20% chance to win all four (assuming independence of the numbers).  Again, it’s very close, but if I have to pick one to be better, I pick Oklahoma.

I’m not persuaded by the arguments for Georgia.  I disagreed with the decision in 2011 (by voters and some computers) to pick Alabama ahead of Oklahoma St.  The Tide had their chance to beat LSU (at home) and shouldn’t have gotten another.  The fact that they got it and took advantage of it didn’t make it the right decision. But I can respect a difference of opinion on that more than I respect the opinion of Georgia being in the top 4 this season.  At least that was a choice between two one-loss teams.  Georgia supporters want them to advance as a two-loss team despite two decent one-loss options. 

Obviously I’m an advocate for LSU and what they’ve done this season—and their record does not fairly represent that in my opinion—but losing to LSU by 20 is not like losing to a title-contender by 3 in overtime,which is what Alabama did in 2011.  I do have the Bulldogs extremely close to Ohio St., mostly because losing to LSU hurts a lot less than losing to Purdue. If Oklahoma had lost to Texas a second time, it would be harder to make the case for the Buckeyes (but I’d still probably do so).  As it stands, I think the Sooners redeemed themselves against Texas (although I don’t think the Big XII championship should be allowed in the first place), their three-point loss in the first game against the Longhorns was probably a fluke, and it’s best that someone else gets a shot at Alabama. I have a feeling the Tide would do better in a rematch with Georgia than they did yesterday. Oklahoma-Alabama is an unknown. For all we know, it could be like the Ohio St.-Alabama game a few years ago.  Let’s find out.

I already made the argument about how LSU should be picked for a major bowl above Florida (which I don’t think will happen) and Washington St. (which I think probably will happen), so I think other than #1 and #4 there isn’t much more to discuss.  ***UPDATE*** LSU has been confirmed for the Fiesta Bowl against Central Florida.  Apparently it was decided not to send the Knights to Atlanta two years in a row.

I would like to say that I would have liked to have seen that North Carolina St./West Virginia game that was canceled. I would have preferred the winner to be in the top 25 over Utah, but that’s the breaks.  The Mountaineers and Wolfpack are #26 and #27, respectively, followed by Stanford and then Texas.

I plan to make the average used here a regular feature on my “weighted average” page on my ratings site.  I may continue to wait until after the first CFP rankings are released to publish that list though.

Rank	Team	Prev.
1	Alabama	1
2	Clemson	3
3	Notre Dame	2
4	Oklahoma	6
5	Ohio St.	5
6	Georgia	4
7	C. Florida	9
8	Michigan	7
9	LSU	8
10	Washington	14
11	Florida	11
12	Kentucky	10
13	Wash St.	13
14	Penn St.	12
15	Fresno St.	—
16	App. St.	23
17	Army	18
18	Texas A&M	15
19	Syracuse	19
20	Missouri	16
21	Utah St.	22
22	Boise St.	17
23	Cincinnati	—
24	Miss. St.	20
25	Utah	21

Out of Top 25: (24) N Carolina St., (25) West Virginia