NFL Playoff Tiebreakers: Rules and Procedures for Division and Wild Card Tiebreakers

With just three weeks to go in the NFL season and a number of playoff permutations still up in the air, the NFL playoff tiebreakers are coming to the fore. The NFL has several different tiebreaking procedures depending on whether they need to split a divisional or conference tie and whether the tie involves two, three, or four teams.

Let’s take a look at the NFL’s tiebreaking procedures in different scenarios.

How Do NFL Playoff Tiebreakers Work?

The NFL tiebreakers can appear quite convoluted, with a variety of different factors being considered at some point. However, the process is linear, with each component being judged on its own merit before proceeding to the next level of the procedure if the current step being tested cannot break the tie.

Most ties are broken at the first couple of levels, and some of the deeper tiebreakers have rarely, if ever, actually been in play by the end of the season. The most commonly used NFL tiebreakers are the head-to-head record between the teams that are tied or their record within their division or conference.

The NFL breaks down its tiebreaker procedures for the playoffs into division and conference ties. In the event of a tie involving a combination of teams from within a division and outside a division, the divisional ties are broken first. The highest-ranking team from the division remains, and the tie within the conference is then broken.

Once that team within the division has been removed from the tiebreaker, the next highest-ranked team in the division can be included in future tiebreakers.

In all instances where win percentage is applied, a tie counts as half a win and half a loss for calculating the percentage of wins a team has.

What Is the NFL Divisional Tiebreakers Procedure?

If two or more teams in a division are tied based on their final winning percentage, the following tiebreaking steps are followed.

1. Head-to-head record
2. Best win percentage in games played within the division
3. Best win percentage in common games
4. Best win 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

In a three-team tiebreaker, the goal is to isolate one team at a time. However, that could be to isolate the best or worst team in each tiebreaker. Once one team is isolated, the tiebreaker restarts from Step 1 using the remaining teams. The order of tiebreakers is the same whether two, three, or four teams are tied in the division.

What Are the NFL Tiebreakers for Conference Ties?

1. Head-to-head, if applicable
2. Best win percentage in games played within the conference
3. Best win percentage in common games (minimum of four games)
4. Strength of victory
5. Strength of schedule
6. Best combined ranking among conference teams in points scored and points allowed
7. Best combined ranking among all teams in points scored and points allowed
8. Best net points in conference games
9. Best net points in all games
10. Best net touchdowns in all games
11. Coin toss

It must always be remembered that when breaking conference ties, divisional ties are handled first and separately from the conference tiebreakers. Therefore, if the Pittsburgh Steelers, Baltimore Ravens, and Buffalo Bills were all tied at 11-6, the NFL would break the tie between the Ravens and Steelers before applying the conference tiebreaker between the remaining AFC North team and the Bills.

The following tiebreakers are applied in the event of a tie between three or more NFL teams for a Wild Card spot. If after any of the following steps are enacted, two teams remain tied, the tiebreaker procedure reverts to Step 1 of the two-club tiebreaker above.

1. Apply division tiebreaker to eliminate all but the highest-ranked club in each division prior to proceeding to Step 2. The original seeding within a division upon application of the division tiebreaker remains the same for all subsequent applications of the procedure that are necessary to identify the two Wild Card participants
2. Head-to-head sweep (Applicable only if one club has defeated each of the others or if one club has lost to each of the others)
3. Best win percentage in games played within the conference
4. Best win percentage in common games (minimum of four games against opponents common to all the teams involved in the tiebreaker)
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 conference games
10. Best net points in all games
11. Best net touchdowns in all games
12. Coin toss

Where multiple teams are tied, each spot in the standings is individually assessed. For example, if four teams are tied for the fifth spot in the standings, ties are broken until the top team remains.

They are then ranked fifth, and the tiebreaking procedure restarts with the remaining three teams to determine who is sixth in the standings. Then, the final tie is broken to determine the seventh and eighth spots.

That can also work in reverse. If when the tie is broken, it identifies the lowest-ranked team in the group; they would drop out of the tiebreaker for now. The tiebreakers would then be applied again between the remaining three teams, looking to identify either the best or the worst based on the procedures. When the top team is identified, the tiebreaker process starts again with all remaining teams involved.

Additional NFL Playoff Tiebreakers

1. Only one club advances at any stage of a tiebreaking procedure. The remaining clubs are then assessed from Step 1 of the applicable tiebreak procedure.
2. When records against common opponents are considered, the win percentage is the deciding factor as opposed to the number of wins. This is because some teams may face a common opponent twice. For example, if the Texans and Ravens are tied with the Colts as a common opponent, the Texans would have played them twice, compared to once for the Ravens.
3. In order to determine home-field priority among division winners, apply Wild Card tiebreakers.
4. In order to determine home-field priority for Wild Card seeding and spots, division tiebreakers are applied if teams are from the same division. Wild Card tiebreakers are applied if teams are from different divisions.
5. To determine the best combined ranking among conference teams in points scored and points allowed, add a team’s position in the two categories, and the lowest score wins. For example, if Team A is first in points scored and second in points allowed, its combined ranking is “3.” If Team B is third in points scored and first in points allowed, its combined ranking is “4.” Team A then wins the tiebreaker.

If two teams are tied for a position, both teams are awarded the ranking as if they held it solely. For example, if Team A and Team B are tied for first in points scored, each team is assigned a ranking of “1” in that category, and if Team C is third, its ranking will still be “3.”

What Are the Current NFL Tiebreakers Being Used in the 2024 NFL Season?

In the AFC, several tiebreakers currently determine the standings.

The Baltimore Ravens and Denver Broncos are tied at 9-5 for a Wild Card spot, but Baltimore is currently the fifth seed based on head-to-head record after beating the Broncos earlier in the season.

For the eighth spot in the standings, the Indianapolis Colts, Miami Dolphins, and Cincinnati Bengals are all tied at 6-8. That means we have to use two levels of tiebreakers to separate them:

• No team has a head-to-head sweep over the other two, so we move to record within the conference.
• The Dolphins and Colts are 5-5 within the conference, while the Bengals are 3-6. This means the Bengals are in the 10th spot in the AFC standings entering Week 16.
• The Colts then rank above the Dolphins based on head-to-head record after beating them in Indianapolis earlier this season.

Four teams are then tied at 3-11, sitting between 12th and 15th in the standings. All four have been eliminated from the playoffs, so in theory, the standings are largely irrelevant, but it is a good opportunity to look at multi-team tiebreakers across both divisions and conferences in action. They are the Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars, New England Patriots, and Tennessee Titans.

Firstly, we must break the division tie between the Jaguars and Titans. The Jaguars have the superior head-to-head record, meaning they take the third spot in the division and the Titans sit last. However, the two teams will meet again in Week 17, which could negate that tiebreaker.

That means we apply the conference tiebreakers between the Browns, Patriots, and Jaguars. None of these teams have a head-to-head sweep over both of the others, so we move to conference record. Here, the Patriots are eliminated with a 2-7 conference record, compared to 3-6 for the other two.

The conference tiebreakers then restart, with just the Browns and Jaguars. Cleveland defeated Jacksonville in Week 2, so they sit 12th in the AFC standings. That leaves Jacksonville in 13th. The final step is to split the remaining tie between the Titans and the Patriots. Tennessee defeated New England earlier this season, so they rank 14th, and New England goes 15th.

In the NFC there are also several tiebreakers currently being used to determine the standings.

At the top of the conference, the Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles are tied at 12-2. The two teams have not met this season, so we move straight to conference record. The Lions currently have the superior record at 8-1, with the Eagles at 7-2. Therefore, the Lions hold the top spot, with the Eagles in second.

The Los Angeles Rams, Seattle Seahawks, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers are currently tied at 8-6. With the Rams and Seahawks in the NFC West, we have to break that tie first. The Rams defeated the Seahawks in Week 9, meaning they currently hold the top spot in the division, and the Seahawks dropped to eighth in the NFC standings. However, the two teams will meet again in Week 17, which could negate that tiebreaker.

The Rams are then in a two-team tiebreaker with the Buccaneers for the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds. They have also not met this year, so the Buccaneers take the No. 3 seed based on their superior conference record: 6-3 compared to 5-5.

The third tiebreaker in the conference is for the 11th and 12th spot in the standings between the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers at 6-8. The 49ers beat the Cowboys earlier in the season, meaning they rank 11th, and the Cowboys slide to 12th.