RunYouOver
12-07-2009, 05:56 PM
Updated for after Week 13, added a few more what-if scenarios, so almost everything is covered now in terms of what could happen for us winning the division. After Week 15, I'll draw out every scenario for how we could win the wild card, but hopefully at that point that's an afterthought since we'll be winning the division ;)
As a user pointed out in last week's thread...realistically speaking, things couldn't have gone much better last week for us.
If the season ended TODAY (After Week 13):
AFC:
1. Indy (12-0, clinched AFC South)
2. San Diego (9-3, first in the AFC West)
3. Cincinnati (9-3, first in the AFC North)
4. New England (7-5, first in the AFC East)
5. Denver (8-4, higher seeded WC)
6. Jacksonville (7-5, lower seeded WC)
In the hunt:
7. Baltimore (6-5)
8. Miami (6-6)
9. NYJ (6-6)
10. Pittsburgh (6-6)
Explanations:
--San Diego is currently seeded ahead of Cincinnati because of a better conference record (7-3 to 6-3), but this is useless as the two teams play in Week 15, so if they wind up tied, whoever wins the head to head matchup wins the tiebreaker.
--Even if Baltimore wins tonight, they are still the #7 seed because Jacksonville has a better AFC record than they do (6-2 to 6-4)
--New England is falling fast…Miami and the Jets are only ONE game behind them. We would actually prefer they start winning though, because at this point, if we both wind up as wild cards, we’d have the edge over them anyway, but for all strength of victory tiebreakers over SD, we need them to do better. We’re already a game up on them, and if we were to win the division, there’s no way they’d have a better record than us. So New England losing more games is only bad for us, now that we’re a game up.
NFC:
1. New Orleans (12-0)
2. Minnesota (10-2)
3. Arizona (8-4)
4. Dallas (8-4)
5. Philly (8-4)
6. Green Bay (7-4)
In the hunt:
7. New York (7-5)
8. Atlanta (6-6)
Explanations:
--Arizona has a better conference record than Dallas
--Dallas has beaten Philly in their only head to head meeting thus far. The two teams meet again Week 17
--If Green Bay wins tonight, they are still the 6th seed since Philly has a better conference record, and if they lose they are still 6th because they’ll have a better conference record than the Giants
Post season match ups:
--Indy, San Diego, New Orleans and Minnesota have first round byes.
--Jax @ CIN, Den @ NE, GB @ ARI, PHI @ DAL
--If we won, we would likely play Indy in round 2, in Indianapolis.
Remaining Schedules:
DEN: @ IND, vs. OAK, @ PHI, vs. KC
SD: @ DAL, vs. CIN, @ TEN, vs. WAS
--We each have 2 home and 2 away games remaining
--Denver has two very winnable games, one difficult game, and one very
difficult game remaining
--San Diego has 1 very winnable game, 2 tough games and 1 decently tough game
--We probably lucked out that SD has to travel to Tennessee in Week 16...If TEN has any shot of making the playoffs, or even if they don’t, they’ve been playing much better as of late and will be a challenging road game for the Chargers
--The Bengals, a good team anyway, will be playing the Chargers hard as well, knowing that it could be for a first round bye
--Dallas’ loss this week only makes every game more important to them, you can bet they’ll be going all out at home against SD this week. If we can pull out a win in Indy this week, I think we can win the division.
--4 games remain, and Indy has a 3 game advantage for homefield, while they’d like to win every game, Jim Caldwell isn’t necessarily following Sean Payton’s “Pedal to the Medal” approach, and we might have caught Indy at the right time. We need every game, and Indy has no sense of urgency right now. If it was in Denver, I’d actually expect us to win, but because it’s in Indy, I expect us to keep it close, and maybe pull off the upset, which would be HUGE for us.
--Philly is in the same spot we’re in, and it is always tough playing there, too…that will be a tough one in a few weeks
--Comparing these schedules, it is very possible SD goes 2-2 and we go 3-1, which would put us both at 11-5…then what, you ask?
What if scenarios:
If Denver ONLY loses to INDY, and SD loses to Cincy and Dallas:
We split the head to head, we would both be 5-1 in the division, so you go to the common games record, where the common opponents are the AFC North and NFC East: Denver is 5-3 in those games while San Diego would be 4-4 with those two losses. We’d both be 8-4 in conference record, which wouldn’t matter here. In this scenario, we win the division and would be the third seed most likely, as Cincy would be primed to finish 12-4 if they beat SD.
If Denver ONLY loses to INDY, and SD loses to TEN and Dallas:
Here is where it gets real, real tricky: Tied head to head, tied division record, tied common opponents, tied conference, so the next tie breaker here would be strength of victory. Since it’s too tricky and kind of pointless to determine how all of the teams we play will finish, I’ll show you where we stand as of now to give you an idea: Denver has beaten CIN, CLE, OAK, DAL, NE, SD, NYG, and KC who have a combined record of 48-48. SD has beaten Oakland (x2) Denver, KC (x2), Miami, Philly NYG and Cleveland, who have a combined record of 44-64. Our current strength of victory is 0.500, SD’s is .407, so we would win here. This is another reason why beating Indy would be HUGE, in case of all tiebreakers, that win would all but seal a strength of victory win for us.
In this scenario, Cincy would likely finish 11-5, tying with us. Because of our head to head victory, we would be the #2 seed and have a first round bye.
If Denver ONLY loses to INDY and SD loses to Cincy and Ten:
**Correction: I incorrectly stated we would win because of common opponents record last week, however we would both be 5-3. We would actually win because of CONFERENCE record, where SD would be 7-5 and we would be 8-4.
If Denver ONLY loses to Philly and SD loses to Cincy and Dallas:
In this scenario, the common opponents would be tied at 4-4, but our conference record would be better (9-3) than San Diego’s (8-4), so we would win. We would probably be the third or fourth seed in this scenario.
If Denver ONLY loses to Philly and SD loses to TEN and Dallas:
San Diego would have a better common opponents record than us and would win the division. We would be the fifth seed.
If Denver ONLY loses to Philly and SD loses to Ten and CIN:
**Correction: I Incorrectly stated last week our common opponents record would be tied last week, however, they would be 5-3 and we would be 4-4 in this scenario, so SD would win the division. We would be the fifth seed.
If Denver loses to Philly AND Indy, and SD loses to Cincy, TEN and DAL:
Common opponents record would be tied, but our conference record would be better than SD’s (8-4 to 7-5).
If Denver loses to Philly AND Indy, and SD loses to Cincy, Dallas and Washington:
We would have a better common opponents record (4-4 compared with 3-5) and would win the division.
If Denver loses to Philly and Indy, and SD loses to Tennessee, Dallas and Washington:
Common opponents would be tied 4-4, we would both be 8-4 in conference, so our strength of victory would likely carry us to victory, however I can’t guarantee that because of the potential for teams’ records to drastically change in the last 4 week, and SD would get a win over Cincy, while we’d add KC and Oakland to our victories. It would be close in this scenario, we’d have to wait and see until the end of the season gets closer.
If we lose ANY division game:
We would need to finish with a better record than SD, or they would win the division with a better divisional record.
If we win out and SD loses to Cin:
We would have a tied common opponents record, but a better conference record (9-3 to 8-4), so we would win the division.
If we win out and SD loses to DAL:
Tied opponents record, tied conference record but better strength of victory, so we would win the division.
If we win out and SD loses to TEN:
San Diego would have a better common opponents record (6-2 to 5-3) and they would win the division.
If we win out and SD loses to WAS:
Common opponents record would be tied, conference record would be tied, we’d win strength of victory and take the division.
Key things to keep in mind in case of any ties:
--We have the tie breaker over Cincy and New England, and if Indy loses out and we win out, then we would have it over Indy too.
--Baltimore and Pittsburgh have tiebreakers over us, but at this point, it seems that Pittsburgh will have to win out to have any shot of tying us (unless we totally choke, in which case we wouldn’t make the playoffs anyway
--If we can win 3 out of our last 4 though, we are in regardless as Pit and Baltimore still have one head-to-head meeting, and Jacksonville’s schedule looks far too difficult to win out (vs Miami, Indy, @New England). A Baltimore loss tonight clinches that, but we should be in 11-5 regardless. We should be in 10-6 regardless too, but we’ll see.
--If we LOSE OUT, we are guaranteed to finish ahead of the Browns, Chiefs, Bills and Raiders. But that would suck.
Who to Root for in Week 14:
As always, Denver winning is our biggest priority. Other teams losing will help, but in terms of AFC tiebreakers, strength of victory tiebreakers, and staying in the division race, this week’s game is actually a VERY big one for us.
Additionally, root for the following teams this week: Cleveland (vs Pit), Detroit (@ BAL) Miami (@Jax), MIN (vs CIN, but Cincy could potentially keep SD out of a first round bye, so this is a tough one…thinking only of Denver though, a Cincy loss puts us in better position for a first round bye if we catch SD), GB (@CHI, helps our draft pick), New England (@ CAR, we need them to start winning again at this point), and finally, BIG TIME, we need DALLAS to beat SD, the game is in Dallas @ 415 on CBS. Root hard!
Order of importance:
1) Denver
2)Dallas
3) Miami
4) Detroit
5)Cleveland
6) Minnesota
7)New England
8) GB
Any questions be sure to let me know :cheers:
As a user pointed out in last week's thread...realistically speaking, things couldn't have gone much better last week for us.
If the season ended TODAY (After Week 13):
AFC:
1. Indy (12-0, clinched AFC South)
2. San Diego (9-3, first in the AFC West)
3. Cincinnati (9-3, first in the AFC North)
4. New England (7-5, first in the AFC East)
5. Denver (8-4, higher seeded WC)
6. Jacksonville (7-5, lower seeded WC)
In the hunt:
7. Baltimore (6-5)
8. Miami (6-6)
9. NYJ (6-6)
10. Pittsburgh (6-6)
Explanations:
--San Diego is currently seeded ahead of Cincinnati because of a better conference record (7-3 to 6-3), but this is useless as the two teams play in Week 15, so if they wind up tied, whoever wins the head to head matchup wins the tiebreaker.
--Even if Baltimore wins tonight, they are still the #7 seed because Jacksonville has a better AFC record than they do (6-2 to 6-4)
--New England is falling fast…Miami and the Jets are only ONE game behind them. We would actually prefer they start winning though, because at this point, if we both wind up as wild cards, we’d have the edge over them anyway, but for all strength of victory tiebreakers over SD, we need them to do better. We’re already a game up on them, and if we were to win the division, there’s no way they’d have a better record than us. So New England losing more games is only bad for us, now that we’re a game up.
NFC:
1. New Orleans (12-0)
2. Minnesota (10-2)
3. Arizona (8-4)
4. Dallas (8-4)
5. Philly (8-4)
6. Green Bay (7-4)
In the hunt:
7. New York (7-5)
8. Atlanta (6-6)
Explanations:
--Arizona has a better conference record than Dallas
--Dallas has beaten Philly in their only head to head meeting thus far. The two teams meet again Week 17
--If Green Bay wins tonight, they are still the 6th seed since Philly has a better conference record, and if they lose they are still 6th because they’ll have a better conference record than the Giants
Post season match ups:
--Indy, San Diego, New Orleans and Minnesota have first round byes.
--Jax @ CIN, Den @ NE, GB @ ARI, PHI @ DAL
--If we won, we would likely play Indy in round 2, in Indianapolis.
Remaining Schedules:
DEN: @ IND, vs. OAK, @ PHI, vs. KC
SD: @ DAL, vs. CIN, @ TEN, vs. WAS
--We each have 2 home and 2 away games remaining
--Denver has two very winnable games, one difficult game, and one very
difficult game remaining
--San Diego has 1 very winnable game, 2 tough games and 1 decently tough game
--We probably lucked out that SD has to travel to Tennessee in Week 16...If TEN has any shot of making the playoffs, or even if they don’t, they’ve been playing much better as of late and will be a challenging road game for the Chargers
--The Bengals, a good team anyway, will be playing the Chargers hard as well, knowing that it could be for a first round bye
--Dallas’ loss this week only makes every game more important to them, you can bet they’ll be going all out at home against SD this week. If we can pull out a win in Indy this week, I think we can win the division.
--4 games remain, and Indy has a 3 game advantage for homefield, while they’d like to win every game, Jim Caldwell isn’t necessarily following Sean Payton’s “Pedal to the Medal” approach, and we might have caught Indy at the right time. We need every game, and Indy has no sense of urgency right now. If it was in Denver, I’d actually expect us to win, but because it’s in Indy, I expect us to keep it close, and maybe pull off the upset, which would be HUGE for us.
--Philly is in the same spot we’re in, and it is always tough playing there, too…that will be a tough one in a few weeks
--Comparing these schedules, it is very possible SD goes 2-2 and we go 3-1, which would put us both at 11-5…then what, you ask?
What if scenarios:
If Denver ONLY loses to INDY, and SD loses to Cincy and Dallas:
We split the head to head, we would both be 5-1 in the division, so you go to the common games record, where the common opponents are the AFC North and NFC East: Denver is 5-3 in those games while San Diego would be 4-4 with those two losses. We’d both be 8-4 in conference record, which wouldn’t matter here. In this scenario, we win the division and would be the third seed most likely, as Cincy would be primed to finish 12-4 if they beat SD.
If Denver ONLY loses to INDY, and SD loses to TEN and Dallas:
Here is where it gets real, real tricky: Tied head to head, tied division record, tied common opponents, tied conference, so the next tie breaker here would be strength of victory. Since it’s too tricky and kind of pointless to determine how all of the teams we play will finish, I’ll show you where we stand as of now to give you an idea: Denver has beaten CIN, CLE, OAK, DAL, NE, SD, NYG, and KC who have a combined record of 48-48. SD has beaten Oakland (x2) Denver, KC (x2), Miami, Philly NYG and Cleveland, who have a combined record of 44-64. Our current strength of victory is 0.500, SD’s is .407, so we would win here. This is another reason why beating Indy would be HUGE, in case of all tiebreakers, that win would all but seal a strength of victory win for us.
In this scenario, Cincy would likely finish 11-5, tying with us. Because of our head to head victory, we would be the #2 seed and have a first round bye.
If Denver ONLY loses to INDY and SD loses to Cincy and Ten:
**Correction: I incorrectly stated we would win because of common opponents record last week, however we would both be 5-3. We would actually win because of CONFERENCE record, where SD would be 7-5 and we would be 8-4.
If Denver ONLY loses to Philly and SD loses to Cincy and Dallas:
In this scenario, the common opponents would be tied at 4-4, but our conference record would be better (9-3) than San Diego’s (8-4), so we would win. We would probably be the third or fourth seed in this scenario.
If Denver ONLY loses to Philly and SD loses to TEN and Dallas:
San Diego would have a better common opponents record than us and would win the division. We would be the fifth seed.
If Denver ONLY loses to Philly and SD loses to Ten and CIN:
**Correction: I Incorrectly stated last week our common opponents record would be tied last week, however, they would be 5-3 and we would be 4-4 in this scenario, so SD would win the division. We would be the fifth seed.
If Denver loses to Philly AND Indy, and SD loses to Cincy, TEN and DAL:
Common opponents record would be tied, but our conference record would be better than SD’s (8-4 to 7-5).
If Denver loses to Philly AND Indy, and SD loses to Cincy, Dallas and Washington:
We would have a better common opponents record (4-4 compared with 3-5) and would win the division.
If Denver loses to Philly and Indy, and SD loses to Tennessee, Dallas and Washington:
Common opponents would be tied 4-4, we would both be 8-4 in conference, so our strength of victory would likely carry us to victory, however I can’t guarantee that because of the potential for teams’ records to drastically change in the last 4 week, and SD would get a win over Cincy, while we’d add KC and Oakland to our victories. It would be close in this scenario, we’d have to wait and see until the end of the season gets closer.
If we lose ANY division game:
We would need to finish with a better record than SD, or they would win the division with a better divisional record.
If we win out and SD loses to Cin:
We would have a tied common opponents record, but a better conference record (9-3 to 8-4), so we would win the division.
If we win out and SD loses to DAL:
Tied opponents record, tied conference record but better strength of victory, so we would win the division.
If we win out and SD loses to TEN:
San Diego would have a better common opponents record (6-2 to 5-3) and they would win the division.
If we win out and SD loses to WAS:
Common opponents record would be tied, conference record would be tied, we’d win strength of victory and take the division.
Key things to keep in mind in case of any ties:
--We have the tie breaker over Cincy and New England, and if Indy loses out and we win out, then we would have it over Indy too.
--Baltimore and Pittsburgh have tiebreakers over us, but at this point, it seems that Pittsburgh will have to win out to have any shot of tying us (unless we totally choke, in which case we wouldn’t make the playoffs anyway
--If we can win 3 out of our last 4 though, we are in regardless as Pit and Baltimore still have one head-to-head meeting, and Jacksonville’s schedule looks far too difficult to win out (vs Miami, Indy, @New England). A Baltimore loss tonight clinches that, but we should be in 11-5 regardless. We should be in 10-6 regardless too, but we’ll see.
--If we LOSE OUT, we are guaranteed to finish ahead of the Browns, Chiefs, Bills and Raiders. But that would suck.
Who to Root for in Week 14:
As always, Denver winning is our biggest priority. Other teams losing will help, but in terms of AFC tiebreakers, strength of victory tiebreakers, and staying in the division race, this week’s game is actually a VERY big one for us.
Additionally, root for the following teams this week: Cleveland (vs Pit), Detroit (@ BAL) Miami (@Jax), MIN (vs CIN, but Cincy could potentially keep SD out of a first round bye, so this is a tough one…thinking only of Denver though, a Cincy loss puts us in better position for a first round bye if we catch SD), GB (@CHI, helps our draft pick), New England (@ CAR, we need them to start winning again at this point), and finally, BIG TIME, we need DALLAS to beat SD, the game is in Dallas @ 415 on CBS. Root hard!
Order of importance:
1) Denver
2)Dallas
3) Miami
4) Detroit
5)Cleveland
6) Minnesota
7)New England
8) GB
Any questions be sure to let me know :cheers: