The Hitch said:
Dallas absolutely screwed. They beat Seattle in Seattle and they never played Green Bay (or Detroit).
If head to head is the main tiebreaker for 2 team ties, it should be the main tiebreaker for 3 team ties. To use some bizzare nonsensical tiebreaker like division record or conference record for 3 team tiebreakers is ridiculous. Why should your division record be a tiebreaker for cross division ties? That's about as random as flipping a coin or picking the team who's name comes first in the alphabet.
Head-to-head only applies to three way ties if a team beat both of the other teams. Since Dallas, as you note, did not play GB, that tie-breaker rule doesn’t apply. That seems reasonable to me, because doing it your way, GB is third, though it didn’t play Dallas and might have won that game. You’re penalizing GB (and SE, which beat GB) because they didn’t happen to play Dallas. The fact that Dallas beat Seattle and Seattle beat GB doesn’t imply that GB would have lost to Dallas. There are numerous examples every year of team A beating team B which beats team C which beats team A (E.g., SF and AZ both beat DAL, which beat SE, which beat both SF and AZ twice; KC beat NE which beat Denver which beat KC 2x). Because of different styles, because they play at different times of the season when relative strengths are different, or just because of chance. And of course if GB had beaten Dallas, then Seattle’s victory over GB would have made it look much better vs. Dallas despite having lost to Dallas.
When the head-to-head doesn’t apply, it goes to conference (not division) record, which I think is reasonable. We’re trying to determine seeding just within the conference, so it’s logical to compare records against just conference opponents. Calling it like a coin flip is ironic; actually head-to-head is worse in that respect, because it’s just one game. Having a superior conference record is something established over many games. For this reason, I think conference record (or division record, as a tie-breaker for teams in the same division) is much fairer than head-to-head. If I were making the rules, I would begin with that.
Especially unfair because in the AFC head to head does actually get New England full HFA throughout the playoffs because they beat Denver. This despite the fact that unlike Dallas they managed this feat purely because they got to play Denver at home, and whatsmore have been allowed to play Denver at home for 3 straight years ( i have no idea how the NFL can allow such a biased series of schedules for 1 team) which has given them a massive advantage over Denver for the duration of Peyton Manning's tenure there, seeing as how that matchup is each year worth 3 games (win for you, loss for them, tiebreaker for you)
Denver has played NE in Mass. several years in a row probably because of the way the schedule works. I don’t think a human being could create the NFL schedule without the help of a computer, there are so many factors that have to be balanced. For various reasons, it probably just hasn’t worked out that Denver could play NE at home without creating a problem elsewhere.
E.g., if you did that this year, then one of Denver’s other home games would have had to be moved to the road, and one of NE’s other road games moved to home. But then each of the opponents in those two games would have to have their schedule altered, necessitating home-road switches for them…You see the problem? Sometimes a series of consecutive matches between two teams has to be in the same city for several years in a row. It might happen that if Denver had played NE at home this year, one of its other opponents would have had to play them on the road for the 4th or 5th consecutive time. The complexity of the schedule just does not permit balancing to the degree that you want to see happen. It's particularly a problem with perennial division winners like Denver and NE because they play each other nearly every year (see below), which makes it harder to balance home and road.
Anyway, the game is worth two games, not three, and only one of the games is because of the tie-breaker. If Denver and NE come into the game tied, and NE wins at home, NE goes one up on Denver, and two up considering the tie-breaker. So it's worth two in the standings. But not really; because NE played Denver at home, they play some other game on the road when Denver plays at home. So Denver has a chance to make up the game by playing at home when NE is on the road. Unless you think NE is a heavy favorite on the road against any team but Denver, this is a significant advantage.
E.g., NE had to play KC and SD on the road, and got blown out by KC. If they had played Denver in Denver, they would have played either KC or SD at home, and though the outcome probably would not have been different, they would have been more favored there. Conversely, Denver played Miami and Buffalo at home, winning both games but narrowly. Had they played NE at home, they would have played one of those games on the road, and might easily have lost.
All this is because the AFC E and W played each other this year. In other years, they don't, and NE and Denver meet if/because they are division winners from the previous year. In this case, the home/road juggling can have more far-reaching consequences, e.g., Denver playing at NE means it might play, say, Indy or Pittsburgh, at home instead of on the road, and vice-versa for NE.
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If you want to talk unfair, why did three teams in the AFC North make the playoffs this year? A big reason is because they got to play all four teams in the atrocious NFC South, and if that weren't enough, also got to play the AFC South, another very weak division. The NFC North also benefitted from playing the NFC South teams. Three of the four WCs--the Bengals, Ravens and Lions--had a combined record of 10-1-1 vs. NFC South teams, and 21-15 against all other teams. AZ was the only WC team that did not play all four NFC South teams.
Consider two teams that were fighting for a WC up to the last weekend of the season, BAL and KC. BAL, which ended up with the WC, got to play all four NFC South teams, and beat them all. Take away those games, and the Ravens were 6-6. KC had to play the far better NFC West teams, three of which finished with a better record than the best team in the NFC South, and went 2-2 against them. Take away those games, and the Chiefs were 7-5. BAL and KC played four common opponents, PIT, TE, SD and MIA. BAL was 3-2 vs. these teams, KC was 4-1.
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Wilson fumbled two more times in his last game, bringing his total to 11. And still no lost fumbles. The second best QB in that respect is Flacco, with 5 fumbles and no lost ones. Tannehill fumbled ten times and lost two.
Based on an approximately 40% chance of a QB fumble being lost, the odds of eleven recovered fumbles in a row are about three in a thousand.
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Are the 49ers screwed next year? We might consider what happened at Stanford after Harbaugh left. His assistant David Shaw took over, and has done very well. His first year he took Stanford to another BCS Bowl, but that was with Luck and many other players Harbaugh recruited. The next two years he beat Oregon and won the first two Pac 12 conference championship games, going to the Rose Bowl each time. This year, Stanford disappointed a little, going just 7-5 in the RS, but just winning a minor bowl game to finish 8-5. Overall, though, I'd say Shaw has managed to maintain Stanford's excellence, mostly now with his own recruits.
So far, you can see the same pattern in Oregon. Chip Kelly built the Ducks into a national powerhouse. Two years after he left, his replacement Mark Helfrich has the team in the new playoffs, with a shot at their first national championship. If they win the semifinal game, he will have taken them as far as Kelly ever did.
Of course it's not quite the same situation in the NFL, but there are certainly similar precedents. After John Madden's success with the Raiders, Tom Flores took over and won two SBs. When Bill Walsh retired, George Seifert replaced him and won 2 SBs. Great coaches are defined by great players in a system that optimizes their talent, and that doesn't disappear immediately after a coach leaves. But over time the difference may be evident, as the coaches have to continue to get the best players, and in the NFL, stay abreast of evolving systems. If I had to project, I'd guess that Harbaugh's loss will be felt more a few years down the road than next year (and for just that reason, won't be recognized as such).
If the HC is one of Harbaugh's assistants, he will probably coach much the same way Harbaugh did, and will probably be given a little slack by the fanbase. But if they go outside to get a HC, that HC will be on a very short leash as far as the fans are concerned.