Playoff thread

[dolphins4life]

MIA can no longer beat BUF on tiebreakers.

Division teams play against the same opponents for 14 of their games, with the two exceptions being two intraconference opponents that finished in the same division placing last season.

For 4th-place MIA, those games were JAX (W) and CIN (W).
For 2nd-place BUF, those games were TEN (L) and PIT (TBD).

If MIA and BUF finish with the same overall record, then by definition BUF must have at least one more win among the 14 games they have played common opponents (or else BUF would be at least one loss back).

MIA finishes with a better record or BUF wins the division.  It's that simple.

What about NE?  Can they still win the division

[EDGECRUSHER]

MIA can no longer beat BUF on tiebreakers.

Division teams play against the same opponents for 14 of their games, with the two exceptions being two intraconference opponents that finished in the same division placing last season.

For 4th-place MIA, those games were JAX (W) and CIN (W).
For 2nd-place BUF, those games were TEN (L) and PIT (TBD).

If MIA and BUF finish with the same overall record, then by definition BUF must have at least one more win among the 14 games they have played common opponents (or else BUF would be at least one loss back).

MIA finishes with a better record or BUF wins the division.  It's that simple.

..

Unless something shocking happens with Buffalo, we need to win out while Buffalo loses to Pittsburgh next week. They can certainly lose to the Steelers and to us, but Miami winning the last 4? I wouldn't bet on that.

This is all because we lost to the fucking Broncos.

[dolphins4life]

Well, I think we can give Baltimore this game

So anyway

Here are the four possibilities (barring any ties) for the wild card teams next week

Scenario one

Cle: 10-3
Ind: 8-5
LV:   8-5
Bal: 7-6

Scenario two

Cle: 10-3
Ind: 9-4
LV:   7-6
Bal: 7-6

Scenario three

Cle: 9-4
Ind: 9-4
Bal: 8-5
LV:  7-6

Scenario four

Cle: 9-4
Ind  8-5
Bal  8-5
LV:  8-5

Assuming Miami loses the Chiefs, which of these scenarios is best for Miami?

[Fau Teixeira]

Assuming Miami loses the Chiefs

no

[dolphins4life]

This is HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO.

Can we discuss this HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO?

If you want to discuss if Miami wins, we can do that.

Personally, I will bet my entire 9.5 time and half hours at the store a couple weeks ago that they lose.

[fyo]

d4l, if you really want to do this, sure...

Yes, the Patriots can still win the division. They have 6 wins with 4 games remaining and no one in the AFC East has reached 10, so that's obvious. They can even beat the Bills on tie-breaker, so they don't even need to win out (theoretically) or, alternatively, have the Bills lose all four. They do need to actually beat the Bills, though. But 3 wins in the last four rounds could (in theory) see the Patriots with the division title.

That should tell you a little about the problem of trying to do the numbers at this stage. There are simply *a lot* of possibilities, so from a team perspective it's much better to just think in terms of getting things done yourself. Can't win 10? Then go home.

Your "four possibilities" above is woefully incomplete to the point of being meaningless. With only the Chiefs having won their division, there are 11 teams vying for the remaining AFC playoff spots (3 divisions + 3 wildcards). Not all can still win their respective division, but all are in play for a wild card.

At this stage you can either start pruning the more unlikely scenarios (e.g. Houston out), lock in the most likely ones (e.g. Steelers win division) or you can look at it from different point of view in how the Dolphins get in with varying number of wins. There are still a dizzying number of possibilities, but without doing some fancy diagramming it's definitely the easiest, so let's stick with that:

8 wins and the Dolphins can theoretically get the 7th seed (and only 7th seed), but would require a staggering number of things to happen, including the Colts losing out. They are pretty much the only 8-8 tie-breaker we could win.

9 wins and the Dolphins are most likely out, but there are a number of ways in as a wild card. It gets a bit messy, but the absolutely most important game is the one against the Raiders. Winning that gives the Dolphins the tiebreaker against the Raiders (head-to-head). Realistic 9-win teams: Colts, Ravens, Raiders, and Patriots. Of those we *always* lose a 9-win tiebreaker to the Patriots (either head-to-head or division). A win against the Raiders would give us the tiebreaker over the Raiders (head-to-head), the Colts (conference or common games), and the Ravens (conference)! If we lose to the Raiders, there are still options, but we start to lose a lot of likely 9-win tiebreakers. First and foremost, of course, you need to hope no more than one of Colts/Ravens/Raiders wind up with 10 wins and, preferably, that the Patriots don't wind up with 9. And, just for the record, you would definitely want the Titans to win the AFC South as they would have the tiebreaker with a win over either the Jaguars or the Texans.

10 wins and the Dolphins are very likely to make it. The other possible 10+ win non-division winners are Patriots, Colts/Titans, Browns, Ravens, and Raiders. We can't have 3 of those 5 get to 11 wins, or 10 in case of the Patriots. We can take care of business ourselves with the Raiders and Patriots (who need to win out to get to 10). At 10 wins, we would hold the tiebreakers against the Ravens and Colts, so they would both have to win 11+, along with the Browns being 11+ or 10 + the tiebreaker (which would come down to which remaining games each team won) for us not to make the playoffs with 10 wins.

11 wins and the Dolphins are *almost* guaranteed a spot in the playoffs. The Browns and either Colts/Titans can still finish better and grab the 5th and 6th seeds, but that 7th one (or better) is all ours unless the Raiders win out (so our 1 loss would have to be against them) in addition to the Browns, Colts, *and* Titans all reaching 12+ wins. (We would win tiebreakers against the Ravens and Steelers - the latter going to common opponents, where we would win since we can't lose against the Bills in this scenario).

12 wins and the Dolphins are in. We could still lose the tiebreaker for the division to Bills, but only one of the Browns/Colts could grab a higher wild card seed than the 12-win Dolphins.

So, how does all this apply to upcoming schedule, if you really need to be cheering for other teams at this stage? Well, 10 wins seems the most likely and we don't want to lower the overall probability of getting into the playoffs just to keep very unlikely paths open right now, so you would want:

BROWNS at home over Ravens.
STEELERS away over Bills.
RAMS at home over Patriots.

Those are easy. You'd probably also want the JAGUARS over the Titans, although you do want the Titans to win the division, so it's not that important a game unless you believe the Titans are going to melt down and lose 3+ of their last 4 (Jaguars, Lions, Packers, Texans).

The hardest is probably the Colts @ Raiders game.

This one comes down to whether you believe the Dolphins can handle the Raiders themselves. If you a sure of that, then the best thing would be a Raiders win. Otherwise, you might want to put away the Raiders' right here and increase the possibility of getting into the playoffs with just 9 wins (still very unlikely, just slightly less so) or 10 wins with a loss to the Raiders (which would mean two wins in games against the Chiefs, Patriots, and Bills - along with a bunch of other stuff, see the 9 wins section above).

At this point, my gut is that if we can't take care of the Raiders ourselves, we won't get in anyway. Too many tiebreakers and the remaining schedule isn't easy. So I would say:

RAIDERS at home over Colts.

[dolphins4life]

Great start to this week for Miami.  That should all but eliminate the Patriots from playoff contention.

[dolphins4life]

Who would you rather see in two weeks?  Stitham or Newton?

[dolphins4life]

What about NE?  Can they still win the division

No, they cannot

[Spider-Dan]

No, they cannot

Yes, they can.

If NE wins out, BUF loses out, and MIA loses against KC and LV, all three teams would be 9-7, but NE would have the best division record at 5-1.

Setting aside the games in which NE controls it's own destiny - the games NE itself plays - such an outcome would likely involve only two upsets: BUF losing on the road against DEN and at home against MIA.

[dolphins4life]

Yes, they can.

If NE wins out, BUF loses out, and MIA loses against KC and LV, all three teams would be 9-7, but NE would have the best division record at 5-1.

Setting aside the games in which NE controls it's own destiny - the games NE itself plays - such an outcome would likely involve only two upsets: BUF losing on the road against DEN and at home against MIA.

I was wrong about this.   Score this one in the d4l is wrong column

What is the best site for playoff chances?  I may have been wrong about the Patriots being all but eliminated, too.  If they beat Miami, they go to 7-7 with three head to head tiebreakers in hand.

[EDGECRUSHER]

I was wrong about this.   Score this one in the d4l is wrong column

What is the best site for playoff chances?  I may have been wrong about the Patriots being all but eliminated, too.  If they beat Miami, they go to 7-7 with three head to head tiebreakers in hand.

They aren't eliminated but they are all but eliminated. They can certainly win their last 3 but they still need at least 3 other teams to completely collapse.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

I was wrong about this.   Score this one in the d4l is wrong column

What is the best site for playoff chances?  I may have been wrong about the Patriots being all but eliminated, too.  If they beat Miami, they go to 7-7 with three head to head tiebreakers in hand.

It is a very long column.



http://playoffstatus.com/nfl/nfl.html. is a good site

[fyo]

It is a very long column.



http://playoffstatus.com/nfl/nfl.html. is a good site

That's an interesting site, thanks! I especially like the "magic number" chart.

[dolphins4life]

Well here is how things stand now

The Division is all but out of the question for Miami.

Here are the WC teams

Cleveland is 9-3  They will almost certainly take the top WC spot.

Miami is 8-5
indy is 8-5
LV is 7-6
Baltimore is 7-5

NE is still in the hunt at 6-7.  Miami can eliminate them with a win next week.  

Miami cannot be eliminated from contention next week.

Miami MUST defeat LV to have a chance.  

I wonder what the chances are if Miami wins that game and either one of the two division games it has left.

We definitely will be rooting for the Browns to beat the Ravens.