NFL – The Los Angeles Rams qualified for the NFL playoffs at the expense of the Seattle Seahawks thanks to tiebreakers.
For a novice, and even for many passionate followers, it is not necessarily easy to navigate the countless tiebreakers that punctuate the NFL. These tiebreakers are put in place to, as their name suggests, decide between two teams who finish tied at the end of the regular season. This exists as much to decide between two teams neck and neck for the playoffs as to make the difference between two franchises which covet the same draft choice.
During this final week of competition, tiebreakers were used on numerous occasions to award division titles, wildcard places or even choices in the next NFL draft. But the most sensitive case was undoubtedly the one which made it possible to decide between the Seattle Seahawks and the Los Angeles Rams for the title of the NFC West division. A textbook case which has sowed trouble in the brains of many US football fans.
Why did the Rams qualify at the expense of the Seahawks?
The question of the reasons for the qualification of the Rams at the expense of the Seattle Seahawks has come up repeatedly on various social networks since the end of NFL Week 18 this Sunday. So let’s explain why Sean McVay’s men will see the playoffs while Geno Smith’s teammates will stay at home.
Let’s first lay the simplest foundations: with their close victory (30-25) during week 18, the Seattle Seahawks forced the NFL to release its rule book concerning tiebreakers to decide between them and the Los Angeles Rams. Let’s take a look at the tiebreakers one after the other to understand where the difference between the two franchises was made.
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The first way to decide between two franchises is to take into account the direct confrontations between the two teams. In this little game, the Seahawks and the Rams share the victories, with one victory for each franchise, during this 2024 season. Then comes the best division record! Here again, the two franchises are perfectly tied with 4 wins and 2 losses in the NFC West in this 2024 season.
The rest of the NFL tiebreakers then invites us to look at the results during the matches that the two teams had in common on the calendar. Result? Perfect tie between the two franchises! Then it’s time for the NFC conference results! Believe it or not, the Seahawks and Rams are once again tied perfectly with 6 wins and 6 losses in their respective conference games.
We must therefore go down to tiebreaker number 5 to finally succeed in separating the two franchises: the “Strength of victory” (or strength of the victory schedule for non-English speakers). The principle is simple: the NFL counts the results of all the teams you have beaten during the season and divides everything by the number of victories to obtain the “Strength of Victory”. The team of the two that managed to win against teams with more wins than the other wins the division.
To explain a little more, let’s take the case of the Seattle Seahawks and the Los Angeles Rams. Among the Rams’ victories in this 2024 season are successes against the Vikings (who have 14 victories) or against the Bills. For the Seahawks, the most resounding victory is the one against the Broncos (who only have 10 victories). If the Bears for example had had a better season, this could potentially have qualified the Seahawks who managed to beat Chicago unlike the Rams who lost to the Bears.
Usually, the NFL doesn’t need to wait for that many tiebreakers to be able to decide between two teams. The Rams and the Seahawks will have fought a great battle for the NFC West title but as a famous television host would say on an adventure show: “In the end, there will only be one left!” »
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