I had a conversation with a friend about NFL, division games, recently. My friend was discussing his favorite team, the Cincinnati Bengals. This season (2023), the Bengals have gotten off to a slow, 1-2 start. My friend argued that it’s not reasonable to start the season with division games.
My friend and I are fans of divisional rivals – the Cincinnati Bengals and the Pittsburgh Steelers, respectively. I used our teams’ division – the AFC North – as an example to explore his concerns with the NFL scheduling procedure.
My friend argues that many teams can get off to a slow start. Indeed, both the Steelers and Bengals faced two of the toughest defenses in the NFL, in Week 1. Additionally, both teams offenses struggled through the first two weeks of play due to challenges at the QB position. However, the Steelers schedule has provided a bit of an advantage in this season’s scenario. While the season is nowhere near over, the hole the Steelers dug for themselves in Week 1 was not quite as deep as the one the Bengals ended up in.
During NFL Week 1, The Steelers had a rough start to the season, getting blown out by the San Francisco 49ers – a non-conference opponent – in their home opener, in Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, the Bengals traveled to Cleveland and got blown out by the Browns, a division rival.
Fast forward to NFL Week 2, and we see the Steelers pull out a defensively dominating win as they hosted the Browns. Simultaneously, the Bengals lost a close game while hosting division rival Baltimore Ravens, in the Bengals home opener.
After NFL Week 2, the AFC North team records and standings looked like this:
- Baltimore Ravens: 2-1
- Pittsburgh Steelers: 1-1
- Cleveland Browns: 1-1
- Cincinnati Bengals: 0-2
Let’s clear up some potential concerns for members of the audience that may not be familiar with NFL tie breaking rules. In the list above, the Steelers are ranked #2 among the four teams even though the Browns have the same record. However, the Steelers defeated the Browns. This gives the Steelers the advantage when breaking the tie. The first statistic used to break a tie between teams in the same division is the record each team has based on the games played between them. At this point, the Steelers are 1-0 vs. the Browns. The Browns are 0-1 vs. the Steelers.
On to the relevant point about team seeding based on their opponents. The Steelers benefited from their week one loss because the 49ers are a non-conference opponent. If you took a look at the NFL tie-breaking procedures, then you’ll notice that the top four requirements consider both division play and conference play. This means the Steelers can eliminate a team in a tie-breaking standoff based on having a better standing in these scenarios. Losing to non-conference teams has no bearing on these criteria until you reach the fifth tie-breaking criterion: strength of victory.
The Bengals lost two division games out of the gate. They only have four more division games to play. The club only has the potential to go 4-2 in the division, at best. Additionally, the AFC North division is scheduled to play the NFC West division – the 49ers division – this season. This means the Bengals will have an opportunity to defeat the team that has already beaten the Steelers. At first glance, this would seem to be an opportunity to level the playing field between the two teams based on record. If the Bengals can defeat the 49ers, then that may help them if they can tie a team in all four highest tie-breaking criteria. This would allow the Bengals to begin competing with their record using the “strength of victory” tie breaker.
The only issue with being able to start competing with a team’s record starting with the fifth criterion is that scenario is usually rare to implement based on context. If the Bengals match the Steelers in a head-to-head record comparison, the divisional records and the conference records of the two clubs would come into play before the teams’ strength of schedule would be considered. Usually ties are broken well before considering strength of victory. One reason for this is that divisional losses also count as conference losses. Therefore, in this scenario, the Steelers are further benefitting from the non-conference loss to the 49ers. Essentially, this allows the Steelers to stack the most relevant tie breakers in their favor since they have not taken any losses in the division or the conference. Let’s take another look at how this phenomenon affects the AFC North at this point, after Week 3 games.
- Pittsburgh Steelers: 2-1
- Baltimore Ravens: 2-1
- Cleveland Browns: 2-1
- Cincinnati Bengals: 1-2
In Week 3, the Steelers defeated the Las Vegas Raiders (AFC West division), the Ravens lost to the Indianapolis Colts (AFC South division), the Browns toppled the Tennessee Titans (AFC South division), and the Bengals overcame the Los Angeles Rams. All three teams have a record of 2-1. Applying tie breakers for three or more clubs, we see the Browns eliminated from contention since both the Steelers and Ravens currently have perfect division records (no division losses). With the Browns now eliminated from contention, two-club tie breakers will apply. the Steelers beat out the Ravens due to having a perfect conference record. As you can see, most scenarios typically end after applying the relevant teams’ conference records. This means the Bengals still have to fight to get into a stronger tie-breaking position.
I think it might be more reasonable for the NFL to schedule full divisional play weeks. In these weeks of play, all NFL teams would play division games. This might be exciting for all fans since division games are always big games that typically feature intense team rivalries. This also places all teams under similar divisional pressure, on a week-to-week basis. However, team bye-weeks might make this scheduling more challenging.
Or maybe this doesn’t really matter at all, over the course of the season? What do you think? Should the NFL remove division games from Week 1? Should the NFL only schedule division games in Week 1 if all teams within the division have the same pressure? Should all division games be played simultaneously across either the entire conference or the entire league? Or is the NFL scheduling fine as it is? Is this a non-issue that only ended up in fun, friendly banter between division-rival fans? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below?