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Postseason Prep : How the Playoffs Work

Last week in our postseason prep we learned about how teams make it to the postseason. Now that we know how teams get there in the first place, let’s move on and talk about how they advance through the playoffs.

Since this year’s postseason groups is still being decided I’m going to use last year’s playoff picture to put some flesh on this lesson:

The teams in yellow are the division winners. The teams in green are the wildcard teams. The number next to each indicates where they are seeded based on their overall and divisional record.

Good? Ok.

Once the teams and the seed order has been determined, then we can finally get around to playing!

The playoffs are a single elimination tournament played over the course of several weeks. The playoffs are a way of determining the best team from each conference, so teams only play other teams within their conference (AFC or NFC) during the playoffs. Each week features a different matchup within the conference.

Week 1: Wildcard Round

The top two seeds from each conference earn a first round bye, which means they get the week off. After a long season, it’s a coveted luxury since all of the teams are playing hurt and greatly benefit from a week without a game. (Usually. Sometimes teams can also loose momentum from a week off, which is to their detriment. But more often than not it seems to be helpful.) In 2012, the top two seeds in the AFC were the Broncos (1) and the Patriots (2) and the top two seeds in the NFC were the Falcons (1) and the 49ers (2).

Among the remaining eight teams, the highest and lowest seeds in each conference play each other (Seeds 3 and 6) and the middle seeds play each other (Seeds 4 and 5). The higher seed gets home field advantage. So, using our little infographic up there, we know that in the AFC the Ravens (4) played the Colts (5) in Baltimore and the Texans (3) played the Bengals (6) in Houston. In the NFC, the Redskins (4) played the Seahawks (5) in Washington and the Packers (3) played the Vikings (6) in Green Bay.

We also now know that the Ravens, Texans, Seahawks, and Packers all won their games and advanced to the next round.

(And there you have an accurate portrait of parody in the NFL. There’s a good chance that more than half of the teams that played on Wildcard Weekend last year won’t even make the playoffs this year.)

Week 2: Divisional Round

The top seeds return from the bye week and get to play at home. The same schedule follows: the highest and lowest ranked seeds play each other and the middle seeds play each other. Using last year’s example, we know that in the AFC the top seeded Broncos (1) played the Ravens (4) and the Patriots (2) played the Texans (3). The Ravens and Patriots both won and advanced to the next round. In the NFC the top seeded Falcons (1) played the Seahawks (5) and the 49ers (2) played the Packers (3). The Falcons won, as did the 49ers ~~and I don’t still have nightmares about Colin Kaepernick running freely about the field or anything~~.

Week 3: Conference Championships

At this point, four teams remain, two from each conference. Last year, in the AFC, it was the Patriots (2) and the Ravens(4). The last two standing in the NFC were the Falcons (1) and the 49ers (2).

Those teams play each other at the higher seeded teams stadium and the winners are the AFC and NFC Conference Champions. In last year’s case, it was the Ravens and the 49ers. Those two teams, the last team standing from each conference, are the teams that go to the Super Bowl.

Week 4: Bye Week (Week Off)

AKA: Controlled craziness. Until media day arrives, the only day the media has access to players, at which point the craziness is completely uncontrolled.

Super Bowl!

The AFC and NFC Champions play each other in a predetermined location. Last year, the game was played in New Orleans. There were brothers and a blackout, and eventually the Ravens emerged victorious. This year’s Super Bowl is at MetLife stadium in NYC…which should be a party with Jack Frost and a million or so of his closest snowflake friends. Another Ice Bowl might be on it’s way.

Whew! And there you have it: how teams advance through the playoffs. And we only have to wait a few more weeks until this year’s games start!!!

What He Said : Their Own 20-yard Line

More than likely you’ve heard announcers describe a team’s field position as being on “their own” such-and-such yard line. Which might raise more than a few questions if you aren’t sure which part of the field belongs to which team. Is it their own because of something they did in the game or something they won in the coin toss? Or their own because they’re the team on offense, trying to score?

All valid guesses.

But it’s actually much simpler than you might think. A team’s “own” side of the field is the 50-yards of field directly in front of their end zone. As we learned last week, each team has an end zone, and the one behind them is their end zone. The one in front of them is the opposing team’s end zone. The 50-yards attached to their end zone is their own side of the field, the other 50-yards attached to their opponent’s end zone is the other team’s “territory.”

So in a game between the Bills and the Jets, if the Jets are on the 20-yard line closest to their end zone they are on their own side of the field. If they are on the 20-yard line closest to the Bills’ end zone, they are in Bills territory.

Here’s a terrible visual, as well as a visual representation of why I am learning Photoshop right now. But it should do the trick. (Or blind you all, one or the other.)

So let’s make life easy and pretend we have two teams: the blue team and the red team. The blue side of the field is the 50-yards attached to the blue team’s end zone, or their “own” side of the field. Ditto for the red team. If, as per the title of this post, the blue team was starting at their own 20-yard line, they would be lined up as pictured above. The yellow line across the 20 is the line of scrimmage. The blue team is going to line up facing the red teams end zone because that’s the end zone they are trying to score in. The red team lines up on the opposite side of the line to defend their end zone. They are also trying to force a turnover and score in the blue team’s end zone if possible.

As you can see (if you can still see), the blue team as a lot father to go until they cross over into the red team’s territory. This is the visual to keep in mind when 4th downs come to come. If, hypothetically, the blue team pictured above was facing a 4th and 5, they would only go for it is they were really, really desperate or really, really confident that it would work because if it doesn’t and they don’t get the first down they’d have to turn the ball over to the red team right where they are. That means the red team is already in scoring position, only 20-yards outside of the blue team’s end zone.

Does that make sense?

Postseason Prep : How the Postseason Works

We’ve arrived at the final quarter of the NFL regular season. Which means that in less than a month…the postseason will be here! Already!!! The regular season always flies by too quickly.

Let’s backtrack a bit. Just as a frame of reference, here are the various seasons within the NFL year:

August = Preseason (4 games that don’t count)

September – December = Regular Season (16 games that determine if you advance to the postseason)

January – February = Postseason (a single-elimination tournament (playoffs) culminating with the Super Bowl)

February – July = Offseason (a painful, dull time of year in which much ado is made about lots of nothing)

The postseason is the season that happens after the regular season, more commonly known as the time when playoffs and the Super Bowl happen. We all know that the best teams are the ones that play in the Super Bowl, but how do they get there?

It all boils down to what happened in the regular season and how teams stack up against other teams within their division and conference. In the NFL, there are two conferences, the NFC and the AFC. There are four divisions within each conference and four teams in each division (resulting in 32 teams).

Here’s what that looks like:

So the big, overarching entity is the NFL.

Within the NFL there are two conferences, the AFC and the NFC.

Each conference has four divisions (loosely) based on geography: the North, East, South, and West.

Each division has four teams. So the AFC North, for example, consists of the Bengals, Browns, Ravens, and Steelers.

Got it?

Ok, let’s move onto the postseason.

Teams advance into the postseason by the merit of their regular season record. The team with the best regular season record within each division gets an automatic playoff spot. That’s 8 teams. Two additional teams from each conference also advance. These “wildcard” teams are the two teams with the best record among the non-division winners from the whole conference (AFC or NFC). That’s 4 total wildcards teams. In total, that makes 12 teams that advance into the postseason.

It seems fairly cut and dry: win your division or make the wildcard cut, advance to the playoffs. But as we’ve come to expect, it’s not quite that easy.

Sometimes it really is that easy, like in the AFC East. The Patriots usually end the season north of 12 wins. The rest of the division (Bills, Dolphins, Jets) usually end much farther south of 12 wins. They are usually the undisputed victors of the AFC East. But most of the time the race is a little closer. Take the NFC East, for example. The Eagles, Cowboys, and Giants will probably be fighting for first place until the final week of the season. And what happens if two of the teams end up with the same record? What is multiple potential wildcard teams have the same record, too?

That’s where divisional wins come in, and why divisional games (games against the other teams in your division) are so important.

During the 16-game regular season schedule a team plays all of the other teams in their division twice: once at home, and once away. That accounts for 6 whole games out of a 16-game schedule (the remaining 10 games are played in an even split of home and away games on a rotating schedule against all of the other teams in the league). If two teams in the same division have the same overall record, the team that has the best divisional record gets the playoff spot.

So let’s stick with the NFC East. The Cowboys have won all 4 of their games against the other teams in the division so far. The Eagles have played 5 divisional games and have a 3-2 in-division record. If the season ended today and the Cowboys and Eagles had the same overall record, the Cowboys would still win the division based on their higher divisional record.

The same goes for wildcard teams. If there are multiple potential wildcard teams with the same record (a likelihood in the AFC this year), the two wildcard teams from the division will be decided by which two teams have the highest divisional record.

Once the division winners and wildcard teams are decided the teams are seeded (ranked) according to their record, 1-6 for each division. The four division winners are ranked 1-4 and the wildcard teams are ranked 5-6.

Are you thoroughly confused yet?

If so, you’ve got a week to review! We’ll continue our postseason prep next week by going over last year’s playoff picture to figure our how the playoffs work. And if you have any questions in the meantime you know where to find me!

5-Minute Football : End Zones

We all probably know what an end zone is. That’s a no brainer. But we’ve talked about end zones fairly frequently over the past few weeks, so I thought it’d be a good time to corral all of that info into a 5-minute football lesson.

Here’s a ~~crooked~~ homemade visual to serve as a frame of reference while we chat about all things end zone:

1. The end zones are the 10-yard scoring zones located at the ends of each playing field.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you already knew that, but we’ll cover all of our bases just in case. On that note: the objective of the game is to score in the other team’s end zone.

2. The end zones are 10-yards deep.

A football field consists of 100-yards of playing space with two 10-yard end zones at each end. That’s how kicks returned for touchdowns can be greater than 100-yards, even though the playing field is only 100-yards long. If the receiver catches the kick in the back of the end zone he’s likely 8 or 9 yards deep before he crosses the goal line and runs into the playing field. By the time he crosses the goal line at the other end of the field to score in the other team’s end zone, he’s run a total of 108-yards or so. Thus, a 108-yard return on a 100-yard field.

3. The yard line just prior to the end zone is called the goal line.

The goal line functions as the barrier between the playing field and the end zone. The nose of the football must cross the goal line to count as a touchdown. (If a receiver is standing in the end zone to catch a touchdown, he must have full control of the ball and two feet in-bounds to count as a touchdown.)

4. Four orange pylons (plastic cones that look kind of like tall, skinny, square construction cones) indicate the outer parameters of the end zone.

When the football crosses the goal line it must be inside of the pylons to count as a touchdown.

5. Each team does not claim one end zone for the whole game!!!

This might me one of the most commonly unknown facts in all of football: a team doesn’t get to keep their end zone for the whole game. There is not one side that is, say, the Browns end zone and then the other side is the Titans end zone for the whole game. As we learned last week, teams switch end zones at the end of every quarter to accommodate for fair playing conditions, and the team that defers the kickoff gets to choose which end zone they’ll defend first.

Easy way to remember which end zone is which team’s? Each team’s end zone is the one behind them. Here’s a good example that might serve as your lightbulb moment for the day (I know it was for me the first time I heard it!):

Let’s say the Browns and the Titans are playing. The Titans are on offense and the Browns are on defense. When both teams line up along the line of scrimmage, the Browns end zone will be the one behind the Browns, and the Titans end zone will be the one behind the Titans. The Titans are trying to score in the Browns end zone, and the Browns are trying to defend their own end zone against being scored in.

And now you know all the things you never knew you never knew about end zones. So it’s already been a successful Tuesday! Good work!

5-Minute Football : Coin Toss

It’s a simple thing: the captains from both teams gather round and a coin gets flipped. It’s one of the oldest ways to make an unbiased decision. But what actually gets decided at the coin toss?

First, the team that wins the coin toss gets to decide whether to receive or defer. If they choose to receive they will be on the receiving end of the kickoff that starts the game. The other team then gets to receive the kickoff after halftime to start the second half. If the team that wins the coin toss choses to defer they will wait to receive the kickoff until the second half and the other team will receive the kickoff that starts the game.

Quick roundup of definitions:

Receive = start on offense at the start of the game.

Defer = start on offense at the start of the second half.

Receiving team = team that receives the kickoff.

Kicking team = team that kicks the kickoff.

The team that chooses to defer gets to decide which end zone they want to defend first. It’s supposed to function as a consolation prize – if you aren’t choosing when you get the ball, you get to chose which end zone you want to defend first. (Teams switch end zones at the end of every quarter.)

I kind of wonder if the coin toss rules might change soon, because the current trend in the NFL is to defer. A team defers kickoff by choice…and then also gets their pick of the end zones. It’s a win/win for the winning team and a lose/lose for the losing team. Deferring the kickoff is advantageous for teams who believe they will have a lead at halftime and want to come back out and put points on the board asap – to “double up” on the number of scores that separates them from the other team.

However, this trend does not hold true in overtime, when the team that wins the coin toss always elects to receive. We’ll go over overtime rules in more detail soon, but it’s always advantageous to score first, so the team that wins the coin toss would want the ball first.

What He Said : A Winning Season

While watching games over the weekend I noticed that no one ever really explains what having “a winning season” actually means, even though it’s a term that is thrown around fairly regularly at this time of year. Does having a winning season mean winning the Super Bowl? Or is it merely winning your division? Do moral victories count?

What exactly do you have to win to have a winning season?

As it turns out, it’s not a question of what but of how many.

To have a season count as a winning season a team needs to win more games than they lose. Had a 12-4 regular season record? Winning season. Had a 9-7 regular season record and missed the playoffs on account of divisional losses? Still a winning season. Anytime a team wins more games than they lose – no matter which games they win or which stage of the post-season they make it to, if any – it’s a winning season.

This is also called being “above .500,” which probably sounds completely unrelated when taken out of context. But really, it makes sense! A team’s winning percentage is calculated by dividing the number of wins by the total number of games. Having an equal number of wins and losses would result in an 8-8 season, and 8 (number of wins) divided by 16 (total number of games) = .500 (winning percentage). Any more wins than that would result in a winning percentage above .500. For example, our 9-7 team from the paragraph above would have a winning percentage of .563. The 12-4 team has a winning percentage of .750. Both of those teams calculate out to “above .500” because they had more wins than losses and, thus, had winning seasons.

The opposite of a winning season is, of course, a losing season, which means that a team fell “below .500” and therefore lost more games than they won.

Here’s your interesting piece of NFL trivia for the day: a team can have a losing season and still make the playoffs. True story. In fact, it happened not too long ago to the 7-9 Seattle Seahawks, who won the NFC West to make it into the playoffs in the 2010 season back when the NFC West looked something like this season’s NFC East.

Which hammers home the point all the more that losing seasons and winning seasons have nothing to do with titles and everything to do with number of wins. Just another that-kind-of-makes-sense-but-wait-does-it? aspect of football.