How the NFL Actually Breaks a Playoff Tie

When two NFL teams finish the regular season with identical records, the league does not hold a vote or replay a game. It runs a fixed sequence of comparisons called the tie-breaking procedures, published by the NFL, that can move through as many as twelve steps before a seed is settled, and in rare cases ends in a coin toss.

The rules exist because win-loss record alone cannot separate two 10-7 teams, and someone has to decide who hosts a wild-card game and who stays home. The NFL's official tie-breaking procedures lay out a different order of criteria depending on whether the tied clubs share a division or are competing across the conference for a wild-card spot, and whether it's two teams or a crowd.

How does the NFL break a tie between two teams in the same division?

For two clubs in the same division, the league works through the criteria in a set order until one separates them. Head-to-head record comes first — whichever team won more of the games the two played against each other that season. If that's also tied, the comparison moves to won-lost-tied percentage in games within the division, then to a common-games record against shared opponents, then to conference record.

Only after those four steps fail does the process turn to broader performance measures: strength of victory, strength of schedule, and combined rankings in points scored and allowed. As Sports Illustrated's breakdown of the rules notes, net points and net touchdowns come even later, with a coin toss reserved as the true last resort.

What happens when three or more teams are tied?

A three-way or larger tie runs through the same ordered list, but with a twist: if a step eliminates only some of the tied clubs and two teams remain tied with each other, the procedure restarts at step one for that pair, using the two-club version of the rules rather than continuing down the multi-club list. Fox Sports' explainer describes this as the league re-running the sequence "from scratch" once a group narrows to a pair, which is why a three-team logjam can take longer to resolve than a straightforward two-team tie.

The practical effect is that a division with three 9-8 teams doesn't get settled by one clean run through twelve steps. The league eliminates clubs where it can, then re-applies the full head-to-head-first sequence to whoever is left, according to Fox Sports.

How is a wild-card tie different from a division tie?

Wild-card ties involve teams from different divisions within the same conference, so a division-record comparison isn't available to break the tie. Instead, after head-to-head (only applied if the tied clubs actually played each other), the NFL moves to conference win-loss percentage, then a common-games record requiring a minimum of four shared opponents before it counts.

When three or more clubs from different divisions are tied for a wild-card berth, the league first applies the division tiebreaker to each division represented, keeping only the highest-ranked team from each before comparing what's left. If a head-to-head sweep exists — one club beat every other club still in the group, or lost to every one of them — that sweep decides it before the remaining statistical steps are even reached.

What do "strength of victory" and "strength of schedule" actually measure?

Strength of victory totals the combined win-loss record of every team a club beat that season; strength of schedule does the same for every opponent a club played, win or lose. Both are ways of crediting a team for beating good opponents rather than padding a record against weak ones, and both sit in the middle of the tiebreaker sequence — well after head-to-head and divisional or conference record, but well before the process gets down to raw point totals.

Because these measures depend on how other teams around the league performed, they can keep shifting during the final weeks of a season as those opponents win or lose games that have nothing to do with the tied clubs directly.

Does it ever actually come down to a coin toss?

Yes, but only as the final step, after every won-loss, scoring, and touchdown-based comparison has failed to produce a winner — a scenario the league's own procedures list as the last item on both the division and wild-card sequences. In practice, most ties are resolved well before that point, typically by head-to-head record or a conference win-loss comparison.

The current framework has been in place since the NFL realigned into eight four-team divisions in 2002, giving every tie-breaking scenario a division-record step that didn't previously exist under the league's earlier three-division setup.

None of this shows up on a normal standings page, which is why a late-season tiebreaker scenario can look confusing even to attentive fans: two teams can be listed with identical records and no visible explanation for why one is projected to host a wild-card game and the other isn't. The explanation is always the same fixed sequence, just applied quietly by the league office rather than argued out on a broadcast.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Does a tie count as a win or a loss in these calculations? Neither outright — a tied game counts as one-half win and one-half loss for both clubs when the league calculates winning percentage for any tiebreaker step.
• Can a team lose a tiebreaker after leading the head-to-head series? No — if head-to-head fully separates the tied clubs, the procedure stops there and no later step is used, regardless of how the teams compare elsewhere.
• Are division and wild-card tiebreakers ever both needed for the same team? Yes — a club can lose a division tiebreaker to a divisional rival and still qualify by winning a separate wild-card tiebreaker against teams from other divisions in the same conference.

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