Carolina Panthers: The Twisted Path to the Playoffs

The Carolina Panthers can make the playoffs. Yet it won’t be easy or likely.

The Carolina Panthers are still alive for the playoffs. The barely alive, having DNR discussions kind of alive. Still we might as well look to see how the Panthers could tip toe through the mine field of the teams in front of them and still make the playoffs.

The first step is that the Panthers must beat Atlanta and Tampa Bay in their final two games. That much should be obvious to anyone. That would raise the Panthers record to 8-8, which is the highest it could get to at this point.

Now comes the losing. It would be simple to say everyone must lose every game, but in reality it is not that clean. There are a number of teams ahead of the Panthers right now. If the season ended today, Green Bay would be the sixth seed. The Panthers need the Packers to lose to Vikings and Lions to fall to 8-8 and force a tiebreaker.

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Behind Green Bay is Tampa. Tampa needs to lose to the Saints this weekend and the Panthers next weekend for this to work as well. That would drop the Buccaneers to 8-8.

Next would be Washington. The Redskins are the difficult one on this list because their tie earlier in the year would prevent them from going 8-8 like everybody else so far. The Panthers would need Washington to finish with less than eight wins. That would mean losing to the Bears and Giants or losing one game and tying the other game. They also get to play the Bears.

The Vikings are another toughie. They have to beat the Packers but lose to the Bears. Yes, this list involves a lot of favor-doing by John Fox toward his former team. That would enable them to finish at 8-8 and since they have to beat the Packers, we must let them do this.

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Then comes the Saints. The Saints sit with the same record as the Panthers. The Panthers will need them to beat the Bucs, but then the Saints will have to lose to Atlanta. One of the downsides of this is having to pull for the Falcons next week. The Saints would then finish 7-9.

That would give a four way tie between Panthers, Packers, Buccaneers, and Vikings. That would subject the team to the NFL Tiebreaker Formula. So here is the process for a Four Team Tiebreaker for a Wild Card spot.

Apply division tie breaker to eliminate all but the highest ranked club in each division prior to proceeding to step 2. The original seeding within a division upon application of the division tie breaker remains the same for all subsequent applications of the procedure that are necessary to identify the two Wild-Card participants.

So according to the NFL rules, we would apply the divisional tiebreaker and end up with two teams, one NFC South team and one NFC North team.

The Division Tiebreaker starts like this:

Head-to-head (best won-lost-tied percentage in games between the clubs)

In this scenario, the Panthers and Buccaneers would have split the season series. Vikings would advance to the next step with a season sweep of Green Bay.

Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the division.

The Panthers and Bucs would have identical 3-3 division records in this scenario.

Best won-lost-tied percentage in common games.

As NFC South teams, the Panthers and Bucs would have played eight common interdivisional games against the NFC West and AFC West. The Panthers record in those games is 4-4 (1-3 v AFC West, 3-1 vs NFC West). The Bucs record in those games is also 4-4 (2-2 vs AFC West, 2-2 vs NFC West).

Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the conference

If you paid attention to the previous one, you might guess how this turns out. The Panthers have their 3-1 record against the West and 1-1 record against Washington and Minnesota for a 4-2 record here. The Bucs have their 2-2 record plus a 1-1 record against Chicago and Dallas for a 3-3 record. The Panthers thereby hold the tiebreaker over the Bucs.

Despite this procedure seeming to pit Vikings and Panthers for the final tiebreaker, it does not exclude the Packers and Bucs at this point in the process. So as we move back to the multi-team tiebreaker don’t forget that fact.

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Finally Step 2 of the Wild-Card Multi-Team Tiebreaker

Head-to-head sweep. (Applicable only if one club has defeated each of the others or if one club has lost to each of the others.)

This is why that previous statement is important. Neither of the teams involved have beaten all the others. So the Panthers survive this step despite a head-to-head loss to the Vikings earlier in the year.

Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the conference.

We know the Panthers are a 7-5 NFC team and the Bucs are a 6-6 NFC team. Now we need to consider Minnesota. The Vikings are a 5-7 NFC team. The Packers would end up being a 6-6 NFC team in the scenario. Therefore the Panthers would come out of this particular four way tie on top.

Next: Panthers in the Pro Bowl

See how much easier it would have been to beat the Broncos, Chiefs, Bucs, Saints, or Raiders instead of having to do all this stuff?

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