Per the NFL, tiebreaking procedures are invoked for teams with identical "won-lost-tied percentages". Normally a tie is considered half a win and half a loss, so 9-5-2 would be identical to 10-6-0; 9-5-2 is not considered as if it were 9-5-0. Note that this is distinct from a league like the NHL, where ties are common but number of wins is an early tiebreaker. — Lomn15:16, 10 December 2008 (UTC)Further references: our article on the NFL playoffs notes that in the league's early years, ties were omitted, leading to 6-1-6 and 6-1-4 being considered identical (and superior to 10-3-1). The Elias Sports Bureau uses 1971-1972 as the transition point; ties in or prior to 1971 are disregarded, while ties in 1972 and beyond are considered the half-win half-loss format. — Lomn15:27, 10 December 2008 (UTC)Lomn has it right; under the old system (prior to 1971) the NFL used only numbers of wins and losses to calculate win percentage, with a "tie" counting as zero wins and zero losses. After 1971, the tie was changed to count as 1/2 win and 1/2 loss, thus altering the way "win percentage" was calculated. Both 10-6-0 and 9-5-2 would have identical .625 win percentages, so would activate the tie-breaking procedures. See National Football League playoffs#Breaking ties for more on these. Given that a "tie" happens about 2-3 times a decade in the NFL, it would be exceedingly rare for the same team to get two in one season. Since the institution of "sudden death overtime" in 1974, there have only been 13 tie games in the NFL, and the only year with multiple tie games was in 1997, when there were 2. Over that time period, there have been about (rough estimate) 20,000 games played. Having the same team get two in the same season would be unprecedented. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:11, 10 December 2008 (UTC)I did not know that. I though that the tie was 1/2 win and 1/2 loss, so it cancelled itself out. However, I can see that (9+0.5)/(5+0.5) is not the same as (9/5)+(1/2 - 1/2). -- kainaw™ 18:34, 10 December 2008 (UTC)Yeah, as the math works out, two ties will cancel each other out (since you would add 1 win and 1 loss to the record). Thus a 0-0-16 record would be mathematically identical to a 8-8-0 record. However, with an odd number of ties (and since no team since 1974 has had more than one) it gets a little weird. Given the math, if you have a winning record with one tie, the tie is just as good as a loss, since the half game will drag down the wins more than it drags up the losses. However, if you have a losing record, a tie has a greater effect on the number of wins, thus in those cases a tie is as good as a win. Given that it is nearly impossible for a team with a losing record to make the playoffs (it is mathematically possible, but in practice it never happens) for the purposes of playoff qualification, you will often hear comentators state "A tie is as good as a loss".
