December 17, 2007

NFL Draft Order Tiebreakers

THIS IS FROM LAST YEAR! FOR THE 2009 NFL DRAFT ORDER, CLICK HERE.

Playoff scenarios? You can find those anywhere. If you're a fan of the 20 golfing teams right now...

...you're more concerned with draft scenarios.



1) Super Bowl Winner picks 32nd

2) Super Bowl Loser picks 31st


3) Teams are ranked in inverse order of their record. Ties count as a half win and half loss.

4) A playoff team always picks after a non-playoff team with the same regular season record. If two playoff teams have the same regular season record, but one was eliminated in an earlier round, that team picks first.

5) Ties are then broken using strength of schedule (average of all 16 opponent's winning percentage, divisionmates count twice since they were played twice. Or count the wins of all opponents, same result). Weaker schedule picks earlier.

6) If SOS fails to break the tie, and the teams are in the same division, apply the division playoff tiebreakers (except the "loser" picks higher).

7) If SOS fails to break the tie, the teams are not in the same division, but the teams are in the same conference, apply the conference playoff tiebreakers (except the "loser" picks higher).

8) If the teams are still tied, or are in different conferences, a coin toss decides the order.

[Don't forget that the Niners pick goes to New England, and New England's pick (which is guaranteed to be no better than 29th) has been forfeited. Miami has NOT clinched the #1 pick.]

Here is the current draft order (without SOS tiebreaker, which is pointless to apply with 32 games left).

1. Miami

2-4. Atlanta, NY Jets, St. Louis

5-8. Baltimore, Kansas City, Oakland, New England (via San Fran.)

9-10. Cincinnati, Chicago

11-15. Arizona, Carolina, Denver, Detroit, Philadelphia

16-19. Buffalo, Houston, New Orleans, Washington

20. Tennessee

21. Minnesota

22-23. Cleveland, NY Giants

24. Jacksonville

25-28. San Diego, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, Seattle

29. Green Bay

30. Indianapolis

31. Dallas

32. Forfeited by New England

7 Responses:

Dewey (Yardbarker) said...

Hot damn! I will be following the draft-scenario developments closely.

The NFL Draft is my favorite day of the year, even more so than the first day of the season.

Thanks for this.

Brien said...

Why does the NFL use strength of schedule for draft order and not for playoffs? It seems like the draft order should be set by the same rules as playoff seeding.

J-Red said...

Because for the playoffs you don't have teams in different conferences to compare. The NFL likes the current division record then conference record for playoff tiebreakers. It just doesn't work/isn't fair for draft tiebreakers.

Jeremy said...

woo-hoo! Shorter NFL draft this year with one less first round pick!

J-Red said...

And Goodell shortened it to 10minutes between picks this year.

Masqueraider said...

I was wondering when there has ever been a three way tie on both W/L and strength of schedule, which is what I believe that we have after week 17 with Atlanta, KC and the Raid-uhs (the night game does not matter, since all three teams played vs. both Indy and Tenn, so whomever wins only increases each team's win total by one).

It appears that, using this methodology, that KC, with a 3-9 conference record, will pick b4 Oakland with a 4-8 conference record, the fourth tiebreaker no less. However, how does the NFL resolve where and who does the coin flip with Hotlanta? There's nothing that I can find in the methodology that has a way of dealing with this. Knowing the No Fairness League,they'll find a way to make the Raid-uhs pick 5th!

Chief Rick said...

Masqueraider, you are correct about a tie existing in strength of schedule among the Chiefs, Raiders and Falcons. I have checked the tie-breaking procedures on www.nfl.com/standings by clicking on the tie-breaking procedures link. The "selection meeting" (draft) tie-breaker is not explained sufficiently enough to determine what happens in this three way scenerio with one of the teams being in a different conference. I say NFL.com let us down on this one. If you want my guess, I think a division tie-breaking procedure would be applied to the Chiefs and Raiders since they are in the same division. They beat each other head-to-head, and they have the same division record. The "common opponents" tie-breaker comes BEFORE the conference record tie-breaker. The Chiefs and Raiders had 14 common opponents. The Raiders were weaker in common opponents. So, sadly for me and happily for you, the Raiders would pick before the Chiefs. However, I think a coin toss would have to be made between the Raiders and the Falcons to determine which one of them picks after the Dolphins and Rams. If the Falcons win the coin toss, then they would pick after the Rams (third overall), the Raiders would pick fourth, and the Chiefs would pick fifth. If the Raiders won the coin toss, then the Raiders would pick third overall, and another coin toss between the Falcons and Chiefs would have to be made to see which picked fourth and which picked fifth. I've followed this draft stuff for 25 years like a hawk, so I think I'm right. The only other possibility would be to have a three way coin toss to start with. Isn't it sad that the Chiefs and Raiders rivalry has been reduced to fighting for a high draft pick?! Give me the old days of Dawson, Lanier and Stenerud against Lamonica, Davidson and Blanda!!!

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