Thought #12
The NFC West is now a 2-team race.
Sunday’s loss to the Seahawks officially eliminated the Rams from repeating as the division winner since they’re now 5 games behind the 49ers and SF holds the tiebreaker(s).
Technically, the Cardinals are still mathematically alive but at 4-8 they would have to win out while the 49ers (8-4) lose out and the Seahawks (7-5) go no better than 1-4 over the last 5 games (since Seattle swept the season series).
Seattle’s remaining schedule (vs. CAR, vs. SF, @ KC, vs. NYJ, vs. FTR) is tougher than Santa Clara’s (vs. TB, @ SEA, vs. WA, @ LV, vs. AZ) but there is a clear path to the division title:
Step 1: Beat Carolina on Sunday.
Step 2: Win the rematch with the Niners 4 days later.
Step 3: Match the Niners over the last 3 weeks of the season and see if the tiebreakers fall in our favor.
The
tiebreakers for division titles are: (1) head-to-head, (2) win percentage in division games, (3) win percentage in common games, (4) win percentage within the conference, (5) strength of victory, (6) strength of schedule, (7) best combined ranking among conference teams in points scored and points allowed, (8) coin toss.
I’m not going to dig into all of the tiebreaker scenarios with 5 games to go, but in the extremely unlikely event that the NFC West title comes down to the 8th tiebreaker, Seattle has the advantage because Geno Smith is the KING of coin tosses.
Pete Carroll on
@GenoSmith3's coin toss skills:
"He's all time - they were chanting his name when he was walking out there. 'Geno! Geno!'
It was awesome."
He says Geno has a killer look too.
#Seahawks
— Jessamyn McIntyre (@JessamynMcIntyr)
November 12, 2019
Go Hawks!
