NFL Tiebreaker Rules: How the League Breaks a Deadlocked Division

When two NFL teams finish with identical records, the league breaks the tie with head-to-head record first, then best winning percentage in division games, then best winning percentage in common games. If the tie survives those three steps, seven more steps follow before it comes down to a coin toss.

That's the short answer. Below is the full procedure the NFL actually uses — division ties, wild card ties, what happens with three or more teams, and a worked example so you can see it play out.

The Short Version

Almost every tie gets resolved in the first three steps:

1. Head-to-head. If one team swept the season series against the other, that team wins the tiebreaker. Done.
2. Division record. If the teams didn't play each other (rare, but possible with a bye or scheduling quirk) or split their head-to-head games, the league looks at how each team did against the rest of the division.
3. Common games. If the tie is still alive, it moves to how each team fared against opponents both teams actually played that season.

Roughly 90% of division tiebreakers never get past step 3. The rest exist for the rare case where two teams are mirror images of each other statistically — that's when strength of victory, strength of schedule, and eventually a coin toss come into play.

Two-Team Division Tiebreakers, In Order

This is the official sequence the NFL applies when two clubs in the same division are tied in the standings, applied one step at a time until one team wins:

The league works through the list in order and stops as soon as one club is ahead on a given step. If the two teams are still dead even, it moves to the next line.

Three or More Teams: The Restart Rule

This is the part almost every explainer gets wrong, and it's the single most important rule for projecting a real playoff race.

When three or more teams in a division are tied, the NFL runs through the same 12-step list above — but with a critical twist: as soon as one club is eliminated by a step, the whole procedure restarts at Step 1, now comparing only the clubs that remain.

A stat that only applied to the original three-team group (like each team's record against the other two combined) gets thrown out the moment the field narrows to two teams. The two remaining teams are then compared using the two-club list, starting over from head-to-head between just those two — not wherever the three-team comparison left off.

Why this matters: a team can "lose" the initial three-way comparison on some step and still win its individual tiebreaker, because the restart gives it a clean, fresh look at whichever team it's now tied with. Broadcasters and recaps often skip this and just say "the tiebreakers went to net points," without mentioning the process reset partway through. If you're reconstructing exactly how a division race was decided, the restart rule is usually the missing piece.

Wild Card Tiebreakers Are Different

Wild card tiebreakers use a different list than division tiebreakers, because contenders come from different divisions and haven't all played each other or a common divisional schedule. There's also a crucial step before any of this: only one team per division can be involved in a wild card tiebreaker. If two teams from the same division are both in contention for a wild card spot, the league first applies the division tiebreaker between them and eliminates the loser from wild card consideration — even if that team would otherwise have a claim on the spot. Only the highest-ranked team from each division advances into the wild card comparison.

Once that's settled, here's the two-club wild card order:

Note the differences from the division list: conference record moves up to step 2, and the common-games step requires a minimum of four common games before it's even used (division rivals always share plenty of common opponents; wild card contenders from different divisions might not). With three or more teams tied for a wild card spot, the same restart logic applies: eliminate a club at any step, and the process starts over at step 1 for whoever's left, beginning with a "head-to-head sweep" check — does one team have a win over every other team still in the group?

The Terms, Defined

A few of these steps use terms that sound similar but measure very different things — mixing them up is the most common mistake people make working through a tiebreaker themselves.

A Worked Example

Say the AFC North ends the season with three teams tied at 10-7: the Ravens, Steelers, and Bengals.

Step 1 (head-to-head sweep, three clubs): The league checks whether one club beat both others all season. The series went in a three-way cycle — Ravens beat Steelers twice, Steelers beat Bengals twice, Bengals beat Ravens twice — so nobody swept the field. The group moves to Step 2.

Step 2 (division record): All three play the same division slate. The Ravens went 5-1 in division games, the Steelers 4-2, the Bengals 3-3. The Ravens are clear of the other two on this step and are eliminated from the tie — they've locked up the top spot among the three.

Restart: With the Ravens gone and two clubs (Steelers, Bengals) still tied, the procedure restarts at Step 1 of the two-club format — not wherever the three-team comparison left off.

Step 1 again (head-to-head, two clubs): Now it's just Steelers vs. Bengals, and the Steelers swept that season series 2-0. The Steelers win the tiebreaker directly, without ever touching strength of victory, net points, or a coin toss.

Final order: Ravens first, Steelers second, Bengals third. Notice that the Bengals' 3-3 division record — the worst of the three at Step 2 — becomes irrelevant once the process restarts; only the two-club head-to-head against the Steelers matters at that point.

How Ties Count

A tied game (not a tiebreaker scenario — an actual game that ends in a tie) counts as half a win and half a loss for both teams in every calculation, including won-lost-tied percentage, division record, conference record, and common games record. A team that finishes 9-6-1 has a winning percentage of .594 (9.5 wins out of 16 games), not 9-6 with the tie ignored. This applies identically whether the tie happened in a division, conference, or non-conference game — it's simply folded into whichever category is being measured at that step.

Tiebreakers for Draft Order Work Backwards

The same underlying data — records, common games, strength of schedule — also determines NFL Draft order, but the logic runs in reverse. Non-playoff teams are ordered worst record to best, so the worst team picks first. When two non-playoff teams have identical records, the tiebreaker is strength of schedule, and the team with the weaker strength of schedule (easier opponents) picks earlier — the opposite of how it works in the standings, where tougher opponents help you. Playoff teams fill out the back of each round by how far they advanced. For the full breakdown, see How Does the NFL Draft Order Work?

FAQ

What's the very first tiebreaker the NFL uses? Head-to-head record between the tied teams. If one team went 2-0 or otherwise swept the season series, that team wins the tie immediately and none of the later steps come into play.

Do division tiebreakers and wild card tiebreakers use the same list? No. They're separate procedures with different steps in a different order. Wild card ties prioritize conference record over division record (since contenders may be in different divisions), and the common-games step requires a minimum of four common games before it applies.

Can a coin toss actually decide a playoff spot? Yes, in theory — it's the final step for both division and wild card ties. In practice it almost never happens, because getting through ten-plus statistical steps with two teams still perfectly tied on every measure is extremely rare.

Why does the three-or-more-team restart rule matter so much? Because it changes outcomes. A team that "loses" an early step in a three-team comparison isn't necessarily out against whichever team it ends up tied with once another club is eliminated — the comparison restarts fresh. Skipping this is the most common way tiebreaker explanations go wrong.

Does a tie game hurt a team's tiebreaker standing? It's counted as half a win and half a loss — a modest boost compared to a loss, a modest cost compared to a win, never excluded from the math entirely.

Where do these tiebreakers show up in the playoff bracket itself? Once ties are broken and seeding is set, division winners get the top four seeds in each conference, followed by wild card teams. See NFL Playoff Seeding and Bracket Format, Explained for how that bracket is built and reseeded round to round.

Do these rules overlap with overtime rules? No — tiebreaker procedures decide seeding and draft position after games are final; they have nothing to do with how a tied game gets resolved on the field. See NFL Overtime Rules Explained for that.