Thursday, October 13, 2005

A bye?

An interesting thought (not mine) was put out there on the radio (WEEI) last night. If the Pats lose this week, they may not get a bye week. It's way too early to be worrying about whether or not they'll have a bye week. It is only week 6, after all. But still, we can think about these sorts of things.

If the Pats lose this week to Denver (at Denver), they will have 3 losses. Now, if we suppose the best teams in the AFC will end up with a 13-3 record (certainly a possibility given Pittsburgh and Indy's schedules), the Pats will have to run the table from this point on just to tie with them. Now, obviously Pitt and Indy (or Jax or Cin, or whoever) could go 14-2 which would eliminate any chances of getting a bye.

But if the other teams only go 13-3, what about the tie-breakers? The Pats will have lost to 2 AFC teams if they lose this weekend. Now, the Pats have beaten Pitt (head2head is the first tie-breaker), but they don't go up against Cin or Jax. They do play Indy, but my guess is that Indy will end with a 14-2 record. If Indy does end up with a 13-3 record, our supposition was the Pats would run the table from this point on which means they would take the tie-breaker. But Denver, if they win this weekend, would beat them in the same tie-breaker.

Just thinking about all of the possibilities at this point is hurting my brain. As I said, it's too early to worry about these scenarios, but it is interesting to think about them.

What do you think?

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