First round bye?

by dvd1204 on Dec 17, 2007 5:42 PM EST Comment 4 comments

As I'm sure everyone knows by now, we can earn a playoff appearance with either a win over Cincinnati or a Tennessee loss. Note that this is not the same as a Brown's win or a Tennessee loss or the same as a Brown's win or a Tennessee loss to NYJ. What does this mean? It means that the gimme game against SF in week 17 in regards to a playoff berth is completely meaningless to the Brown's. The illustration below shows that the outcomes of a L-W and L-L finish for the Browns are identical.

    Week 16 Week 17    Overall    Conference
CLE    W    W    11-5    8-4    IN
TEN    W    W    10-6    7-5

CLE W L 10-6 8-4 IN
TEN W W 10-6 7-5

Brown's Loss-Win Scenarios
CLE    L    W    10-6    7-5    OUT
TEN    W    W    10-6    7-5

CLE L W 10-6 7-5 IN
TEN W L 9-7 6-6

CLE L W 10-6 7-5 IN
TEN L W 9-7 6-6

CLE L W 10-6 7-5 IN
TEN L L 8-8 5-7

Brown's Loss-Loss Scenarios
CLE    L    L    9-7    7-5    OUT
TEN    W    W    10-6    7-5

CLE L L 9-7 7-5 IN
TEN W L 9-7 6-6

CLE L L 9-7 7-5 IN
TEN L W 9-7 6-6

CLE L L 9-7 7-5 IN
TEN L L 8-8 5-7

Obviously, the SF game at least at this point still has meaning with regards to the AFC North title and seeding.

So assuming that the SF game is truly meaningless, what are people's thoughts on the best way to approach that game? Should we keep playing our regulars and use the game as a playoff tune-up? Or, rest up our regulars (especially those with nagging injuries) and treat the game as a bye.

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Re: First round bye?

Well, basically what your numbers show is that the Cinc game is more important that the San Fran game in terms of tie breakers.

If the Browns lose vs Cinci, and win the San Fran game but Tennessee wins both their games we miss the playoffs on a tiebreaker.

Now, if the Browns win the Cinci game they lock up the wildcard spot vs the Chargers in San Diego.

If the Browns win both games, and Pittsburgh loses once, we win the AFC north and get a home game vs Jacksonville in the wild card round.

So, pick your poison, wildcard team we get San Diego in San Diego. If we win the north we get Jacksonville at home.

Play everyone and try to win the north in my opinion.

by gentryholdem on Dec 17, 2007 6:01 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Re: First round bye?

"So assuming that the SF game is truly meaningless..."

I can't really answer that portion of your scenario, because any way that you put it, the game against the 49ers will have significant meaning.

Therefore, I'd play all of my starters just as if it were a normal game. Considering we haven't blown out team this year either, this isn't the time to bring in Brady Quinn. I'd go as far as saying that even if we have something like a 28 point lead, we should keep Anderson in the game, but run Jason Wright.

by Chris Pokorny on Dec 17, 2007 6:44 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Re: First round bye?

I'm looking for more of a hypothetical on what most people think is the best approach for any given playoff team with a meaningless (as far as seeding) last game of the regular season.

However, given the scenario of this weeks games ending up as

PIT win
TEN win
JAC win
CLE loss

Then the game against SF is truly meaningless in terms of the Browns making the playoffs and their seeding.

by dvd1204 on Dec 17, 2007 7:40 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Re: First round bye?

With this scenario, the only game of an significance is the IND-TEN game in week 17. If TEN wins, we're out and if TEN loses we're in no matter what we do against SF.

I obviously don't want it to come to this, but I did come to this realization today and quite frankly, it sucks.

by dvd1204 on Dec 17, 2007 7:48 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs