Regular season play is over and we’re moving into the NFL playoffs. This is always a stressful time for us Bengal fans, who have watched our team reach the playoffs for the last four years consecutively, only to be eliminated immediately each and every time. Under Marvin Lewis, our playoff record is 0-6. That’s shameful, but it’s also another discussion for another day.

We will be facing the Pittsburgh Steelers on Saturday night in the wildcard round, and that adds another level of stress because the Steelers are our nemesis. They ended our playoff run in 2005 with a crucial injury to our star quarterback at the time: Carson Palmer. The Steelers would go on to win Super Bowl XL that year as the #6 seed, same as they are ten years later today. The Bengals were the #3 seed that year, same as they are ten years later today as well. Psychologically, playing Pittsburgh in the wildcard round is about as harrowing as it gets. So why do we have to play them again?

If you’re not a sports geek, you might not understand seeding and you might not understand why it matters. Other resources exist to explain who gets into the playoffs and how the matchups are decided. I’ll leave that to them. When you have a 3-way tie for the best record in the conference however, things get a little bit more complicated.

I was wondering at the conclusion of the regular season why the Bengals are the #3 seed when their record is the same as The Broncos and The Patriots. The Denver Broncos are 12-4 and they’re #1 in the AFC. The New England Patriots are 12-4 and they’re #2 in the AFC. Those two teams get to sit on their asses this week and rest. The Cincinnati Bengals are 12-4 and they’re #3 in the AFC, so they have to defend their division title in the wildcard round by hosting the #6 Steelers. But why?

This was beyond the limits of my football knowledge. I had to understand. Was it chance? Divine will? Politics and palm-greasing? A vast conspiracy designed to keep the Bengals locked in a dance of death with our nemesis until the end of time because the NFL secretly hates us? Surely it had to be that last one…

No. The short answer is that the Bengals lost to the Texans. There’s another team who has ruined the playoffs for us a time or two. 2011? 2012? Let’s not walk down memory lane there…

The NFL’s tie-breaking procedures ensure that there can be no true equals, even when multiple teams have matching records.

So let’s walk through how the Bengals came to be the #3 seed:

The first step is to realize that you have a 3-way tie, with 3 teams all having 12-4 records.

Then you begin the tie-breaking procedures for 3 or more teams:

1: Apply division tie breaker to eliminate all but the highest ranked club in each division prior to proceeding to step 2. The original seeding within a division upon application of the division tie breaker remains the same for all subsequent applications of the procedure that are necessary to identify the two Wild-Card participants.

Rule #1 is irrelevant for this discussion because there are no tie records in any division this year, and these three teams have already won their divisions uncontested.

2: Head-to-head sweep. (Applicable only if one club has defeated each of the others or if one club has lost to each of the others.)

Rule #2 applies in this case because the Broncos beat The Patriots and the Bengals both. That puts them in the #1 position, guaranteed.

Now that a winner has been determined and a 2-way tie still exists for the second seed, we start the process over again with two teams. The 2-team procedure is slightly different, but mostly the same:

1: Head-to-head, if applicable.

Rule #1 is not applicable because the Bengals and Patriots did not play each other.

2: Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the conference.

Rule #2 is indeterminate because the Patriots and Bengals both won 9 conference games and lost 3.

3: Best won-lost-tied percentage in common games, minimum of four.

This is where our Bengals fall to #3. The Bengals and Patriots played 4 common opponents this season. Having 4 common opponents is a requirement of this rule to be applicable. Without 4 common opponents at minimum, rule #3 would not apply and we would move on to rule #4.

Since the Patriots are 3-1 in these four games and the Bengals are 2-2, The Patriots are selected as the #2 seed and the Bengals fall to #3 by default.

And there you have it. Total fairness. Or maybe it’s divine will. In any case, lots of nail-biting is going to precede the game on Saturday. Hopefully that divine will is on our side this time; we’re long overdue.