329 Final Sprint

The 2017 NFL regular season officially entered its final phase, and the battle for the playoff spots had already reached a life-or-death intensity.

The rules for securing an NFL playoff spot are very simple—

The American Conference (AFC) and National Conference remain distinct.

The four division champions from each conference advance to the playoffs, and they are ranked from the first to the fourth seed based on their win-loss records; in addition, the two teams with the best records within each conference advance to the playoffs as the fifth and sixth seeds, respectively.

That's pretty much it.

However, with the NFL regular season consisting of only sixteen games, far fewer than basketball and hockey's over eighty games and baseball's over one hundred sixty games, it's common to see teams with identical win-loss records.