So time for a mini rant on NFL tiebreakers. In case you weren't aware, for non divisional teams that don't play each other during the regular season, the first tiebreaker is conference record, followed by common record (if the teams play four or more games against common opponents). Strength of Victory becomes the tiebreaker for teams only after that. Currently, that's the tiebreaker that puts Oakland ahead of New England for the #1 seed in the AFC.
What bothers me is that this tiebreaker is for some reason behind conference record as a determinant. Strength of Victory at least directly relates to the quality of the team; beating stronger opponents should count for something. What does having a better conference record than another team prove if you have the same overall record? Does beating a team that was originally a part of the AFL or NFL (or, in some cases, arbitrarily assigned whether they were going to be part of the AFC or NFC), demonstrate that you are a higher quality team?
I'd personally advocate for Strength of Schedule (which is just behind SoV) being the third tiebreaker behind head to head and common games, as I think it's equally important to look at how bad a team's losses are as well as how good its victories are, but I can see a case being made for SoV. But conference record? That's...really dumb.
(Also as a head's up, divisional records being used to break ties between divisional teams is totally fine, as those are all common opponents).
