A one-game playoff, sometimes known as a pennant playoff, tiebreaker game or knockout game, is a tiebreaker in certain sports—usually but not always professional—to determine which of two teams, tied in the final standings, will qualify for a post-season tournament. Such a playoff is either a single game or a short series of games (such as best-2-of-3).
This is distinguished from the more general usage of the term "playoff", which refers to the post-season tournament itself.
National Football League[]
The National Football League (NFL) now has an elaborate formula for breaking ties in the qualification for its playoffs, and in the highly unlikely event that two teams are tied in all enumerated statistical criteria, the rules stipulate that a coin toss settles the tie, meaning one game playoffs are no longer possible.
However, before the merger of the NFL and the American Football League (AFL) in 1970, it was possible to have a playoff game if two teams tied for a division title. The NFL had nine of these playoffs occur between 1941 and 1965, and the AFL, whose records were fully integrated with the NFL's upon merger, had two such playoffs (1963, 1968). The All-America Football Conference (AAFC), which merged with the NFL after the 1949 season, also held a playoff tiebreaker game in 1948, but unlike the AFL's playoff games, the AAFC's records are not recognized by the older league.
The Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans of the NFL tied for first place at the end of the 1932 season, and as both their games ended in ties, they held an extra game to determine the champion. Unlike subsequent post-season playoffs, this game was considered part of the regular season, as per baseball tie-breaking playoff games described above.
The great interest generated by the 1932 playoff game led the NFL to split into two divisions in 1933, and began playing a single post-season NFL Championship game. If two teams in a single division tied for first place, the rules also provided for a one-game tie-breaking playoff to determine which team would advance to the league championship game.
The NFL did have at least one tiebreaker prior to this, one that came into play for determining the 1921 title; if two teams tied each other in the standings and played twice, each winning one, then the winner of the second game won the title. This was of no use in 1932 because the Bears and Spartans had tied each other in their two matchups that year, and the NFL abandoned it.
This was the practice from 1933 through 1966; unlike the 1932 contest, these tiebreakers were not part of the regular season's standings.
The league's last one-game playoff occurred in 1965; since 1967, when it split into four divisions, the NFL has used a set of tiebreaking rules to break ties. The AFL did not adopt tiebreakers until its final season before the merger when it granted division runners-up a playoff berth, but since there were no ties for second place that year, the AFL tie-breakers were never used.
Today in the NFL, division winners and playoff qualifiers are technically determined by winning percentage, not by number of wins.
Prior to 1972, ties did not count for the purposes of this calculation. So, for example, one team finished 11–3 and another 10–2–2, there would have been no tiebreaker, as the team with two ties would have been deemed the outright division winners. This made tie games, a fairly common occurrence in football before overtime was introduced in 1974, somewhat more valuable to teams compared to the half-win they are considered today.
Today, two ties are of exactly equal strength to a win for the purpose of breaking ties since, unlike many other North American leagues, the current NFL tiebreaking criteria do not prioritize one win over two ties (or vice versa) in any way.
Both the NFL and AFL had provisions prior to their merger to allow for two weeks of one-game playoffs if three or four teams tied for a division title. Despite the relatively high probability of such a tie happening in a 12 or 14-game schedule compared to a longer season, this scenario never took place prior to the abolition of one-game playoffs.
The closest a three-way tie for a division came to happening was in 1957 when the Detroit Lions, San Francisco 49ers, and Baltimore Colts all entered the final week of the season with identical 7–4 records. With none of those three teams playing each other in the last week, a three-way tie seemed likely until the Colts lost, leaving the Lions and 49ers to contest the playoff between themselves; the Lions went on to win the NFL championship, their last as of 2021. A somewhat similar situation occurred in 1950, when there was a tie in both divisions, requiring two playoffs.
While there are no one-game playoffs in the NFL today, current scheduling practices (which include exclusively intradivisional matchups at the end of the season), combined with the NFL's short schedule, make it possible that the last week of the regular season will include a winner-take-all game between two teams, which has the effect and feel of a one-game playoff. Typically, such games will be scheduled for prime time under the NFL's flexible scheduling policy (provided their result does not carry potential playoff implications for other teams; the NFL's current scheduling rules dictate that games with mutual playoff implications in the final week of the season must start at the same time).
For example, the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys entered the final week of the 2011 NFL season tied at 8–7 for first place in the NFC East. The teams, scheduled to play in Dallas, were both out of contention for a wild card berth, meaning the winner of the game would win the division, while the loser would miss the playoffs altogether. The Giants defeated the Cowboys and went on to win the Super Bowl.
NFL tiebreaker playoffs[]
| Year | Division | Winning Team | Losing Team | Score | Championship Game |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1941 | West | Chicago Bears | Green Bay Packers | 33–14 | Bears defeated the New York Giants, 37–9 |
| 1943 | East | Washington Redskins | New York Giants | 28–0 | Redskins lost to the Chicago Bears, 41–21 |
| 1947 | East | Philadelphia Eagles | Pittsburgh Steelers | 21–0 | Eagles lost to the Chicago Cardinals, 28–21 |
| 1950 | American | Cleveland Browns | New York Giants | 8–3 | Browns defeated the Rams, 30–28 |
| National | Los Angeles Rams | Chicago Bears | 24–14 | ||
| 1952 | National | Detroit Lions | Los Angeles Rams | 31–21 | Lions defeated the Cleveland Browns, 17–7 |
| 1957 | West | Detroit Lions | San Francisco 49ers | 31–27 | Lions defeated the Cleveland Browns, 59–14 |
| 1958 | East | New York Giants | Cleveland Browns | 10–0 | Giants lost to the Baltimore Colts, 23–17 (OT) |
| 1965 | West | Green Bay Packers | Baltimore Colts | 13–10 (OT) | Packers defeated the Cleveland Browns, 23–12 |
- Home teams in bold
AFL tiebreaker playoffs[]
| Year | Division | Winning Team | Losing Team | Score | Championship Game |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1963 | East | Boston Patriots | Buffalo Bills | 26–8 | Patriots lost to the San Diego Chargers, 51–10 |
| 1968 | West | Oakland Raiders | Kansas City Chiefs | 41–6 | Raiders lost to the New York Jets, 27–23 |
- Home team in bold
AAFC one-game playoff[]
| Year | Division | Winning Team | Losing Team | Score | Championship Game |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1948 | East | Buffalo Bills | Baltimore Colts | 28–17 | Bills lost to the Cleveland Browns, 49–7 |
- Home team in bold
Canadian Football League[]
Like in the NFL, one-game tiebreaking playoffs were a regular feature in the early years of the provincial competitions that were eventually consolidated into today's Canadian Football League in 1958. They were abandoned in the mid-1930s as Canadian football evolved from consisting of provincial leagues to two regional conferences (the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union and Western Interprovincial Football Union). Previously, the regional Eastern and Western champions that played in the Grey Cup were determined by playoffs between the winners of each region's leagues. These regional playoffs were sufficiently popular (and the teams were so dependent on gate receipts in the then-short season available to play football in Canada) that the regional conferences implemented a format that ensured playoffs were contested every season as opposed to only those where ties needed to be broken.
The current tiebreaking criteria are substantially different in the CFL compared to the NFL, although like the NFL it culminates in a coin toss in the highly unlikely event all specified performance-based criteria cannot break a tie at the end of the regular season. Also unlike the NFL (which determines its standings strictly by winning percentage only), the CFL and its antecedent competitions have always awarded "points" the standings in the same manner as is done in ice hockey (which is by far Canada's most popular sport) as well as other codes of football especially rugby from which the gridiron codes evolved. Teams receive two points for a win and one for a tie. Starting in 2000, the CFL also experimented with awarding a point for an overtime loss as is typically done in hockey today, but dropped the "OTL" point after only three seasons. A tie has therefore always effectively counted as a "half-win" in the standings in Canadian football, with the caveat that in all tie-breakers in force since the end of tiebreaking playoffs, the first tiebreaker (other than for determining a crossover team) has always been number of wins (same as in hockey) whereas, as mentioned earlier, number of wins compared to ties has never been a tiebreaking criterium in the NFL.