The Seahawks beat the Rams in the last game of the season (no MNF tonight) to get in the playoffs. Had they lost or tied, the Rams would be in. Has there ever been another season in which the last playoff team (not just seedings) was determined by the last game of the season?
To count, it must be there must there cannot be another game that starts after the one being discussed. I understand that there may be a few games that all start at the same time to end the NFL regular season and they all would count as “the” last game of the season.
I don’t know the answer, but there’s no MNF in the last week (to avoid the short schedule before playoffs), so the Sunday Night Game is always the last. And they get flex scheduling the last part of the season meaning they’ll always get games with playoff implications. So if there hasn’t been one before, this certainly won’t be the last one. Especially if they stick with the whole “divisional games on the last week.”
I have to imagine it’s pretty common that the SNF game is decisive. There may be relatively few that are like this in which the two teams playing are directly competing for the same spot, but lots of teams are in a win and you’re in situation. There have probably been a bunch of SNF games where one team has a spot on the line and the other team is playing for seeding or an interconference game where both teams are playing for wildcards based on record.
Well, I can think of several examples from baseball with the equivalent – where the winner was determined on the final day of the regular season:
1905 – Yankees lose to the Red Sox due to a wild pitch by Jack Chesboro. A win would have given the AL pennant to the Yankees by .001 (the Yankees played 152 game and the Sox 154, but teams were allowed to play a different number of games in those days; nowadays they makeup games if it has a bearing on the pennant).
1949 – Red Sox and Yankees were tied for first going into the final game and were playing each other. The Yankees won.
1950 – Phillies and Dodgers were playing each other; the winner would win the pennant.
1967 – Red Sox and Twins were playing each other and tied for first. The Tigers were a half game back. The Red Sox won, but the Tigers lost to the Angels in the second game of a doubleheader that was the last game played that day. A Detroit win would have forced a playoff with the Red Sox.