The claim to the first overall draft pick currently falls to the Panthers with the worst record in the league. But what happens if we win this week and are tied with the Bengals for worst record in the league and finish the season with the same record? As has been posted in comments many times, and if you follow any of the beat writers on twitter, you would know that it is determined by strength of schedule. Actually it should be called weakness of schedule as the tie breaker goes to the team who's season opponents have the lowest winning percentage. The thought is that if your team sucked so bad to lose to another bunch of losers then you really deserve the highest draft pick. 

With that in mind I decided to break down each week's upcoming schedules for both the Panthers and the Bengals in case we happen to win and have we both end the season at 2-14. Currently the Bangles win the tie breaker as their opponents have only won 58.3% of their games (120 of 206) while the Panthers opponents have won 58.7% (121 of 206); a difference of 0.005. 

I wanted to do this because there has been lots of talk about is it okay to want the Panthers to lose so we can get the 1st pick of the draft. I admit, I've had a hard time staying in the lets win category but by doing this I can still hope we win and with the right combination of other wins and losses we can still keep the overall pick of the draft.

After the break are tonight two games as a simple example.

One key to determining SOS, is you must include the division opponents record twice. For example, tonight the Ravens by the Texans. Since the Ravens are division opponents to the Bengals their game tonight will be affect by two games. If the Ravens lose the Bangles SOS changes to 120 of 208 or 0.577, however, if they win their SOS is then 122 of 208 or 0.587. 

Of course the Ravens game will affect our SOS, but there is also the Giants/Vikings game tonight. Since we played the Giants, it has meaning on our SOS. There are four possible scenarios (R-Win and G-Lose, R-Lose and G-Win, Both W, Both L) but only three possible SOS changes (1 team wins, both W, Both L). Our strength of schedule would change as follows:

So who do we want to win each game tonight? As you can see below, the best possible scenario is for the Giants to lose and the Ravens to win. Let the cheering begin. Go Ravens and Go Vikings.