NEW YORK—After working through thousands of tiebreaker hypotheticals, scientists in the NFL’s research division reported Thursday that they had discovered a previously unknown playoff configuration in which the Cincinnati Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers would share the AFC’s sixth seed. “According to our calculations, if Cincinnati and Pittsburgh are tied at the end of the season with identical head-to-head, divisional, and conference records, it would cause both teams to simultaneously occupy the same playoff seed,” said NFL theoretical analyst Dr. Graham Scheer, explaining that under the scenario, the two AFC North rivals would merge into one massive 106-man roster to play against the third seed in the wild card round of the playoffs. “Moreover, if what we are postulating occurs, and if the players are able to overcome their animosity and work together, then there would, in theory, be nothing to prevent the combined Bengals-Steelers squad from making a deep playoff run.” Scheer noted that the only other time a similar situation occurred was in the 1984 season, when the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams famously shared the NFC’s first seed, going on to jointly win Super Bowl XIX.

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