Games behind
GB is a blend, not a count
"Games behind" mixes the win gap and the loss gap, then halves them: GB = ((leader's wins − your wins) + (your losses − leader's losses)) ÷ 2. Worked example: the leader is 10–2 and your team is 8–4 → ((10−8) + (4−2)) ÷ 2 = 2.0 GB. The half-game exists because teams have played different numbers of games — at 9–2 against the same leader, you're 0.5 back. And the practical read: win one while the leader loses one and a full game comes off the number, because both halves of the blend move at once.
The magic number
The countdown that ends a race
Late in a baseball or basketball season, the leader's magic number is the mix of leader wins and chaser losses that clinches the spot: season length + 1 − leader's wins − chaser's losses. Over a 162-game baseball season, a leader with 95 wins and a chaser with 62 losses has a magic number of 162 + 1 − 95 − 62 = 6 — any six events from that mix, in any order, and the race is mathematically over. It only ever counts down; when it hits zero, no remaining schedule can change the outcome.
Tiebreakers
Same record? The ladder decides
When two teams finish level, leagues climb a printed ladder instead of flipping a coin: nearly every ladder starts with head-to-head (who won the meetings between the two), then record inside the division or conference, then results against common opponents, then a strength-of-schedule family of measures. The exact rungs — and their order — differ by league, and the league's own standings page is the authority for its ladder. The tables on this page sort by record and winning percentage; where a race is genuinely tied, treat the order as provisional until the league's ladder has had its say.
Form
Streaks, splits, and the last 10
W3 / L2 is the current run — three straight wins, two straight losses. Home/away splits show where the record was built: a team can be a contender at home and a .400 team on the road, and the split is the honest version of its record. The last-10 column is recent form, nothing more — it describes the last two weeks, it does not predict the next two, and a hot last-10 over weak opponents is worth less than the same line against contenders. Read the three together and the table stops lying to you.
Winning percentage
Why the NFL sorts by pct, not GB
Percentage is wins ÷ decided games — and in the NFL a tie counts as half a win and half a loss, so a 4–2–1 team sits at .643, not .667. Football tables sort by percentage because schedules are short and uneven mid-season; GB is a long-season tool, built for 82- and 162-game races where the blend has time to mean something. A percentage point gap in October football is usually just a bye week wearing a disguise — check games played before you read anything into it.
Line scores
Reading a game's quarter table
On a game page or in the Game Center, the quarter-by-quarter table is a line score: each column is what that team scored in that period alone — not the running total — and the T column is the final. A team can lose three quarters and win the game in the fourth; the line score is where that story shows. Overtime columns (OT, OT2) appear only when a game needed them, and an empty cell means the period hasn't been played or the feed hasn't reported it — never that the team scored zero.