Lincicome: Confused about the NFL playoffs? Here’s a guide to help

Bracing for the NFL playoffs without Taylor Swift brings sighs and no anticipation at all, requiring attention be paid to the dull hows and whys of things, the way it was when football cluttered Christmas and beyond.

We now must pay attention to stuff like Home Field Advantage and Playoff Possibilities and consider why a 17-game season is played to eliminate barely half the teams, leaving even the Bears viable and optimistic.

With Kansas City gone and Los Angeles loitering, Jacksonville lurking, Detroit disappointing, the Bears surprising, with 19 teams still playoff eligible, confusion abounds, and we will need to review guidelines to figure out what happens next.

Gratefully, the National Football League has thought of everything and provided a 12-step formula guaranteed to settle all football ties and most border wars.

1.) Head-to-Head. This used to be a very popular, if brutal, method of determining a winner since each team would pick one player and they would bow their necks and run into each other without their hats on.

Very often, they had to do this eight or 10 times before one or the other had a new part in his skull. The much more humane, although no less hilarious, post-CTE protocol is to pose the two long snappers of each team on clean linen and see which one looks more natural with an apple in his mouth.

2.) Division Record. This is a written arithmetic test given only to defensive linemen, who must bring their own wax paper and grease pencil.

A sample question: If each team has three quarterbacks and each quarterback has two working arms, how many stitches will it take before they are in as many pieces as your uniform number? (Blindfolds are optional for every team but the Packers.)

3.) Common games. This has been moved up in importance since the dividing of the league into four divisions per conference. No one knows why.

These are the games that are so undistinguished that no one can remember if they were actually played. The Bears may lead the league in this category, which explains why they had to go to Cincinnati and Washington.

4.) Conference Record. This is the same as the Division Record except they use punt returners and the answer has to be in fractions.

5.) Strength of victory. Applies only if the placekicker can lift the punter over his head.

6.) Strength of schedule. Not only games played this season, home and away, but games that might have been played in San Diego or Oakland if the Chargers and Raiders were still there, though no one insists on Portsmouth, Ohio, anymore.