Master of NFL’s Playoff Puzzle

Santo is making a list and checking it twice.

Then, a few hundred more times.

“This has been the worst week, the toughest week that I can remember,” said Santo Labombarda, the person responsible for drawing up every possible NFL playoff scenario. “The NFC has been pretty straightforward, but the AFC has been crazy.”

With 12 days remaining in the regular season, the AFC has yet to award a postseason berth and 14 of 16 teams are in the running. Only Cincinnati and Houston have been eliminated.

There are 21 teams with a chance to make the playoffs, almost as big a logjam as the nightmare of 1994, when a record 22 teams were playoff-eligible with two weeks remaining -- and there were only 28 NFL teams, instead of the current 32.

Figuring out every playoff permutation has become an obsession for Labombarda, 37, who works for Elias Sports Bureau, the NFL’s official statistics keeper. He started there as a part-time employee when he was in high school, and stayed through his years as a business major at Manhattan’s Baruch College. Except for a stint as a pizza deliveryman when he was 14, this is the only job he has known.

“Most people would think somebody like that would be the typical nerd, but he’s not,” said Vince Casey, senior editorial manager for the NFL. “He’s an athletic guy, married with children. But he obviously has the ability to crunch these numbers, look at them, assimilate them, and figure out what a club needs to do.

“The majority of people in America wouldn’t be able to do what he does. It’s incredibly tedious, and a lot depends on it. You don’t want to be wrong, and he’s never wrong.”

Well, almost never. Labombarda said he has made a small miscalculation here or there -- he issued a clarification Wednesday on one possible scenario -- but has yet to make a glitch of any consequence.

This is complex stuff. For instance, Tennessee doesn’t need to win to clinch a playoff berth this weekend, as long as Miami wins or ties, New England loses, Denver loses, and the Baltimore-Cleveland game ends in a tie; or, if Miami wins or ties, and New England, Denver and Cleveland lose.

“It’s like doing a puzzle,” Labombarda said. “I’m not that good at other types of puzzles, but I’m pretty good at this.”

The biggest longshot in the playoff race is Jacksonville (6-8), which barely has a prayer. For starters, in order to stay alive, the Jaguars need the Baltimore-Cleveland game to end in a tie.

“Sometimes I’ll get a call from a team’s [public-relations] guy wanting to know what his team has to do,” Labombarda said. “They’ll say, ‘Give me a scenario where we can get in.’ ”

The NFC picture is much more in focus. Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Green Bay and San Francisco have clinched spots. Atlanta and New Orleans are on the verge. And the New York Giants have not been mathematically eliminated.

Out of the NFC running are Arizona, Carolina, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Minnesota, St. Louis, Seattle and Washington.

But it looks as if the AFC will not be decided until the final weekend of games. That means Labombarda will still be jotting down possibilities on his scratchpad and punching numbers into his computers.

He’s getting some help.

“Luckily, my wife did all the Christmas shopping.”