The Packers kicked the week off by beating the Panthers, and the Bears ended the week by throttling the reigning-champion Seahawks. In between, the Lions beat the previously unbeaten Vikings, making a historically competitive division even more competitive. Through eight weeks, the NFC North as a collective is 22-8.
That's not only by far the best in the NFL this season, but the third-best mark by any division through eight weeks since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger. Only the 2022 NFC East has been better. All that leads us to this: The NFC North is staring down the distinct possibility of becoming the first division to produce four playoff teams since the 2002 realignment to four divisions within each conference.
In fact, if the playoffs started today, the NFC North would have four playoff teams in the playoffs. Here's what the latest SportsLine projections say about the possibility. If we multiply the odds above together, the NFC North's chance to have all four teams in the postseason sits at about 36% -- which is still really, really, historically good.
It just shows how hard it is. The NFC North will need more weeks like Week 8, when the two teams playing outside the division shone while the playoff-hopeful teams outside the division didn't. Think more results like the Cowboys blowing it against the Cardinals and the Seahawks losing to the Bears.
When the NFL only had three divisions per conference (1970-2001), three divisions produced four playoff teams in a single season. So, none of those divisions produced a Super Bowl winner, and only one produced a conference champion. Thirty-ish years later, though, that really shouldn't inform how we view the NFC North teams' chances to win it all.
It was a whole different world back then. Under the current division alignment, having four playoff teams has been possible only since 2020, when the playoffs expanded to seven teams per conference. Since then, seven divisions have produced three playoff teams in a season.
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