After the NFC West’s Seattle Seahawks barely edged out division rival Los Angeles in last year’s conference championship and went on to win the Super Bowl, the prevailing wisdom heading into 2026 was that the NFC West would be football’s dominant division. Between Seattle, Los Angeles and always-dangerous San Francisco, what could possibly beat the NFC West’s 1-2-3 punch?
A 1-2-3-4 punch, as it turns out. The NFC North is one Minnesota Monday night victory away from posting a fully undefeated week for the first time all season. The division as a whole is 25-8, and on pace to claim the unofficial but still badass title of Greatest Division in NFL History.
Advertisement
All four teams have won in vastly different ways — the Vikings by suffocating defense, the Bears by creative chaos, the Lions with high-stakes gambling, and the Packers with sustained improvement every week. The last-place team in the division, 6-3 Green Bay, would lead both the NFC East and NFC South.
At the moment, all four NFC North teams — Vikings (6-1 pending Monday night’s game vs. Buffalo), Bears (7-2), Lions (6-2) and Packers — are in playoff position. If they can hold on — and the Packers are a game ahead of the Rams and Seahawks for the No. 7 slot — that would mark the first time that all of a division’s teams reached the playoffs. (Three divisions sent four teams to the playoffs back when conferences only had three divisions apiece.)
When we turn to history, the NFC North is competing with, well … itself. The winningest division in NFL history, by both sheer games and winning percentage, is the 2024 NFC North, which won 45 combined games. That was the season of the 15-2 Lions and 14-3 Vikings, and the total winning percentage (45-23, .662) reigns supreme in NFL history even with the 5-12 Bears dragging them down. (Chicago would get better.)
Prior to 2024, you wouldn’t guess the best division if I gave you 10 chances. It was the AFC South! Really! Back in 2007, the AFC South featured three playoff teams (13-3 Indianapolis, 11-5 Jacksonville and 10-6 Tennessee), and last-place Houston was still solid enough across the season to post an 8-8 record. That crew totaled a 42-22 record (.656) over the whole season.
Advertisement
The 2013 NFC West, which included 13-3 Seattle, 12-4 San Francisco, 10-6 Arizona and 7-9 St. Louis, also went 42-22, but sent only two teams to the playoffs.
In order for the 2026 NFC North to break its own record, the division will need to win at least 21 games over the season’s final eight weeks. That’s nearly three wins a week, with the added hurdle that many of those games — at least three per team — are against fellow divisional opponents.
Before anyone in the North gets too high on those gaudy standings numbers, it’s worth remembering that divisional success doesn’t necessarily forecast playoff triumph. That 2024 NFC North crew went a combined 0-3 in the playoffs, sputtering to three ugly defeats. The 2007 AFC South couldn’t manage to send one of its teams to the conference championship; Jacksonville notched the only playoff victory out of that crew. The 2022 NFC East claimed three playoff spots, and the Eagles eventually lost to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII. The 2013 NFC West did produce the eventual Super Bowl champion in Seattle, and the Seahawks had to go through division-mate San Francisco to get there.
Unsurprisingly, the four NFC North teams have the toughest remaining strength of schedules, per Tankathon … because they’ll all spend the next 10 weeks whomping on each other, with teams like San Francisco and Buffalo mixed in. (The NFC North drew the AFC East as its cross-conference opponent, which means a couple favorable games against Miami and the Jets, but also a planned date with the Bills.)
Advertisement
Looming over and above all this talk is the simple truth that there’s not a player, team or fan in the entire NFL who gives a damn about a division’s combined success. This isn’t college football, where (some) SEC fans will cheer on whichever conference representative is facing off against a dastardly outsider. NFL divisions are an organizational structure, not a source of civic pride.
The key to all this “best division ever” talk is how it impacts the teams when they arrive in the playoffs. Is this a case of iron sharpening iron, as the cliché goes, or fattening up on the high-calorie, low-nutrient fast food that lines the bottom of the NFL? We won’t know for certain until January, but the NFC North as a whole is on the right path, no matter where it ends.
