By win-loss records, there are three incredibly tight divisional races in the NFL after 10 weeks. In the AFC North, the six-win Ravens are just ahead of three teams with five wins. In the AFC West, the suddenly resurgent Chiefs are in a similar boat. On the other side of the league, the NFC South-leading Bucs have lost two straight in a division in which two wins separate them from the last-place Falcons.
Let's run through each of those races and identify what's driving them with seven weeks of the regular season left. As a spoiler, I'll note that ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI) doesn't think these races are quite as close as they seem by win-loss record. I'm not sure I completely agree with the algorithm, and I'll explain why for each race.
There are a few interesting battles happening here, so we'll start in the AFC North, where the team in first place has lost two of three games by a combined 36 points:
Jump to a division:
AFC North | AFC West | NFC South
AFC North
Chances to win the division (per FPI):
Baltimore Ravens (6-3): 53.7%
Pittsburgh Steelers (5-3-1): 16.6%
Cleveland Browns (5-5): 16.1%
Cincinnati Bengals (5-4): 13.5%
The records are close in the AFC North, but FPI sees the Ravens as comfortable favorites. While our most recent glimpse might have seen John Harbaugh's team losing in frustrating fashion to the lowly Dolphins, FPI has a slightly longer memory and sees a team that has been dominant during the regular season for the vast majority of the Lamar Jackson era. One game shouldn't be enough to sink it.
Even going beyond that past week, though, there are reasons to be at least a little concerned about the Ravens. I addressed their defensive issues in my longer look at the AFC North a couple of weeks ago, but where are the impressive victories on their résumé? They have a blowout win over the Chargers, but their only other win by more than a touchdown came against the Broncos in a game in which Teddy Bridgewater left with a concussion.
Baltimore's four other wins have come by a combined 11 points. Two of them required overtime. A third came when Clyde Edwards-Helaire fumbled as the Chiefs were about to enter field goal range, and the fourth when Justin Tucker hit a 66-yard field goal on the final play of the game. A one-point victory against the Chiefs is one thing, but when you need the longest field goal in NFL history to beat the Lions, it's tough to feel great about how the Ravens are playing. Point differential suggests they are closer to a .500 team than one that is three games over that mark, and they still have five divisional games to go after getting blown out by the Bengals in their North opener.
If the division is more open for the taking than our wise algorithm suggests, which team is going to take it? The Steelers could have gone into first place with a win over the Lions on Sunday, only for Ben Roethlisberger to be a late scratch after contracting COVID-19. Replacement quarterback Mason Rudolph was ineffective against the league's worst pass defense, as the Lions held on for a 16-16 tie. Pittsburgh also lost T.J. Watt and Joe Haden to injuries during the dour draw.
The good news is that Watt and Haden appear to have escaped serious injury, and Roethlisberger should be back from the reserve/COVID-19 list sooner than later. The bad news is that Minkah Fitzpatrick has joined Roethlisberger on that list, and even if the Steelers do get back their Hall of Fame quarterback for Sunday's tilt against the Chargers, things are about to get a lot tougher.
Through the first 10 weeks of the season, the Steelers played what FPI estimates to be the league's sixth-easiest schedule. From here on out, though, they face the toughest schedule. Five of Pittsburgh's final eight games are on the road, and six of those come against teams with winning records. The only exceptions aren't far off, either, with Mike Tomlin's team set to go up against the 4-5 Vikings and 5-5 Browns.
With the Titans, Chiefs, Chargers and a pair of games against the Ravens still to play, the Steelers aren't going to have any gimmes over the final two months. Last season, Roethlisberger & Co. started 11-0 before fading badly down the stretch. This season, they will have to play their best football as the season winds down to move into first place in the North.
The Steelers are dealing with injuries, but the Browns might have the worst case of whiplash in football. One week after seemingly righting the ship with a blowout victory over the Bengals at home, the Browns went to Foxborough, Massachusetts, and got stomped by the surging Patriots 45-7. After an 84-yard touchdown drive to start the game, they could muster only 153 net yards over their ensuing eight possessions. Baker Mayfield left the game with a knee injury, while the Patriots scored on seven of their first eight drives before kneeling down to end the game on their ninth.
On a play-by-play basis, the Browns are right up there with the Ravens as the best teams in the division. Baltimore ranks 10th in overall DVOA, and Cleveland was fifth before getting walloped by New England and dropping to 13th. The Steelers and Bengals are 22nd and 23rd, respectively. Last year's Browns were an average team with very good luck. This year, Mayfield & Co. are a very good team with pretty bad luck.
This week, the Browns get what might be the most favorable matchup imaginable, a home game against the Lions. Mayfield should be back, although he was already dealing with an ailing shoulder too. After a trip to Baltimore, the Browns get a much-needed bye in Week 13 before a five-game sprint to end the season. It would hardly shock me if they limped to the bye at 6-6 before getting hot in December.
At the same time, though, this is a franchise that expects to compete for years to come. Their 26-year-old starting quarterback is falling apart. I don't think they are going to give up or tank to end the season, nor should they, but it's not as if they're the Steelers and have to go all-in for what might be their quarterback's final season as a pro. If the Browns do fall two games below .500 at some point and look to be out of the divisional race, would they shut down Mayfield and just try again in 2022? The range of outcomes feels wider than any other team in the North right now.
While the Browns desperately need a bye, the Bengals are just coming off theirs after consecutive losses. More so than the other teams in this race, it feels like the Bengals control their own destiny. Five of their eight remaining games are at home, and the road trips see them face the Raiders, Broncos and Browns, with the latter game not coming until Week 18. Their home schedule isn't exactly easy -- they have to face the Ravens, Chargers, Chiefs and Steelers -- but if they can win five of those eight games, they are probably back in the playoffs for the first time since 2015.
I wonder if coach Zac Taylor will use the bye to reevaluate his team's identity on the offensive side of the ball. Frankly, Cincinnati hasn't been getting the ball in Joe Burrow's hands frequently enough. Last season, before the 2020 No. 1 overall pick suffered his knee injury, Burrow was throwing the ball 58.8% of the time on early downs in neutral game scripts, which was the fourth-highest rate in football. This season, in those same situations, the Bengals have thrown the ball only 52.8% of the time, which ranks 15th.
It's possible that the Bengals wanted to take some of the load off Burrow as he recovered from the knee injury, but now that we're a full year removed from it, it's time to turn over the offense to him. They haven't been efficient running the ball over their two-game losing streak, with their 39 carries producing just 126 yards and nine first downs. They don't need to turn into the Bills or Chiefs, but they shouldn't be passing at a league-average rate in neutral situations, either. Their best chance of being great is through Burrow being the focal point of the attack.
My prediction for the AFC North winner: Ravens. I'm not as optimistic about their chances as FPI -- and I might wait all season for their defense to start looking like the defenses of old, but their ceiling on both sides of the ball is higher than every other team in the division.
AFC West
Chances to win the division (per FPI):
Kansas City Chiefs (6-4): 43%
Los Angeles Chargers (5-4): 40.3%
Denver Broncos (5-5): 10.8%
Las Vegas Raiders (5-4): 5.9%
Well, that was a fun few weeks, right? After a month or so in which the Chiefs looked lost and the AFC West seemed to be up for grabs for the first time since 2015, they're back where they seemingly belonged. It hasn't been totally smooth, with narrow wins over the Giants and an Aaron Rodgers-less Packers team, but Sunday night's comprehensive blowout of the Raiders felt like the sort of win they have copyrighted during the Patrick Mahomes era. The Chiefs are back, and with it, the AFC West race is over. Right?
Like FPI, I'm not so sure. Kansas City is in better shape than it was a few weeks ago, but I don't think one offensive outburst tells us a lot. It was being flummoxed by two-high defensive looks, and under former Pete Carroll assistant Gus Bradley, the Raiders play two-high less frequently than any other team. It might not be much of a surprise that the Chiefs looked like their old selves. They also get another member of the Carroll tree this week in Dan Quinn, whose Cowboys defense plays two-high at the fifth-lowest rate.
I don't think the Chiefs were as bad as they looked during their ugly run, but they're also not as back as they seemed against the Raiders. Turnovers have been a major problem, and they were lucky to see at least one possible pick dropped by Vegas defenders. A 50/50 ball to Darrel Williams that might have resulted in an interception during the unlucky run turned out to be a touchdown this time around. They get a couple of two-high defenses after their bye (Broncos and Chargers), and I'll be intrigued to see how they do with time to think about their offensive game plan.
The Chiefs' progress on the defensive side of the ball has made more of an imprint. Through the first five games of the season, they were allowing opposing offenses to generate 0.22 expected points per play (EPA), the worst mark in football. Over the past five? Things have come back to earth. They are allowing 0.01 EPA per play, which ranks 14th. They've doubled their takeaway total, going from four across the first five games to eight across the past five. After allowing eight plays of 40-plus yards during those first five games, Tyrann Mathieu & Co. have allowed only three over the ensuing five. They're not the 2000 Ravens or anything, but the Chiefs have improved from incompetent to competent. When they have a competent defense, they make it to the Super Bowl.
I don't need to tell you that the Chiefs have an astronomically high ceiling, because you've seen it with your own two eyes over the past couple of years. This season has shown us that the floor is much lower, even on offense, than pretty much any team would have anticipated heading into the season. The most likely scenario is that the Chiefs settle in as something short of the dominant offense we saw from years past while also eliminating a fair number of the takeaways that plagued the offense in October. That's still going to be a very good offense, if still a beatable one.
The Chargers are in the middle of their own frustrating stretch. After their dramatic comeback win over the Browns in Week 5, they have won just one of their next four games. The much-lauded fourth-down success they enjoyed during that Browns game has dissipated, with Los Angeles following a 7-of-8 stretch by going 4-of-9 on fourth downs over the past month. A pair of fourth-and-1 conversions helped them kick a game-winning field goal against the Eagles, but the three losses included a rout by the Ravens and a game against the Patriots that wasn't as close as the 27-24 score suggested.
Even before fourth down, though, the Justin Herbert-led offense has disappointed over the past month. In part, it's because teams have begun to notice that Herbert can be rattled by blitzes. The second-year quarterback has the league's best QBR when teams don't send extra pressure, but when they send five or more rushers, he ranks 19th. He has played more blitz-happy defenses over the past month, but teams have blitzed the Chargers nearly 28% more frequently over the 1-3 stretch than they did over the prior month.
Herbert also hasn't been able to make teams pay with shots downfield. With receiver Mike Williams slowed by a knee injury, just 6.9% of his pass attempts over the past month have traveled 20 or more yards in the air, the fifth-lowest rate in the league.
The hope has to be that coach Brandon Staley's defense improves, given that the Chargers rank 31st in win probability added per game during their 1-3 stretch. They're struggling to get off the field; they rank 30th in third-down conversion rate through 10 weeks. The scary thing is that they've only made it to 30 with the services of Joey Bosa and Derwin James on the field every week, and with Bosa expected to miss Sunday's game against the Steelers after testing positive for COVID-19, it's hard to believe they'll be better off rushing Pittsburgh's quarterbacks.
The schedule lightens up a bit in the second half, but a lot is riding on what happens next. For years, it has been easy to explain away disappointing Chargers teams with excuses. Stars were hurt. The game management was horrific. The stadium wasn't competitive. Now, those arguments don't apply. The Chargers aren't and shouldn't be making any significant changes if they miss the postseason, but it might tell us to temper our enthusiasm about their star contributors. They have more to lose over the next two months than it might seem. I'm still optimistic about their chances, but maybe not quite as much as FPI seems to be at the moment.
The Broncos responded to the decision to trade away franchise icon Von Miller by producing their best game of the season, a blowout win over the Cowboys. In true AFC fashion, they followed up the win by sleepwalking through an ugly loss to the Eagles, including a third quarter in which they ran 22 plays on Philadelphia's side of the field, turned Jalen Hurts over on an aesthetically disgusting interception and still got outscored 7-3.
Honestly, it's difficult to make heads or tails of the Broncos. A testament to the product of small samples is that on third downs, they're terrible on both offense (27th in the league in conversion rate) and defense (26th). Somehow, on fourth down, they're 10-of-15 on offense (the third-best mark in football) and have allowed teams to convert only four out of 16 times on fourth down (the best mark in the league). They're more dependent on winning the turnover battle than most teams; they've gone 4-0 when they post a positive turnover margin and 0-3 when the other team wins the turnover battle.
My biggest concern for the Broncos is their rapidly increasing injury list. They're already down multiple starters at linebacker, where two rookies started last Sunday. Three defensive starters are already on injured reserve, including edge rusher Bradley Chubb. Quarterback Teddy Bridgewater's offensive line looks nothing like the one the team planned to field in April; tackle Ja'Wuan James was cut after tearing his Achilles. Replacement Bobby Massie and fellow starting tackle Garett Bolles both missed the Eagles game with injuries, while free-agent addition Graham Glasgow broke a leg in the loss and will miss the rest of the season. Vic Fangio's team doesn't have a huge margin for error when everyone's healthy; it's difficult to imagine the Broncos making the leap without a handful of starters.
FPI just doesn't love the Raiders. The algorithm had them as the least likely team to win the division even after their 3-0 start, and its feelings haven't changed at 5-4. No model can really encapsulate what's happened to the Raiders off the field over the past month, but FPI sees a team that has been below average against one of the NFL's easiest schedules. DVOA agrees, with the Raiders ranking between 20th and 26th in offense, defense and special teams despite facing the league's sixth-easiest schedule.
Things are going to get tougher on the field. Even after getting one of their games against the Chiefs out of the way this past week, the Raiders have faced the league's eighth-easiest schedule so far (according to FPI) and will face the league's eighth-toughest schedule from here on out. Their only game left against a team with a losing record is a home game against Washington in Week 13. Vegas is still a good enough team to compete with opponents like the Colts and Bengals, but the game against Washington is its only remaining contest in which it is likely to be comfortable favorites.
If there's one hope for the Raiders to take a major step forward, it's in the red zone, where they have been a mess on both sides of the football. Over a long window, teams typically play about as well in the red zone as they do outside of it, but that isn't happening. They rank 12th in EPA per play on offense outside the red zone but 24th inside the 20. On defense, it's even more significant; they rank 17th in EPA per play outside the red zone and 30th inside. If they can regress toward the mean -- or preferably past the mean -- in those situations with outsized importance, that could be the impetus for a push toward the division title.
My prediction for the AFC West winner: Chiefs. FPI has this as something closer to a two-team race, and while the Chargers hold the tiebreaker over the Chiefs, I don't think I can pick against Kansas City. The win over the Raiders didn't fix the Chiefs or show that they've solved their problems, but their biggest issue was turning the ball over on offense, and that was always going to resolve itself as the season went along. I wouldn't be surprised if three playoff teams came out of the West, but I do think the Chiefs end up getting the home game here.
NFC South
Chances to win the division (per FPI):
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (6-3): 83.2%
New Orleans Saints (5-4): 12.6%
Carolina Panthers (5-5): 3.8%
Atlanta Falcons (4-5): 0.4%
FPI doesn't think this is much of a race, and it didn't look like a serious battle a couple of weeks ago, but the pirate ship in Tampa Bay has started to take on water. It's one thing to lose to Super Bowl contenders, but the Bucs have lost in consecutive weeks to teams quarterbacked by Trevor Siemian and Taylor Heinicke. Tom Brady had some trouble with Mark Sanchez-backed Jets teams last decade, but this just doesn't happen. Brady and his defenses chew up teams with replacement-level quarterbacks. Is there anything to be worried about here?
From an offensive perspective, not yet. The offense is still generating clean looks for Brady, and the Buccaneers have generally been OK moving the ball, but they've been hit by the sort of turnover issues that plagued the Chiefs last month. After turning the ball over seven times across seven games to start the season, they have five giveaways over the past two games. It's one thing when Ronald Jones fumbles, but Brady has thrown four picks and fumbled when an offensive lineman was pushed into him after 3.5 seconds. Is he suddenly falling apart?
Again, I don't think so, at least not yet. One of the interceptions was a spectacular bit of bad luck, with a ball being popped out of his receiver's hands and caught by a diving Washington defender, and another was simply a great play by a Saints player. The other two were bad decisions by Brady, and while I'm prepared to believe that he could physically slow down at some point in his 40s, he hasn't suddenly forgotten how to read defenses. I also don't think the league has suddenly figured out how to defend the Bucs. Nobody is better at taking what the defense gives them than Brady, and his expected completion percentage over the past two weeks is a ridiculous 74.7%, so the opportunities are out there. I don't think it'll be an issue in the weeks to come.
What might be something to worry about, at least in the short term: injuries. Tampa Bay was badly banged up at cornerback early in the season, but those issues are spreading. Carlton Davis and Sean Murphy-Bunting are still on injured reserve, and now Richard Sherman is out for several weeks. Vita Vea might miss Monday's game with the Giants. Rob Gronkowski has played five snaps since Week 3, and Antonio Brown has missed the past three games (ankle). Scotty Miller is on injured reserve, and Chris Godwin was a game-time decision (knee) for Sunday's game. With injury stacks at cornerback and wide receiver, we're seeing a lot more of guys named Dee Delaney and Tyler Johnson than the Bucs anticipated heading into the season.
For the Bucs, of course, the argument all season has been that they just need to be healthy heading into the postseason. I still think that's right, although their margin for error in winning the South is diminishing. They still have four games inside the division, and if they're slumping in those matchups, it could cost them if the race stays close. They should have no trouble handling the Giants and Jets for two layup victories, but then again, wouldn't we have felt the same way about Washington? I'm not concerned about the Bucs, but I am paying attention.
The Saints might have been the one to benefit from that Bucs loss to Washington, but they have followed an emotional Week 8 win over Tampa Bay by dropping narrow contests to the Falcons and Titans. Sean Payton's team was competitive in both games, but the defense hasn't been able to do enough to overcome an offense riddled with injuries.
I don't think Payton will get serious Coach of the Year consideration unless the Saints make the playoffs, but think about what was missing during Sunday's loss to Tennessee. Their top quarterback, Jameis Winston, is out for the year. Their second-stringer is Taysom Hill, who was playing receiver and running back, in part because Alvin Kamara and Michael Thomas were both out. The receiving corps for this game was Tre'Quan Smith, Marquez Callaway, Adam Trautman, Deonte Harris and Kenny Stills. There are teams whose fifth option at wide receiver might be the No. 1 for the Saints right now. Just for good measure, they were also down starting offensive linemen Terron Armstead and Andrus Peat.
Third-string quarterback, running back who wasn't on the roster a few weeks ago, no-name receiving corps, and the Saints came within a two-point conversion of tying the only trustable team in the AFC? Not bad. The defense will end up carrying this team, though, and over that two-game losing streak, they rank 31st in win probability added on the defensive side of the ball. After forcing three takeaways in the win over the Bucs, coordinator Dennis Allen's unit hasn't been able to force one over the ensuing two games. Things haven't been awful -- the defense forced seven three-and-outs across that stretch -- but New Orleans is only going to go as far as the defense carries it.
The good news for the Saints is that their schedule gets easier as the season goes along. You can't say the same for the Panthers, who have faced FPI's 24th-toughest schedule to start the season and will finish with the second-toughest slate. Washington and Miami aren't the toughest opponents before the bye, but the Panthers finish with the Falcons, Bills, Saints and a home-and-home with the Bucs. Their only win over a team with a winning record came last week against the Cardinals, but that was a team without Kyler Murray, DeAndre Hopkins, J.J. Watt and Justin Pugh.
There's a wider range for the Panthers than there would be for most other .500 teams after 10 games by virtue of the change they're making at quarterback. Cam Newton will take over for P.J. Walker as early as this Sunday. ESPN's Adam Schefter reported that the team isn't expecting Sam Darnold to play again in 2021. After his hot start in Weeks 1-3, Darnold looked even worse with Carolina than he did during his Jets tenure, with the 2018 No. 3 overall pick completing less than 55% of his passes, averaging just 5.5 yards per attempt and throwing four touchdown passes against 10 picks. Nobody is expecting Newton to return to his MVP form from 2015, but can he top those numbers?
As long as he's healthy, yes, but I'm not sure about Newton's ceiling. He has much better weapons to work with than the barebones operation the Patriots ran out at receiver a year ago, but he'll be playing behind an injury-riddled offensive line that had exactly one of its Week 1 starters -- right tackle Taylor Moton -- playing in the same spot against the Cardinals. The quarterback run game that plays to Newton's strengths wasn't part of the Carolina offense with Darnold at the helm, and you can't install all of that stuff in a week. Newton is going to need to function as more of a traditional quarterback to succeed with the Panthers.
With that being said, the bar for this team to succeed might not be very high. Carolina ranks third in defensive DVOA this season. When its offense has merely been good enough to tie the turnover battle, it has gone 5-0. Outside of a two-game stretch after returning from the reserve/COVID-19 list, Newton's Patriots offenses were generally pretty good at protecting the football, turning the ball over eight times across 13 games. (The Patriots turned the ball over seven times in the other two contests.) If the Panthers can just protect the football and keep their defense out of short fields, there might be enough here to surprise people in the second half of the season.
The Falcons followed an emotional win over the rival Saints by getting stomped by the Cowboys on Sunday. Ironically, for a team whose reputation is suffering crushing defeats in the fourth quarter, they have stayed afloat by winning those close games. They are 4-5 with a 2.6-win Pythagorean expectation. Their average loss has come by nearly 20 points, while their average win has been by a margin of just 3.5. Three of those four victories have ended on a game-winning field goal by Younghoe Koo; their only other win came against the Jets.
Play-by-play metrics such as DVOA find Atlanta's record to be a sham. It ranks dead last in DVOA, and while you might attribute that to the shock of the Cowboys defeat, it ranked 31st before that game. The Falcons are across-the-board bad, ranking 29th in offensive DVOA, 31st in defensive DVOA and 32nd in special teams DVOA despite possessing an excellent kicker in Koo and one of the greatest kickoff returners ever in Cordarrelle Patterson, who has been pressed into action as the team's lead offensive weapon.
Patterson is questionable for Thursday night's game against the Patriots because of a knee injury, and frankly, the Falcons can't afford to be without the journeyman returner. Calvin Ridley's absence as the star wideout steps away from football leaves them with an offense built around rookie tight end Kyle Pitts and a bunch of replacement-level weapons at receiver. Matt Ryan is doing his best -- he ranked sixth in QBR between Weeks 6 and 8 -- but there just aren't many options for him to hit in this offense. Atlanta's defense has struggled mightily to get off the field, ranking 30th in third-down conversion rate and opposing QBR. It's difficult to see how this formula sustains itself, especially as it faces the league's fifth-toughest schedule from here on out.
My prediction for the NFC South winner: Bucs. The Panthers have a viable shot at competing given how well their defense has played, but I don't think the Bucs' problems we've seen over the past two weeks are long-term issues. I'm not sure they are going to finish as the top seed in the NFC -- which I felt was likely to happen two weeks ago -- but even a coasting Bucs team should be able to win a race that is not as close as the records indicate.
Picking the three first-place teams to hold the course isn't very exciting, I'll admit. If I had to pick one of those three teams to fall off their throne over the rest of the season, I would go with the Ravens, whose defensive problems have lasted all season.
And if I had to pick a team that isn't in first place to finish atop its division at the end of the season, I would probably go with the Browns, who are probably unlucky to not be there given how they've played on a snap-by-snap basis. Last week was their worst game of the season, and it's fair to be concerned about whether Mayfield makes it to the end of the season, but I think they can win with their defense, their running game and Case Keenum at quarterback. That formula got Keenum and Kevin Stefanski to the NFC Championship Game in Minnesota a couple of years ago, and if it takes only nine or 10 wins to claim the North, the Browns can still get there.