Dominant season for the NFC North will leave a 14-win team as a wild card

There’s never quite been a division like this season’s NFC North and there has never been a wild-card team like whoever loses the division title showdown between Detroit and Minnesota.

Led by the Lions and Vikings, both 14-2, the NFC North is set to be the winningest division since the NFL realigned to eight divisions of four teams each in 2002, with 43 wins for the four division teams with two head-to-head games remaining.

The only other divisions to combine for 43 wins since 2002 were the AFC North last season and NFC East in 2022. The NFC North will top that barring two Week 18 ties when Detroit hosts Minnesota and Green Bay (11-5) hosts Chicago (4-12).

The NFC North teams combined to go 33-11 in non-division games, with the .750 win percentage tied for the second best ever behind the .775 for the 1984 AFC West.

The Week 18 showdown between the Lions and Vikings will feature the first matchup ever in the regular season between teams with at least 14 wins. There have been only five postseason games between teams that won at least 14 regular- season games, with Kansas City beating Philadelphia in Super Bowl 57, New England beating Pittsburgh in the 2004 AFC title game, Denver beating Atlanta in Super Bowl 33, Atlanta beating Minnesota in the 1998 NFC title game and San Francisco beating Miami in Super Bowl 19.

The loser of the game in Detroit on Sunday night will drop all the way to the No. 5 seed as a wild-card team and have to open the playoffs on the road against a team that will have at least four more losses.

There has never been a wild-card team with at least 14 wins, with the previous high coming in 1999 when Tennessee went 13-3 and lost the AFC Central to Jacksonville. The Jaguars lost two games in the regular season that year — both to the Titans — and also dropped the AFC title game to Tennessee.

If Detroit has to hit the road to start the playoffs, the Lions at least have comfort in the fact that they went 8-0 away from home this season. They were the 10th team to go 8-0 or better on the road, with three of the previous nine winning the championship: New England in 2016 and San Francisco in 1984 and 1989.

Only two of those teams had to play a road game in the playoffs, with the 2014 Cowboys losing a divisional round game at Green Bay and the 1934 Bears losing the NFL title game to the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds. The Chiefs also lost the Super Bowl to Tampa Bay in the 2020 season in the Buccaneers’ home stadium in what was officially designated as a neutral-site game.

Greener pastures

When Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold were teammates for Carolina in 2022, they combined to throw 13 TD passes for a seven-win team that fired coach Matt Rhule early that season.

The two former first-round picks from the 2018 draft are having far more success this season. Mayfield has thrown 39 touchdown passes in his second season in Tampa Bay and has the Bucs in position to win the NFC South with one more win. Darnold has thrown 35 TD passes for the Vikings.

There was only one other time in NFL history, according to Sportradar, that two players who appeared in at least one game in the same season for one team both went on to throw at least 35 TD passes for another after leaving.

The 1950 Baltimore Colts featured Hall of Famers Y.A. Tittle and George Blanda. That version of the Colts folded after that season, while Tittle went on to throw 36 TD passes for the Giants in 1963 and Blanda had 36 for the Oilers in 1961.

Turnaround coach

Jim Harbaugh’s turnaround skills had another success story in his first year coaching the Los Angeles Chargers.

Harbaugh clinched a playoff spot when Los Angeles beat New England 40-7 on Saturday after going 5-12 last season. This is the second time Harbaugh has taken over a team with a losing record and gone to the playoffs in his first season, having San Francisco go from 6-10 in 2010 before he arrived to 13-3 in 2011.

Harbaugh is the first coach in the Super Bowl era to take over two teams that had losing records the year before he arrived and take them to the playoffs in his first season.

Harbaugh also had an immediate impact in college, helping Stanford improve by three wins in his first season in 2007 and Michigan improve by five wins in 2015.

Harbaugh has gone to the postseason in four out of five seasons as an NFL coach, a rate exceeded only by four coaches with at least four seasons in the Super Bowl era: Nick Sirianni (4 for 4), Sean McDermott (7 for 8), Tony Dungy (11 for 13) and Matt LaFleur (5 for 6).

Under pressure

Caleb Williams hasn’t had nearly as much success as Harbaugh in his transition from college to the pros.

The No. 1 overall pick by the Chicago Bears is enduring a rough rookie season, losing 10 straight starts headed into the season finale. The only other QB picked first overall to lose that many consecutive starts as a rookie was Troy Aikman, who went 0-11 for Dallas in 1989.

Williams has been sacked 67 times thanks to a shaky offensive line and his inability to get rid of the ball quickly. He is nearing the record for most sacks taken in a season, with only three QBs taking more. David Carr was sacked a record 76 times as a rookie in 2002 for the expansion Houston Texans, Randall Cunningham was sacked 72 times in 1986 and Carr took 68 more sacks in 2005.

The Bears have lost 10 straight games in a season for the second time in franchise history, having also dropped the final 10 games in 2022.

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