The 2024 NFL season is now eight games old, and it's as good a time as any to purview the league landscape. We're roughly at the halfway point of the season and trends have emerged that can, at this point, be taken as fact. Like, say, Patrick Mahomes may be in line for the worst statistical season of his career even though the Kansas City Chiefs remain undefeated on the season. Or the New York Jets not being the team that was promised by certain media members (Mike Greenberg, you did it to yourself!)
One trend that's always been interesting to track during the NFL season is point differential. For the uninitiated, point differential is a fancy way of saying how many more points a team scores than their opponents, accumulated over the course of the season.
For example, the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs have won seven games and in those wins have outscored their opponents by 50 total points. Therefore, their point differential is +50. Conversely, the Carolina Panthers are 1-7 and lost their games by a combined 147 points. Therefore, their point differential is -147.
Here's how the standings would shake out if they were organized by point differential (as according to ESPN).
NFL Division Standings by Point Differential
AFC East
AFC West
AFC South
AFC North
NFC East
NFC West
NFC South
NFC North
Takeaways
The NFC North is clearly as dominant as the combined records of the four teams suggests. Not only does it boast the only team with a positive triple-digit differential in the Detroit Lions, it's also the only division with all four teams in the green. Pretty impressive, although that's likely to change as the season goes on and the four franchises face off more often than they did in the opening eight weeks.
The Houston Texans were tabbed as a possible Super Bowl contender heading into the season after an unexpected playoff run behind the up-and-coming C.J. Stroud. Their 6-2 record through eight weeks suggests they've lived up to the billing—but a point differential of merely +9 does not. Legit contenders don't need to destroy their opponent every week but they shouldn't consistently be winning by razor-thin margins, either. How that number changes for Houston will be interesting to watch going forward.
Nobody is more surprising than the Denver Broncos, clocking in at north of +50 in point differential despite... well, everything about them. Sean Payton's squad doesn't have the profile of a contender and rookie quarterback Bo Nix has not blown away expectations. But, apparently, when they win they win without a doubt and own a differential better than that of the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs.
The Atlanta Falcons are the team closest to true zero on the point differential scale, which isn't particularly telling as much as it is amusing. It's hard to post a 5-3 record despite actually being outscored by one point in those eight games, yet the Dirty Birds managed to do it. Will they make the playoffs and end up with a single-digit point differential on either side? Can't wait to find out.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as NFL Standings Ordered by Point Differential: Broncos, Commanders Surprise Atop Leaderboard .
