Does the NFL Have a "Bad Teams" Problem?

Here is an unpublished article I wrote around the new year during the 2024 NFL season. As a huge sports fan, I have learned so much about them through sports talk radio and television, folks like my dad and coaches I had growing up, and still get much enjoyment out of learning more about them and keeping up with the headlines each day. I figured I could utilize this enthusiasm to help me generate some work examples and experience working in non-fiction and copywriting and such, which led to this. Hope you like it!

There’s been some sentiment online from football fans that the NFL has a problem with too many bad teams. And if you look at the current state of the 2025 Draft order, you might agree.

In 2024’s Draft, the top five picks went in the following order:

1. Chicago Bears (via 2-15 CAR)

2. Washington Commanders (4-13)

3. New England Patriots (4-13)

4. Arizona Cardinals (4-13)

5. Los Angeles Chargers (5-12)

In 2025, a 4-13 record lands the team outside the top four, and maybe as far down as the 9th pick! As of writing, the final week of the 2024 regular season is yet to be played, so we don’t know for sure how the final standing will land. Be that as it may, a mere five or six wins feels like a lot of losing just for the tenth pick in the draft.

This is without mentioning the direction of some of the teams in these top (or bottom) ten positions as well. Like the Saints and Jets, who fired head coaches, GMs, are in horrible cap situations, or can’t figure out their quarterback, the most important position on the field. But is that the end of the discussion? Winning in the NFL is hard, even for good teams. So, there’s just a lot of franchises that just aren’t good enough to win games? The league has too much disfunction? Maybe not.

But what about the other side of this coin? The first question I asked myself when I heard fans discussing there being too many bad teams in the league was, “wouldn’t that mean there are more good teams than usual this year?” And, sure enough, it looks like that’s exactly what’s happening.

Let's look at the current standings across the NFL. In the NFC, if the Tampa Bay Bucs beat the New Orleans Saints in their final game of the regular season, *every single playoff team in the conference* will have a ten-plus win record! Never mind the fact that this is happening in a seven-team playoff format, where the league has more playoff teams every season than ever before!

And in the AFC, if the Denver Broncos and the Houston Texans both win their last game of the regular season, you’ll have the same exact thing! That would make a total of a whopping, unimaginable fourteen ten-plus win teams in a season! Almost half of the league! And with Denver’s Week 18 matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs looking like a game without most of KC’s starting lineup after they locked up the No. 1 seed, and Houston playing for revenge against the woeful Tennessee Titans, who beat them earlier this season, every playoff team having at least ten wins is a genuine possibility!

This brings us to what feels rather obvious, but what is no doubt a crucial element of this equation; if more teams are winning a lot, at the same time, more teams are losing a lot. The two cannot exist without each other. But just how much of an anomaly will this season be?

In the last ten years, the average number of teams who win ten games or more in the regular season is eleven, while the average number of teams who win five or less games is seven. And there does seem to be a connection between the two groups. Of the last decade, the 2020 season saw the most ten-plus win teams at thirteen. As we’d expect, it also saw the most five-and-under teams at nine. 2022 had the fewest 10+ win teams at 9, and was tied for second least five-and-unders at six. The least of which being the 2023 season with five (tied for second-most ten-plus teams at twelve). And the outliers never veer beyond two away from the average, for both good and bad teams alike. In fact, there have been more years under the average for good teams, and as far as bad teams per season, the average is most often. Another constant to make note of is that the number of bad teams never comes close to the number of good teams, the average being just under four more good teams than there are bad teams.

But here comes the tricky part. Where does this season fit into the whole thing? While it’s obviously not yet set in stone, with each team still having one more game yet to play, let’s assume, as we mentioned earlier, that the Broncos, Texans, and Bucs all win their Week 18 matchups and that, for the first time ever, fourteen teams win ten or more games -- every single playoff team. That would leave ten teams at five wins or less, which would also be the highest we’ve seen in the last decade, but only beating out the next highest by one team.

All this goes without mentioning the sporadic good years these bottom ten teams have had over the last decade, too! Like the Titans winning the 1-seed in 2020, or the Raiders 12-4 season in 2016. Jacksonville has seen an AFC championship game, and the 15-1 Panthers played in Super Bowl 50.

Ultimately, I don’t think the league has a problem. Quite the opposite. The NFL has long been known as a league of hope and parity. Any year, your team can turn it around. Or, if they aren’t careful, enter a multi-year playoff drought! While, yes, you do have teams like Brady and Belichick’s Patriots and the current Kansas City Chiefs who feel like they spoil all the fun, as annoying as Cowboys fans are, they have a slight point. Any year could be your team’s year.

References

Traun, J. (n.d.). NFL Standings. https://www.jt-sw.com/football/pro/standings.nsf

Official site of the National Football League. NFL.com. (n.d.). https://www.nfl.com/standings/conference/2024/REG

Chichester, M. (2024, December 30). 2025 NFL draft order: Where the league’s 32 teams stand after Week 17. PFF. https://www.pff.com/news/draft-2025-nfl-draft-order-where-the-leagues-32-teams-stand-after-week-17