{"id":818,"section":"sports","section_label":"Sports","url":"https://www.brokenews.co/sports/818","headline":"NFC North and AFC North jostle for best division in the NFL","dek":"All four NFC North teams sit above .500 as the division pushes into the conversation alongside a four-win AFC North.","body":"Six weeks in, the NFC North looks like the division nobody wants to play. Every team in it has a winning record, which is the kind of top-to-bottom balance that usually only shows up in preseason predictions that nobody believes.\n\nThat balance has rankings split. Some have the AFC North on top, pointing to its four winning teams as proof it has passed everyone, including the NFC West, which had been sitting at number one. Others still give the nod to the NFC North itself, even over a NFC West group that has carried that reputation for a while now.\n\nLost a little in the division argument is the Bears, who have the fifth-best playoff odds in the NFC despite playing in what may be the conference's toughest group. Being above .500 in the NFC North does not guarantee anything with three other above-.500 teams crowding the same standings.\n\nNone of this settles anything by itself. Division strength arguments are a nice distraction for a Tuesday, but they will look very different once more conference games get played and the records that built these rankings start shifting again.","published_at":"2026-10-17T23:48:29.232361+00:00","source_count":3,"written_from":[{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"All NFC North teams are above .500; Bears 5th-best NFC Playoff odds","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/nfc-north-teams-above-500-220000139.html"},{"outlet":"CBS Sports","publisher":"CBS Sports","title":"Ranking NFL's best and worst divisions: New leader emerges entering Week 6","url":"https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-division-power-rankings-afc-north-nfc-west/"},{"outlet":"ESPN","publisher":"ESPN","title":"Let's rank the best NFL divisions this season: NFC North over the NFC West at No. 1?","url":"https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/50181965/2026-nfl-season-ranking-eight-nfl-divisions-best-worst"}],"more_coverage":[],"image":null,"embed":null,"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","attribution":"Analysis data is licensed CC BY 4.0. Credit brokenews and link to the story page you took it from. Source headlines, story titles taken from a source headline, and quoted passages remain the property of their publishers and are quoted for comparison, not licensed onward.","terms":"https://www.brokenews.co/about#reuse"}