Welcome to the NFL’s Season of Parity
In my lifetime, I can’t remember an NFL season that felt more up for grabs.
It’s not just the Vikings: league-wide, just about every team has been inconsistent on a week-to-week basis.
I tried to find statistical evidence for this perceived balance, and it turns out that it isn’t so easy to find. The standard deviation in win percentage league-wide is almost exactly the same as it was after Week 9 of the 2024 season.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of key differences between this season and the recent ones, which point to greater parity now than we’ve seen in recent history
The first is the lack of a trustworthy dominant team. Indeed, it’s hard to even know who the favorites are at this point. Every team has at least two losses. There is no team like the 2024 Lions, who consistently beat their opponents to a pulp.
Furthermore, although some teams are off to strong starts, they’re not the teams we expected before the season. Most considered the Indianapolis Colts more likely to start 2-7 than 7-2. And while it’s not too surprising that the Patriots have improved in Drake Maye’s second year, it is surprising that they’ve jumped out to a 7-2 start.
At this point in the season, it’s clear that some of our preseason expectations need to be revised, but it’s still too early to throw them out entirely. Chances are, surprise teams like the Colts, Jaguars, and Patriots will regress to an extent. Likewise, it’s reasonable to think that an underperforming team like the Ravens or Chiefs will improve from here on out.
And if the rest of the season does, in fact, regress towards our preseason predictions, we’re going to be in for a wild finish, with arguably a dozen or more teams legitimate contenders to represent their conference in the Super Bowl.
If anything is to credit (or blame, depending on your perspective) for the increase in parity, I’d point to the decline of the dominant QB. Gone are the days when elite passers like Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, and Tom Brady sat head and shoulders above their peers.
In recent history, we’ve seen the rise of an upper-middle class of QBs like Jared Goff, Baker Mayfield, Dak Prescott, and Jordan Love, any of whom could look like an MVP one month and an average QB the next.
For the Vikings, this is good news: as we saw last week, no team in 2025 is beyond the Vikings’ reach, not even the Lions at Ford Field. As bad as things have felt at times this season, Kevin O’Connell’s squad still has a chance to do something historic if they happen to get hot at the right time.