The 2026 National Football League regular season passed the halfway mark last week and the stretch run for the playoffs officially gets underway Thursday to open the action in Week 10.
Among the many storylines that will play out over the final two months of the season, the crowded playoff picture in the NFC is set to take centre stage in the coming weeks with as many as 13 teams in position to contend for one of the conference’s seven postseason berths.
An ultra-competitive NFC North has emerged as the division to watch over the final eight weeks of the year, while the NFC South remains wide open with each team sitting at three wins.
The Los Angeles Rams entered the year as Super Bowl favourites but are currently on the outside looking in through nine weeks, as are the defending champion Seattle Seahawks – with both teams still looking to chase down the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC West.
And while the Giants hold the lead in the NFC East at 6-2-1 on the year, the Dallas Cowboys are hanging around at 4-5 and could be in position to make a real run down the stretch.
With all of that in mind, here is a look how each divisional race has played out thus far and how things could change in the coming weeks.
NFC North
The NFC North is shaping up to be one of the tightest division races in recent memory.
The Chicago Bears hold a slim lead in the North at 7-2 on the year, but now head into their bye week with the Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings, and Green Bay Packers all just one win behind.
Those three chasers also occupy each wild card spot in the conference, which would mark the first time in NFL history that an entire division qualifies for the playoffs in the same year if the season were to end today.
With how close things have been so far, the trade deadline served as an arms race in the North with three teams making moves in an attempt to separate themselves from the pack.
The Bears got things started early, acquiring All-Pro defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons from the Tennessee Titans in exchange for a package including two first-round picks ahead of Week 8.
Simmons has made an immediate impact so far, recording 10 total tackles with a pair of sacks to help Chicago win his first two games since the trade.
The Vikings then pulled off what could end up as the most impactful move of the deadline, bringing back veteran passer Kirk Cousins in an effort to stabilize their inconsistent offence.
Cousins ranks second in the league with 20 passing touchdowns this season, and has also thrown for 2,340 yards in nine games for the Las Vegas Raiders before being traded back to the franchise he spent six years with earlier on in his career.
Minnesota owns the league’s best defence by points allowed per game (14.5), and the hope is that Cousins can do enough in an offence he is familiar with to give Brian Flores’ unit a chance to win games.
Not to be outdone, the Lions addressed their biggest area of need by trading for for safety Andre Cisco as they look to shore up a leaky secondary that has surrendered a league-high 260.9 passing yards per game this season.
The Packers were the only team in the division to stand pat at the deadline, but are close to getting a boost to their defence in the form on All-Pro pass rusher Micah Parsons, who is in the second week of his 21-day return-to-practice window as he works his way back from a torn ACL.
Green Bay has rattled off five wins over the past six weeks, coinciding with a run of strong play from quarterback Jordan Love.
Love has turned in three straight multi-touchdown efforts, and holds the league lead with 2,618 passing yards on the season.
The Packers face the third-toughest rest of season schedule down the stretch, and will likely need to have Love playing at this level for the rest of the way if they are to keep pace in the North.
Chicago has the seventh-hardest remaining schedule, followed by Detroit at No. 11. Minnesota ranks 17th, and will have the expected edge throughout the remainder of the regular-season calendar.
NFC East
The NFC East appears to be a two-horse race with the Giants and Cowboys set to battle it out for the division crown.
New York currently holds a 66 per cent chance to make the playoffs, per NFL Next Gen Stats, and that number will climb to 78 per cent with a win this week over the Washington Commanders on Thursday Night Football.
The Giants are 2-0 since switching to J.J. McCarthy under centre, their third starting quarterback this year following Jaxson Dart’s season-ending injury and Jameis Winston’s benching.
New York has yet to lose inside their own division this season, but they did have to settle for a tie in their first meeting against the Commanders.
The Cowboys are quietly hanging around despite a porous defence that has allowed 147.4 rushing yards per game – the second-highest mark in the NFL – but will need to leapfrog at least three teams to find their way into a playoff spot.
Five of the Cowboys’ final eight games this season come against teams that are either leading their division or are ahead of Dallas in the playoff race, with the stretch beginning this week against the San Francisco 49ers.
The division appears to be their best chance for the postseason, but Dallas will need to kick things in gear in a hurry to chase down the Giants – who currently own the tiebreaker thanks to a Week 1 victory over the Cowboys.
While the Commanders are not out of it quite yet, a loss to the Giants on Thursday would drop their playoff chances to two per cent to essentially put an end to their hopes for a return to the postseason.
NFC South
Somebody has to win the NFC South.
All four teams are sitting on three wins, with the Carolina Panthers currently holding the top spot via tiebreaker based on in-division winning percentage.
Last season, the Panthers became just the fifth team in NFL history to make the playoffs with a losing record, with a complex three-way tiebreaker seeing them through over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons.
Of those five teams, three have clinched a playoff spot by way of the NFC South title. There could be another team added to that list by season’s end.
The Panthers and Bucs are tied for the highest playoff odds in the division at 31 per cent, followed by the Saints (19%) and the Falcons (18%).
Carolina will visit New Orleans this week in a crucial matchup that could go a long way in deciding things by the end of the year, with the Panthers’ odds set to climb to 45 per cent with a win over the Saints.
Tampa Bay was knocked out of the division lead following a loss to the Bears on Monday Night Football last week, but are still the odds-on favourite to take the South at +160 on FanDuel Sportsbook.
The Bucs also have the fourth-weakest remaining schedule the rest of the way, with half of their final eight games coming against division opponents.
NFC West
The 7-1 49ers are the only team in the NFC West currently in a playoff spot, but two others are expected to find themselves in deep contention for the postseason before the end of the year.
Heading into Week 10, the Rams and Seahawks are on the outside looking in with matching 5-4 records, a surprising development after the pair entered the year with lofty expectations.
However, both teams still have an outside shot at chasing down the Niners in NFC West, and can quickly find themselves inside the playoff picture with a run of good play over the next few weeks.
Seattle’s playoff chances (48%) are just slightly better than Los Angeles’ (46%), but those figures that will jump above the 50 per cent mark with wins this week.
The Seahawks travel to Las Vegas, while the Rams play host to the Arizona Cardinals in Week 10 - with both teams entering the contest as heavy favourites before heading out on bye the following week.
Los Angeles will return to the most difficult remaining schedule in all of football, while Seattle will face the fourth-hardest.
Of their remaining seven games after the bye, Seattle and Los Angeles will meet twice over the final three weeks of the regular season in games that will no doubt end up in deciding the NFC playoff picture.
