Imagining an NFL divisional realignment for the 2022 season

This was harder than it seemed!

Last week, there was another shakeup in the college football world when the Big Ten announced its new future members, UCLA and USC — a move that was simultaneously surprising and predictable. We’ve been headed toward this inevitability at least since Texas and Oklahoma decided to join the SEC, and probably years before that, when ESPN lowballed Jim Delany and he responded by creating the Big Ten Network.

And it seems like we’ll soon have two superconferences, dictated by a Fox vs. ESPN battle.

The NFL is on more stable ground, but I can’t help but think of what realignment would look like in the big leagues. Let me take that a step further: what if, due to money and media rights, the NFL reorganized its divisions and/or conferences every season? 

There are a million reasons this wouldn’t happen, but it’s a mental exercise that I’d like to explore for funsies. How would the teams be sorted this year?

Step 1: Break down the teams into four groups

Since I’m just focusing on realignment for the 2022 season only, I first divided all 32 teams into four tiers, starting with the Super Bowl contenders and finishing up with the ones in the race for the 2023 No. 1 pick. The purpose for this is to provide competitive balance … as best as possible, anyway.

I weighed several factors to determine the relative strength of each squad: how the team finished the previous season, its recent playoff history (or lack thereof), and what the expectations are for the coming season, per Vegas’ Super Bowl odds.

I also averaged the recent power rankings from four different outlets — ESPN, NFL.com, Peter King’s FMIA column, and Pro Football Focus — to use as a tiebreaker of sorts.

Here’s what I came up with:

Tier 1

Los Angeles Rams 

Buffalo Bills 

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 

Kansas City Chiefs 

Green Bay Packers 

Cincinnati Bengals 

Los Angeles Chargers 

San Francisco 49ers 

Honestly, this was the easiest of the four groups to put together. The only real decision I had to make was figuring out whether the final team would be the 49ers or Broncos. Denver is more stable at the quarterback position now, thanks to Russell Wilson. But the odds and power rankings like San Francisco, which has made a deep playoff run in two of the last three seasons, just a tad more.

Tier 2

Denver Broncos 

Baltimore Ravens 

Philadelphia Eagles

Dallas Cowboys

Tennessee Titans

Miami Dolphins

New England Patriots 

Las Vegas Raiders 

The first half of this tier was a no-brainer. After that, I’m less certain I picked the right teams. The Dolphins are getting a boost from the power rankings, which think pretty highly of them even though they’ve been to the postseason just twice in the last 20 years. Meanwhile, the opposite is true of the Patriots — they’ve missed the playoffs three times in that same span but rank lower on the expectations front for 2022. Still, I think Bill Belichick has earned the benefit of the doubt, and I’m willing to give Mike McDaniel my vote of confidence in his first season as the Miami head coach.

The Raiders got in over the Colts, Browns, Cardinals, and Saints for the last spot, though any of them could’ve been worthy. Las Vegas had a small advantage in the power rankings average and also made the playoffs last year, so it got the nod.

Tier 3

Cleveland Browns 

New Orleans Saints

Indianapolis Colts 

Arizona Cardinals 

Minnesota Vikings

Pittsburgh Steelers 

Washington Commanders 

New York Giants 

From a talent standpoint, the Browns belong in Tier 2. However, I can’t ignore the huge glaring Deshaun Watson problem, not to mention their recent history of exactly one winning season since 2008.

The Saints, Colts, and Cardinals could all be playoff contenders this season, but each has just enough question marks to keep them from jumping up (e.g., is Jameis Winston ready to be QB1 again, can Matt Ryan being the answer to Indy’s passer woes, will Kliff Kingsbury ever figure out how to get the Cards to play decent second-half football?).

The Giants sneaked into this section because their roster gives them an ever-so-slight edge over the bottom feeders below.

Tier 4

New York Jets 

Seattle Seahawks 

Detroit Lions 

Chicago Bears

Carolina Panthers
Atlanta Falcons

Jacksonville Jaguars

Houston Texans

Again, the biggest problem I had with the last group is that I had to limit it to eight teams rather than nine. Most are in a rebuilding phase, and to put it mildly, it’d be a shock if any are playoff contenders this year.

Step Two: Assign each of the top eight teams to a division

Each franchise in Tier 1 will be the first to be named to one of the eight established divisions. (In this hypothetical, I’m banking on the NFL keeping the divisional names the same, even as the teams that comprise them will be different, sometimes in different conferences.)

I think geographical accuracy is at least somewhat important — both for my persnickety side and because unlike the majority of the Supreme Court, I care about the environment and would encourage the NFL to at least attempt to be mindful of its carbon footprint. 

Most of them have a couple of directional options, except for the Packers and 49ers, who really have to be in a North or West division, respectively:

Los Angeles Rams: West or South 

Buffalo Bills: East or North

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: East or South 

Kansas City Chiefs: West or South 

Green Bay Packers: North 

Cincinnati Bengals: North or East 

Los Angeles Chargers: West or South 

San Francisco 49ers: West 

What I settled on was:

NFC West: Los Angeles Rams  

AFC East: Buffalo Bills 

NFC East: Tampa Bay Buccaneers 

AFC South: Kansas City Chiefs 

NFC North: Green Bay Packers 

AFC North: Cincinnati Bengals 

NFC South: Los Angeles Chargers 

AFC West: San Francisco 49ers

The Chargers aren’t necessarily a great fit for the South region, but San Francisco is north of LA and the Rams, as the defending Super Bowl champs, got first dibs on the other West division.

Step three: Repeat step two for Tiers 2-4

Now that the Tier 1 teams are set up with a division, it’s time to get the rest of them to the sorting hat, beginning with Tier 2.

Besides geography, I also considered historical rivalries and media markets when reconfiguring the divisions. I tried to keep one rivalry alive in each, as well as balance out the bigger media markets with the smaller ones. 

And that led to me becoming the Charlie/Pepe Silvia meme:

In the end, I came up with these new, decidedly not improved, divisions:

NFC West

Rams

Broncos

Cardinals

Seahawks

Maybe I’m still having a tough time thinking about Russell Wilson in another division, or maybe he simply belongs in the NFC West, even if that means facing his former team twice.

NFC East

Bucs

Ravens

Steelers

Panthers

The Steelers-Ravens rivalry remains, and maybe a new one between Lamar Jackson and Tom Brady — Jackson is 1-0 in the head-to-head matchup — can begin.

NFC North

Packers

Patriots

Vikings

Lions

The Pats are a bit of an outlier, though these are all snowy cities. I do kinda like the idea of getting them out of the AFC East, considering how much they dominated the division this century.

NFC South

Chargers

Dolphins

Saints 

Falcons

The poor Chargers, already the NFL’s most unloved franchise, just can’t catch a break. They’d have to travel at least two time zones away every time they’d play a divisional foe on the road. Other than keeping the Saints and Falcons’ red-hot hatred going, this is kind of where the leftover teams end up.

AFC East

Bills

Eagles

Giants

Jets

Is it smart to put the NY media market teams all together in the same division? No. Is it smart to put these four pugnacious fanbases all together in the same division? Also no. Could I help myself? No, I could not.

AFC South

Chiefs

Cowboys

Commanders

Jaguars

Not only would this division bring back the Chiefs-Cowboys rivalry, but we would still get Dallas vs. Washington clashes twice this season … plus whatever chaos the Jags unleash.

AFC North

Bengals

Titans

Browns

Bears

This new AFC North, which features the Titans by default, would either be competitive or a complete stinker — no in between.

AFC West

49ers

Raiders

Colts

Texans

The Battle of the Bay would return, or whatever 49ers vs. Raiders would be called now that one team is in Vegas. The Colts aren’t a geographic match, but they’re currently in the AFC South and that doesn’t make much sense either.

Verdict: Never do this, NFL

This was a much harder exercise than I initially realized, trying to ensure as much parity and common sense as possible … and I don’t think it really worked. 

Lesson learned, in case the NFL gets any ideas from college football: Sometimes it’s best just to leave well enough alone.