Halfway Home

The Halfway Ladder

Start with the main chart. Each bar is a record after eight games, and its length is the share of teams with that record that went on to make the playoffs.

The steepest step on the ladder is between 5-3 and 4-4. That one extra loss in the first half takes a team from a little better than a coin flip to roughly one in three, a drop of 28 points, which is bigger than any other single step on the chart.

Below 3-5 the ladder more or less ends. Ninety-eight teams have been 2-6 at the turn and two of them got in. Sixty-two teams have been 1-7 or 0-8 and none of them did. The closest call was the 2021 Miami Dolphins, who went 1-7, won eight of their last nine to finish 9-8 and still missed. The 2017 San Francisco 49ers started 0-9, won five in a row at the end after trading for Jimmy Garoppolo, and finished 6-10.

The ladder has moved a little since the playoff field grew from 12 teams to 14 in 2020. In the six seasons since, 68 per cent of 5-3 teams have made it, up from 58 per cent before, and the share of 3-5 teams that got in has doubled from one in ten to one in five.

Pick Your Record

Here is the whole table, ties included. Pick a record and the panel shows what happened to every team that started that way.

Where Champions Stood at the Turn

Every Super Bowl champion since 2002, dropped into a column by its record after eight games. Each dot is labelled with the season and the team, and the last column is every record worse than 4-4.

All 24 champions were 5-3 or better at the turn, and 22 of them were 6-2 or better. The two exceptions were the 2010 Green Bay Packers, who won it as the sixth seed, and the 2019 Kansas City Chiefs. No team that was 4-4 or worse after eight games has won the Super Bowl in this period.

The losing side of the Super Bowl is a little more forgiving, but only a little. One of the 24 runners-up was 4-4 at the turn: the 2002 Oakland Raiders, who started 4-0, lost four straight, two of them in overtime, then won seven of their last eight to finish 11-5. They reached the Super Bowl and lost it 48-21 to Tampa Bay. Ten 4-4 teams have reached a conference final, and the Raiders are the only one who got past it.

The Escape Artists

Twenty-one teams have made the playoffs since 2002 after a losing record at the turn: eighteen from 3-5, two from 2-6 and one, the 2014 Carolina Panthers, from 3-4-1. Thirteen of them did it by winning their division, and twelve won at least one playoff game. None of them reached the Super Bowl. These five are the ones worth remembering.

2022 Jacksonville Jaguars: 2-6 to 9-8

Jacksonville lost to Denver in London in week 8 to fall to 2-6, then won seven of its last nine and took the AFC South at 9-8. In the wild-card round it came back from 27-0 down to beat the Los Angeles Chargers 31-30, then lost 27-20 at Kansas City.

2020 Washington: 2-6 to 7-9

Washington got worse before it got better, falling to 2-7, and still won the NFC East with a losing record. It was the first team in the Super Bowl era to make the playoffs after a 2-7 start. It lost 31-23 at home in the wild-card round to Tampa Bay, the eventual champion.

2015 Kansas City Chiefs: 1-5 to 11-5

The Chiefs lost five of their first six games and then did not lose again: ten straight wins, which took them from 1-5 through 3-5 at the turn to 11-5. They beat Houston 30-0 in the wild-card round and lost 27-20 at New England in the divisional round.

2021 San Francisco 49ers: 3-5 to 10-7

The 49ers went from 3-5 to the sixth seed, won two road playoff games and lost the NFC Championship Game 20-17 at the Rams. No team with a losing record at the turn has gone further in this period.

2025 Houston Texans: 0-3 to 12-5

Houston started 0-3, was 3-5 after eight games and then won its last nine to finish 12-5. It beat Pittsburgh 30-6 in the wild-card round and lost 28-16 at New England.

Here is the full list.

The Collapse File

The other end of the ladder is safer, but not completely safe. Every team that started 8-0 made the playoffs. Two of the 33 teams that started 7-1 missed, and so did 19 of the 117 teams that were 6-2.

2012 Chicago Bears: 7-1 to 10-6

The Bears were 7-1 at the turn and went 3-5 the rest of the way. Minnesota also finished 10-6 and took the last wild card on the tiebreaker. Lovie Smith was fired the next day.

2025 Indianapolis Colts: 7-1 to 8-9

The Colts were 7-1 at the turn and 8-2 after ten games, then lost their last seven, finished 8-9 and missed the playoffs. Of every team that started 8-2 since 2002, the Colts are the only one to finish with a losing record.

Here is every team that was 6-2 or better at the turn and missed.

The Road Map

This chart traces every one of the 768 seasons game by game. Each step goes up if the team won and stays level if it lost or tied, so every season is a path from the bottom left towards the top right. The thicker the line, the more teams took that step, and the colour shows how often teams on that step finished in the playoffs: blue usually did, red usually did not.

The dashed line is the turn. By the time the paths reach it, the colours have already separated: almost everything above five wins is blue and almost everything below four is red. The escapes are the thin blue threads climbing out of the red, and there are very few of them.

The 8-0 Club

Nineteen teams have been 8-0 at the turn since 2002. All 19 made the playoffs, 18 won their division and 11 got the No. 1 seed. Nine reached the Super Bowl. Only two won it: the 2006 Indianapolis Colts and the 2009 New Orleans Saints.

The most famous name on the list is the one that did not win. The 2007 New England Patriots went 16-0, won two playoff games and lost Super Bowl XLII 17-14 to the New York Giants, a team that had been 6-2 at the turn. The 2013 Chiefs are the only one of the 19 that did not win their division: they were 9-0, finished 11-5 behind Denver and lost in the wild-card round.

One Last Word

Eight games is not a verdict, but it is most of one. A 6-2 team is very likely in, a 5-3 team is a modest favourite, a 4-4 team needs a better second half than first, and a 3-5 team needs either a run like the 2015 Chiefs or a division nobody else wants to win. At 2-6 it has happened twice in this period, both times by winning a weak division, and at 1-7 or 0-8 it has not happened at all.

The record also tells you less about winning it all than about getting in. Every recent champion was at least 5-3 at the turn, but most 6-2 and 7-1 teams still lost somewhere in January. For where this season's teams stand right now, the NFL playoff odds page simulates the rest of the season every night.