When the Washington Redskins selected Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III with the No. 2 overall pick of the 2012 NFL Draft, the buzz among insiders and fans alike was that the league's toughest division just got even tougher.

But is the NFC East truly the strongest of the league's eight divisions? We hoped an examination of the data would provide an answer, and we weren't disappointed.

The project

To determine the relative strength of the NFL's divisions, we first had to determine an appropriate time frame. We settled on five years, which for many studies would be too small of a sample size. However, if you go back much farther, you begin to dilute the findings with data from more and more players and coaches who are no longer with those teams.


Next, we decided on six different sets of data for our points of comparison:

• Winning percentage in non-divisional games

• Point differential in non-divisional games

• Number of playoff teams

• Playoff winning percentage

• Number of conference champions

• Number of Super Bowl champions

This data sample strikes a balance between regular season and postseason success while also giving credit to divisions with teams that won the NFL's ultimate prize, the Lombardi Trophy.

We then ranked the divisions in each of the six categories, giving eight points to the best division and one point to the worst division in each category. That yields a scale of 48 points as the best possible score and eight points as the worst possible score.

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