So far this season, the Dallas Cowboys have played their six home games against teams that have a combined record of 26-47.
Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Eagles have played their six home games against teams that are 43-30 among them.
Why such a humongous difference?
Answer: look no further than the alphabet!
The alphabet, you ask?
When the present divisional alignment — and with it, the present schedule format — went into effect with the addition of the Houston Texans as the league's 32nd franchise in 2002, in each division, the first two teams in alphabetical order according to their city name have always played the same common opponents at home, and the same common opponents on the road, with similar doings for the last two teams in alphabetical order.
This has meant that, in the NFC East for instance, the Cowboys and the Giants have always played the same home games, and the same away games — as have the Eagles and the Redskins/Commanders, without regard to the order of finish in the division standings the previous season.
(A minor change was made in 2010, after certain teams complained about having to play two road games on the West Coast, while two other teams in their division didn't have to play any such games.)
But prior to 2002, home and away games were assigned on the basis of where each team had finished in their division the year before — which greatly minimized the kind of massive imbalances like the one we are seeing this season between Dallas and Philadelphia (and the Giants and Washington).
Specifically, teams finishing first and third in their divisions the year before either played their interconference games against the first- and third-place teams from a division of the other conference at home and the second- and fourth-place teams on the road, or played the first- and third-place teams from a division of the other conference on the road and the second- and fourth-place teams at home — with these assignments going back and forth in successive seasons, so that in 1978 (Year 1 of this schedule format, which accompanied the lengthening of the regular season from 14 games to 16) the 1s and 3s from the NFC played the 1s and 3s from the AFC at home and the 2s and 4s on the road, and in 1979 (Year 2) the 1s and 3s from the NFC played the 1s and 3s from the AFC on the road and the 2s and 4s at home, with the pairings reverting to the pairings of Year 1 in Year 3 (1980).
Come Years 4, 5 and 6, (1981, 1982, and 1983), the home-and-away assignments were awarded on an alternating basis; e.g., since the Steelers had played the Rams in Los Angeles in 1978, their 1981 meeting was in Pittsburgh.
But the interconference matchups for Years 7, 8, and 9 (1984, 1985, and 1986), were determined by the previous season's standings once again, and whoever played a given team at home in these years played that same team on the road in Years 10, 11, and 12 (1987, 1988, and 1989).
Wouldn't this work just as well now?
Actually, it would work even better — because now every team in the same division plays all four teams from a division within their own conference, as well as all four teams from a division of the other conference.
In most years, this allows each team to play two games against first-place teams from the year before, one at home and the other away, with the same thing applying to the two second-place teams, the two third-place teams, and the two fourth-place teams that each team plays. The remaining three out-of-division games would continue to be against teams with a corresponding finish the year before.
Maybe then a 10-2 team will not a have a point differential of +41, while a 9-3 team from the same division has a point differential of +168 — giving the latter a tremendous psychological advantage going into the playoffs.
But at least this isn't college football, where point differential often decides which teams get into the playoff and which teams don't.
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