Was the NFC North overrated? Suddenly, the Lions are all alone in the NFC playoffs...

And then there was one... With Super Wild Card Weekend having run its course, we got chalk over in the AFC and a few slight upsets in the NFC. Advancing to the division round are the Baltimore Ravens, Buffalo Bills, Houston Texans, Los Angeles Rams, Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders. Waiting for them will be the top-seeded Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs. What does this mean?

Well, for one, where are all the NFC North and AFC West teams who made the playoffs? As you can see, the Denver Broncos, Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Chargers and Minnesota Vikings were among the six teams who did not advance. The other two were the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Grouping the AFC West and NFC North together seems fair, but it is not...

This is because the Packers and Vikings were seen as better wild card threats than the Broncos and Chargers. Truth be told, none of those four teams really gave us any reason to believe they would win on Super Wild Card Weekend after opening kickoff. To me, the Vikings loss is the most egregious, as the Rams were by far and away the most vulnerable of the playoff team's who won in question here.

So let's try to answer this question. Was the NFC North overrated all along or was it quite unlucky?

Only the Detroit Lions remain: Was the NFC North overrated this year?

Look. In most instances, a wild card team is not going to advance to the divisional round. Even if they are the better team of record heading into a ball game, they have to play on the road against another high-quality team. Green Bay could not get past Philadelphia and Minnesota had issues with Los Angeles in Phoenix. Green Bay had little chance to advance, but Minnesota blew its best shot at it.

Looking at their regular-season records, it is abundantly clear that Detroit and Minnesota took advantage of Green Bay and Chicago being lousy in divisional play. 15-2 Detroit went 6-0 in NFC North play. 14-3 Minnesota wnt a respectable 4-2. While 11-6 Green Bay had the same divisional record as 5-12 Chicago at 1-5, the Packers matched Minnesota by going 5-0 against AFC teams.

In a way, I feel that Chicago being awful helped prop up Detroit and Minnesota a bit. I cannot say that was the case for Green Bay, though. In a way, I would say the Lions, Packers and Vikings' success vs. the AFC may go to the contrary of the NFC North being overrated. It may have just been a great division all along. As far as saying this division is overrated, I do not think we can definitely go there.

In fact, I think it is a more compelling case to say the AFC West was the overrated division this year. That division had three playoff teams and the absolutely toothless Las Vegas Raiders. The Broncos, Chargers and Chiefs took advantage of the NFC South being in disarray. That is the only division without a team remaining in the playoffs now. Only the NFC East has a pair of its teams still playing.

Ultimately, the Packers got a bad matchup in Philadelphia more than anything. That is what contributed to their early exit. After all, they were the No. 7 seed going up against the No. 2 seed in their place. As far as the Vikings are concerned, they ran out of gas in the end. Even more concerning, the clock struck midnight on Sam Darnold's Cinderella season, as he devolved into rotten pumpkin.

I will not go as far as to say the NFC North was overrated, but rather some of their wins were inflated.