I think parity in the NFL is more of a reality than in most other sports.
Well, it helps when you only play 16 games. Want to look at baseball standings after 16 games? Even so there isn’t really any more parity in football than your average major sport.
Depends how you mean. In a given season, there’s a ton of parity because, as **Hawkeye **said, they only play 16 games, so the breaks don’t have that much of a chance to even out. For instance, in '07 the Dolphins weren’t really as bad as their 1-15 record would suggest, and in '08 they weren’t as good as their 11-5 record. The short schedule made their improvement seem bigger than it really was (though it was nonetheless quite large, to be sure).
However, as far as individual games go, the NFL exhibits a notable lack of parity, as the better team is much more likely to win the game than in other sports. If the best NFL team is at home, facing the worst team, it might be as much as a 10-1 favorite, which would be unheard of in baseball or hockey. The NBA is actually pretty comparable to the NFL in this respect.
I didn’t know that. Thanks.