Windy City Gridiron
Welcome back to STEP Differential. STEP stands for Sack + Turnover(x2) + Explosive Play Differential. New this week! Check out Page 5 as I’ve charted out the entire season with STEP Differential in the chart plus I’ve tabulated the record of teams winning the STEP Differential. So far in 2025, STEP is slightly better than last year with an 83% winning percentage overall (80% in 2024) and an 86% winning percentage when we eliminate the noise of the +1/-1 games (83% last year). Good stuff. Pages 2-4 of the Infogram below show the individual components of the STEP Differential in a 2×2 grid:
Overall, the Panthers moved to .500 on the year with the loss and another loss will put them back into the orange. The Texans win puts them one step close to turning teal, which their STEP Differential supports. That would leave the 49ers and Falcons as the biggest question marks moving into the second half of the season.
The Jets have won their last two games and while there’s been a lot of negative Justin Fields chatter on that squad, their two wins do coincide with their best STEP performances of +5 and +2. The Commanders 5 game losing streak, starting with their loss to the Bears, looks like this in STEP Differential: -7, -7, 0, -12, -3. Yikes.
The Broncos may or may not be for real, but their pass rush is amazing. They continue to break my chart. The Seahawks are killing it in Explosive Play Differential while the Bears continue to be amazing in Turnover Differential. Those strengths are helping to fuel top 5 rankings for all three of those teams. The Lions and Rams, more balanced in their point totals, round out the top 5.
