The American Football Conference, also known as AFC, is part of the football conferences alongside the National Football Conference (NFC). They are the two highest professional football levels of American football. The conferences involve 16 teams which are categorized into four divisions. AFC was created by merging teams from the American Football League and National Football League in the 1970 merge.

It included ten teams from the AFL and 3 teams from the NFL. The remaining 13 teams then formed the second conference, the NFC. Over the years, changes were made and the conference now has a total of 16 teams with four divisions. As of 2020, the champions were Kansas City Chiefs, earning their second title in a row.

The four divisions are East, West, South, and North.

AFC East

• Buffalo bills
• Miami dolphins
• New England patriots
• New York jets

AFC West

• Denver Broncos
• Kansas City Chiefs
• Las Vegas Raiders
• Los Angeles Chargers

AFC North

• Baltimore Ravens
• Cincinnati Bengals
• Cleveland Browns
• Pittsburgh Steelers

AFC South

• Indianapolis Colts
• Houston Texans
• Jacksonville Jaguars
• Tennessee Titans

How American Football Conference does work

Games in every season are played twice, home and away. This means every AFC team will play every team in their division twice in a regular season. Games are assigned on a team’s final position in a division from the previous season. The remaining games, 8 in number, are split between two NFL divisions.

Each year, the cycle is standard but the assignment shifts. For instance, in the current 2021 season, teams from the AFC West division play against teams in the AFC North and NFC East. This leaves common opponents to compete non-divisionally.

At the end of every season, top teams in every division alongside the best regular-season non-division winners, also known as the wild cards qualify for playoffs. This competition is known as the AFC Championship Game and the trophy won is the Lamar trophy. The winner from the championship game final then proceeds to compete against the winner from the NFC championship game in the Super Bowl cup.

AFC was formed in 1970 after the merge between AFL and NFL. The AFL initially had eight teams but later added two teams, the Miami Dolphins and Cincinnati Bengals, in 1966 and 1968 respectively. However, there was a disagreement in the division set up between the newly formed AFC and NFC. The disagreement was later solved in the same year by choosing a setup from the fishbowl.

In 1976, two more teams joined the conferences, Seattle Seahawks and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They were temporarily placed in the two conferences for one season before both teams deciding to shift conferences. The Seahawks shifted to the NFC while the Tampa Bays switched to AFC in the year 2002.

Ever since at least five teams have relocated. Some of the teams include Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens, Oakland Raiders, and Houston Oilers. The Houston Oilers moved permanently to Tennessee in 1997 making them change their team’s name to Tennessee titans. In 2002, Houston Texans joined the AFC. This made the NFL expand further.

The AFC has sent more teams than the NFC to the super bowl since the year 1995. 16 teams from the AFC have proceeded to the super bowl final compared to 13 from the NFC. Some of the 16 teams from the AFC include New England Patriots (10 times), Denver Broncos (4 times), Pittsburgh Steelers (4 times), Baltimore Ravens (2 times), Indianapolis Colts (2 times), Kansas City Chiefs (2 times), Las Vegas Raiders (1 time), and Tennessee Titans (1 time).

Logo

After the merge, a new logo was introduced. It involved contents from the old AFL logo like the “A” and the six stars. In the 2010 NFL season, a new logo was introduced, though with similar content. The “A” remained but was expanded to fit four stars that were left. 2 stars were removed, leaving the four stars to represent each division.

Broadcast

From 1970 to 1977, NBC aired the AFC on Sunday afternoons and playoffs too. By 1998, CBS was the main broadcaster of the AFC games until 2013. From 2014, Fox television aired some select games of the AFC. ABC and ESPN today air select games of the AFC and display all playoffs, though ESPN is more reliable.

The National Football Conference (NFC) is among the two conferences of the NFL. Together with its counterpart, American Football Conference (AFC), they all have 16 teams organized into four divisions. The creation of the two conventions was part of a merger in 1970 with rival AFL.

AFC was formed by former 3 NFL teams and ten former AFL teams. Since the merger, a series of league division realignments and expansions have occurred, thus making the total of 16 clubs in each conference.

How National Football Conference does work

Currently, each team faces fourteen opponents over the 17 games regular-season schedule. How is the season schedule set? The whole process is done using a pre-determined formula.

In a regular season, each team has to play with other teams in their respective division twice, that is, home and away, on a regular season. NFL assigns eleven other games in each team’s schedule – three games are assigned based on the particular team’s final divisional standing from the previous season. The remaining eight games get split between the roster of two other NFL divisions.

The assignment changes every year and follows a standard cycle. For example, let us use the 2021 season schedule. Each club in the NFC East plays in opposition to each team in both AFC South and West. Thus, non-divisional competition will be mostly among common opponents. However, three games assigned get exempted basing the team’s prior season divisional standing.

At each season end, the four division winners and three non-division winners with the best regular-season record qualify for playoffs. The playoffs culminate in the NFC Championship Game. The winner receives the George S. Halas Trophy. The champion in NFC then proceeds to play with the AFC champion in the Super Bowl.

• In 1970, there was a merger between NFL and AFL, creating both the NFC and AFC.
• In 1960, AFL started with only eight teams while the NFL was made up of 13 clubs.

By 1969, the NFL expanded to 16 clubs while the AFL to ten clubs. To have the merged league balanced, all former AFL clubs that were ten in number and the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers, Baltimore Colts, and Cleveland Browns formed the AFC. The remaining 13 NFL teams established the NFC.

The newly formed AFC agreed to set up their divisional alignment plan as per geographic lines. However, team owners never admitted the best strategy for aligning the clubs in the NFC. These alignment proposals got narrowed down to five finalists.

On 16th January 1970, the by-then NFL commissioner secretary, Thelma Elkjer, eventually picked the plan from a glass bowl. Plan 3 got selected.

Since the merger, NFC has been joined by three expansion teams, making the overall total 16.

Logo

From 1970 to 2009, the original NFC logo depicted a blue ‘N’ with three stars across it. What did the three stars represent? They represented the three divisions used from 1970 to 2001 (Western, Eastern, and Central).

In 2010, the NFL season brought in an updated NFC logo. The logo is similar to the old logo—however, it has a fourth star representing the four divisions composing the NFC since 2002.

Television

In the 1970 to 1993 season, NFC’s playoff games were aired by CBS, a television network in the United States.

From 1994 to 2013, NFC’s games primary rights holder was Fox. Back in those years, Fox or NBC broadcasted all interconference games in the NFC.

Since 2014, NFC games were allowed to be moved from Fox to CBS.