American Football Conference

For the 1940s American football league, see All-America Football Conference. For the league that operated from 1959 to 1961, see American Football Conference (1959–1961).

The American Football Conference (AFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States. The AFC and its counterpart, the National Football Conference (NFC), each have 16 teams organized into four divisions. Both conferences were created as part of the 1970 merger between the National Football League, and the American Football League (AFL). All ten of the AFL teams, and three NFL teams, became members of the new AFC, with the remaining thirteen NFL teams forming the NFC. A series of league expansions and division realignments have occurred since the merger, thus making the current total of 16 teams in each conference. The current AFC champions are the Kansas City Chiefs, who defeated the Baltimore Ravens in the 2023 season's AFC Championship Game for their fourth conference championship and went on to win Super Bowl LVIII against the San Francisco 49ers.

American Football Conference

American Football Conference logo (2010–present)
Formerly	American Football League (AFL)
League	National Football League
Sport	American football
Founded	1970
No. of teams	16
Most recent champion(s)	Kansas City Chiefs (4th title)
Most titles	New England Patriots (11 titles)

Teams

Like the NFC, the conference has 16 teams organized into four divisions each with four teams: East, North, South and West.^[1][2][3]

Division	Team	Location	Stadium	Ref(s)
East	Buffalo Bills	Orchard Park, New York	Highmark Stadium	[4]
	Miami Dolphins	Miami Gardens, Florida	Hard Rock Stadium	[5]
	New England Patriots	Foxborough, Massachusetts	Gillette Stadium	[6]
	New York Jets	East Rutherford, New Jersey	MetLife Stadium	[7]
North	Baltimore Ravens	Baltimore, Maryland	M&T Bank Stadium	[8]
	Cincinnati Bengals	Cincinnati, Ohio	Paycor Stadium	[9]
	Cleveland Browns	Cleveland, Ohio	Huntington Bank Field	[10]
	Pittsburgh Steelers	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania	Acrisure Stadium	[11]
South	Houston Texans	Houston, Texas	NRG Stadium	[12]
	Indianapolis Colts	Indianapolis, Indiana	Lucas Oil Stadium	[13]
	Jacksonville Jaguars	Jacksonville, Florida	EverBank Stadium	[14]
	Tennessee Titans	Nashville, Tennessee	Nissan Stadium	[15]
West	Denver Broncos	Denver, Colorado	Empower Field at Mile High	[16]
	Kansas City Chiefs	Kansas City, Missouri	Arrowhead Stadium	[17]
	Las Vegas Raiders	Paradise, Nevada	Allegiant Stadium	[18]
	Los Angeles Chargers	Inglewood, California	SoFi Stadium	[19]

Season structure

Main articles: NFL regular season and NFL playoffs

POS	AFC East	AFC North	AFC South	AFC West
1st	Bills	Ravens	Texans	Chiefs
2nd	Dolphins	Browns	Jaguars	Raiders
3rd	Jets	Steelers	Colts	Broncos
4th	Patriots	Bengals	Titans	Chargers
POS	NFC East	NFC North	NFC South	NFC West
1st	Cowboys	Lions	Buccaneers	49ers
2nd	Eagles	Packers	Saints	Rams
3rd	Giants	Vikings	Falcons	Seahawks
4th	Commanders	Bears	Panthers	Cardinals

This chart of the 2023 season standings displays an application of the NFL scheduling formula. The Chiefs in 2023 (highlighted in green) finished in first place in the AFC West. Thus, in 2024, the Chiefs will play two games against each of its division rivals (highlighted in light blue), one game against each team in the AFC North and NFC South (highlighted in yellow), and one game each against the first-place finishers in the AFC East, AFC South (highlighted in orange) and NFC West (highlighted in pink).

Currently, the fourteen opponents each team faces over the 17-game regular season schedule are set using a predetermined formula:

Each AFC team plays the other teams in their respective division twice (home and away) during the regular season, in addition to eleven other games assigned to their schedule by the NFL: three games are assigned on the basis of a particular team's final divisional standing from the previous season, and the remaining eight games are split between the roster of two other NFL divisions. This assignment shifts each year and will follow a standard cycle. Using the 2023 regular season schedule as an example, each team in the AFC West plays against every team in the AFC East and NFC North. In this way, non-divisional competition will be mostly among common opponents – the exception being the three games assigned based on the team's prior-season divisional standing.

At the end of each season, the four division winners and three wild cards (non-division winners with best regular season record) in the AFC qualify for the playoffs. The AFC playoffs culminate in the AFC Championship Game, with the winner receiving the Lamar Hunt Trophy. The AFC champion then plays the NFC champion in the Super Bowl.

History

Original American Football Conference logo, based on the AFL logo with blue stars

With the impending merger with the American Football League (AFL) for the 1970 NFL season, the league had careful discussion over the nature of which teams would play in the newly instituted conferences. Then-NFL President and owner of the Cleveland Browns Art Modell had suggested of a format in which three teams from the NFL would move to the AFC to create two thirteen-team conferences. But negotiations between NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle and other owners was rampant in who would move (for his part, Modell had first assumed the three most recent expansion NFL teams - Minnesota Vikings, Atlanta Falcons, New Orleans Saints would be the ones to move to the AFC), since others wanted to simply have no realignment of NFL teams.^[20][21] The AFL had begun play in 1960 with eight teams before adding two more expansion clubs (the Miami Dolphins in 1966 and the Cincinnati Bengals in 1968) before the merger.

Modell was hospitalized for internal bleeding around the time negotiations were still going. Moreover, Modell was struggling to service the debt he incurred from his purchase of the Browns. Furthermore, he realized there was an opportunity to establish a lucrative in-state rivalry with the newly-established Bengals, who had been founded by Paul Brown after Modell had forced him out of Cleveland after purchasing the team.

When Modell was visited in the hospital by Art Rooney (owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers) and Wellington Mara (owner of the New York Giants), Modell offered to have his franchise move to the AFC, provided two other "old guard" franchises did so as well and the three affected teams to move were adequately compensated for joining what was still looked down on in NFL circles as a "junior" or "inferior" circuit. Not wanting to lose his long-established rivalry with Cleveland, the equally cash-strapped Rooney quickly agreed to join the Browns in the AFC. The other NFL owner to ultimately agree to move was the Baltimore Colts' Carroll Rosenbloom.

Thus, in order to equalize the number of teams in each conference, three NFL teams that predated the AFL's launch (the Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, and the then-Baltimore Colts) joined the ten former AFL teams to form the AFC in exchange for $3 million each in indemnities, with the announcement coming on May 10, 1969.^[22] The two AFL divisions AFL East and AFL West were more or less intact, while the NFL's Century Division, in which the Browns and the Steelers had played since 1967, was moved from the NFL to become the new AFC Central. Upon the completion of the merger of the AFL and NFL in 1970, the newly minted American Football Conference had already agreed upon their divisional setup along mostly geographical lines for the 1970 season; the National Football Conference, however, could not agree upon their setup, and one was chosen from a fishbowl on January 16, 1970.

Since the merger, five expansion teams have joined the AFC and two have left, thus making the current total 16. When the Seattle Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers joined the league in 1976, they were temporarily placed in the NFC and AFC respectively. This arrangement lasted for one season only before the two teams switched conferences. The Seahawks eventually returned to the NFC as a result of the 2002 realignment. The expansion Jacksonville Jaguars joined the AFC in 1995. There have been five teams that have relocated at least once. In 1984, the Baltimore Colts relocated to Indianapolis. In 1995, the Cleveland Browns had attempted to move to Baltimore; the resulting dispute between Cleveland and the team led to Modell establishing the Baltimore Ravens with the players and personnel from the Browns, while the Browns were placed in suspended operations before they were reinstated by the NFL. The Ravens were treated as an expansion team.

In California, the Oakland Raiders relocated to Los Angeles in 1982, back to Oakland in 1995, and then to Las Vegas in 2020, while the San Diego Chargers returned to Los Angeles in 2017 after 56 years in San Diego.

The Houston Oilers moved to Tennessee in 1997, where they were renamed the Tennessee Oilers. The team would change its name again, two years later, to the Tennessee Titans.

The NFL would again expand in 2002, adding the Houston Texans to the AFC. With the exception of the aforementioned relocations since that time, the divisional setup has remained static ever since.

Between 1995 and 2022, the AFC has sent only 9 of its 16 teams to the Super Bowl: New England Patriots (10 times), Pittsburgh Steelers (4 times), Denver Broncos (4 times), Baltimore Ravens (2 times), Indianapolis Colts (2 times), Kansas City Chiefs (3 times), Cincinnati Bengals (1 time), Las Vegas Raiders (1 time), Tennessee Titans (1 time). By contrast, the NFC has sent 13 of the 16 NFC teams during that same time frame with only the Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings, and Washington Commanders missing out on an appearance in the Super Bowl. 17 of the 19 AFC champions from 2001 to 2019 have started one of just three quarterbacks - Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger - in the Super Bowl. The AFC has started 7 quarterbacks in the last 20 Super Bowls, while the NFC has started 16.

Logo

2nd American Football Conference logo used from 1970 to 2009

The original AFC logo was very similar to the AFL logo, however the merged league quickly created an updated logo for the AFC that, while preserving the basic elements of the old AFL logo, used a much bolder red "A" and six similarly bold red stars surrounding it, in contrast to the six blue AFL stars. The league also created a logo for the NFC in 1970, which like the AFL and AFC logos also contained only the first letter as opposed to a full abbreviation, but with only three stars (to represent the then-three divisions of the Conference). The AFC logo basically remained unchanged from 1970 to 2009. The 2010 NFL season introduced an updated AFC logo, with the most notable revision being the removal of two stars (leaving four representing the four divisions of the AFC), and moving the stars inside the letter, similar to the NFC logo, which itself was updated at the same time to add a fourth star.^[23]

Notably, the Kansas City Chiefs (still owned by the descendants of AFL founder Lamar Hunt) continue to regularly feature the original AFL logo on their jerseys as of 2024.

Television

NBC aired the AFC's Sunday afternoon and playoff games from 1970 through the 1997 season. From 1998 to 2013, CBS was the primary broadcast rightsholder to the AFC; in those years, all interconference games in which the AFC team was the visiting team were broadcast on either NBC or CBS. Since 2014, the cross-flex policy allows select AFC games (that involve them playing an NFC team at home or intraconference games) to be moved from CBS to Fox. Since 1990, select AFC playoff games have been seen on ABC or ESPN.

See also

• AFC Championship Game

AFC Divisions

• AFC East
• AFC North
• AFC South
• AFC West

AFC Division Rivals

AFC East

• Bills-Dolphins rivalry
• Bills-Patriots rivalry
• Bills-Jets rivalry
• Dolphins-Patriots rivalry
• Dolphins-Jets rivalry
• Jets-Patriots rivalry

AFC North

• Bengals-Ravens rivalry
• Bengals-Browns rivalry
• Bengals-Steelers rivalry
• Browns-Ravens rivalry
• Browns-Steelers rivalry
• Ravens-Steelers rivalry

AFC South Rivals

• Colts-Texans rivalry
• Texans-Titans rivalry
• Jaguars-Titans rivalry

AFC West Rivals

• Broncos-Raiders rivalry
• Broncos-Chiefs rivalry
• Broncos-Chargers rivalry
• Chargers-Raiders rivalry
• Chargers-Chiefs rivalry
• Chiefs-Raiders rivalry

AFC Interdivisional Rivals

• Bills-Titans rivalry
• Broncos-Patriots rivalry
• Broncos-Steelers rivalry
• Colts-Patriots rivalry
• Dolphins-Raiders rivalry
• Raiders-Steelers rivalry
• Patriots-Ravens rivalry
• Patriots-Steelers rivalry
• Steelers-Titans rivalry
• Ravens-Titans rivalry

AFC Television Network

• NFL on NBC (1970–1997)
• NFL on CBS (1998–present)

References

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2. Stuart, Chase (December 16, 2014). "Parity? A.F.C. Is Made Up of Haves and Have-Nots". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
3. Greenberg, Neil (January 2, 2019). "2018 NFL playoffs: The fatal flaw that could stop your favorite team from winning the Super Bowl". The Wall Street Journal.
4. Baker, Kelly (August 18, 2016). "A look through history of the home of the Buffalo Bills". Buffalo Bills. Archived from the original on August 21, 2016. Retrieved August 22, 2016.
5. "FAQs". Hard Rock Stadium. Archived from the original on September 22, 2016. Retrieved August 19, 2016. What is capacity in the new Stadium? The capacity is being reduced from 76,018 to approximately 65,326 seats.
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16. "Facts - Figures – Sports Authority Field at Mile High". Denver Broncos. August 6, 2015. Archived from the original on March 15, 2014. Retrieved August 6, 2015.
17. "Homes of the Chiefs" (PDF). 2016 Kansas City Chiefs Media Guide. Kansas City Chiefs. August 15, 2016. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022. Retrieved August 19, 2016.
18. "Quick Facts" (PDF). 2015 Oakland Raiders Media Guide. Oakland Raiders. August 28, 2015. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022. Retrieved August 19, 2016.
19. "Stadium Fact Guide". City of San Diego. August 7, 2015. Archived from the original on November 18, 2006. Retrieved August 7, 2015.
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22. https://www.nfl.com/news/on-this-day-in-1969-a-brand-new-nfl-took-shape-0ap3000001113428
23. Paul Lukas. "But I Absolutely Refuse to Write About the Draft Caps". Uni Watch blog. Archived from the original on May 6, 2010. Retrieved April 16, 2010.