American Football Conference facts for kids

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

The American Football Conference (AFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest professional level of American football in the United States. The AFC and its counterpart, the National Football Conference (NFC), each contain 16 teams with 4 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

Teams
Season structure
History
Logo
Television
See also
See also

Teams

Like the NFC, the conference has 16 teams organized into four divisions each with four teams: East, North, South and West.

Division	Team	Location	Stadium
East	Buffalo Bills	Orchard Park, New York	Highmark Stadium
	Miami Dolphins	Miami Gardens, Florida	Hard Rock Stadium
	New England Patriots	Foxborough, Massachusetts	Gillette Stadium
	New York Jets	East Rutherford, New Jersey	MetLife Stadium
North	Baltimore Ravens	Baltimore, Maryland	M&T Bank Stadium
	Cincinnati Bengals	Cincinnati, Ohio	Paycor Stadium
	Cleveland Browns	Cleveland, Ohio	Cleveland Browns Stadium
	Pittsburgh Steelers	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania	Acrisure Stadium
South	Houston Texans	Houston, Texas	NRG Stadium
	Indianapolis Colts	Indianapolis, Indiana	Lucas Oil Stadium
	Jacksonville Jaguars	Jacksonville, Florida	EverBank Stadium
	Tennessee Titans	Nashville, Tennessee	Nissan Stadium
West	Denver Broncos	Denver, Colorado	Empower Field at Mile High
	Kansas City Chiefs	Kansas City, Missouri	Arrowhead Stadium
	Las Vegas Raiders	Paradise, Nevada	Allegiant Stadium
	Los Angeles Chargers	Inglewood, California	SoFi Stadium

Season structure

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 pre-determined 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

Both the AFC and the NFC were created after the NFL merged with the American Football League (AFL) in 1970. The AFL began play in 1960 with eight teams, and added two more expansion clubs (the Miami Dolphins in 1966 and the Cincinnati Bengals in 1968) before the merger. 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. 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 merged league created a new logo for the AFC that took elements of the old AFL logo, specifically the "A" and the six stars surrounding it. The NFC also adopted a logo 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.

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.