The National Football league as we know it today was formed in 1970 when the American Football League and the original National Football League merged to form one dominant league. Although the name of the league remained the National Football League, two conferences were created in order to reflect the leagues origins; the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). From that point on, the best teams from each conference would play in order to declare an NFL champion (later called the Super Bowl).
Presently, each conference is divided into four divisions: North, South, East and West. There are four teams in each division and therefore 32 teams in the NFL. The 32 nd team to join the NFL was the Houston Texans in 2002.
NFC
North
Chicago Bears
Detroit Lions
Green Bay Packers
Minnesota Vikings
South
Atlanta Falcons
Carolina Panthers
New Orleans Saints
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
East
Dallas Cowboys
New York Giants
Philadelphia Eagles
Washington Redskins
West
Arizona Cardinals
St. Louis Rams
San Francisco 49ers
Seattle Seahawks
AFC
North
Baltimore Ravens
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Pittsburgh Steelers
South
Houston Texans
Indianapolis Colts
Jacksonville Jaguars
Tennessee Titans
East
Buffalo Bills
Miami Dolphins
New England Patriots
New York Jets
West
Denver Broncos
Kansas City Chiefs
Oakland Raiders
San Diego Chargers
An NFL team's regular season schedule consists of 16 games (8 home and 8 away) played over a course of 17 weeks (each team has one bye week). Each team plays the other three teams in their division twice (once at home and once on the road), and another ten non-divisional games. Of the non-divisional games, four are played against the teams in a particular division of the opposing conference.
The playoffs feature the best 6 teams in each conference, the four division winners
and two wild card teams. The postseason is a single elimination format, one loss
and a team is out of the tournament. Once a champion from each conference is
crowned, the two remaining teams will do battle for the right to be called Super
Bowl Champions.
