American Football - AFC & NFC
The NFL or National Football League has two main conferences and these are: AFC (American Football Conference) and NFC (National Football Conference). In 1970 after the fusion of the American League with the NFL these two conferences were formed. At first the AFC had 10 teams among which were: Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Baltimore Colts. while the NCF began with 13 teams.
A total of five expansion teams have become part of the AFC while two groups withdrew leaving the conference with 16. In 1995 the Carolina Panthers joined the NFC and in 2002 the Seahawks. During this period a new franchise was created called the Baltimore Ravens. Additionally, the Houston Oilers became the Tennesse Titans but retained the franchise’s name. Therefore, when Houston created a new team this one had to be called the Houston Texans.
Today’s NFL structure establishes 16 teams which are distributed into four divisions: North, South, East, and West, of four teams each. Each team plays against the other teams in their division two times, home and away, during the regular season in addition of 10 other games/teams assigned to their schedule by the NFL the previous May. Two of these games are putted on the basis of the team's final record in the previous season. The remaining 8 games are separated between the teams of two other NFL divisions.
At the end of each football season, the George Halas Trophy is given to the winner of the NFC and the Lamar Hunt Trophy is given to the AFC winner. At the end, the two division champions play in the NFL Super Bowl.
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