American Football Conference
The American Football Conference is one of the two conferences of the National Football League, the highest level of professional American football in the United States. The AFC and its counterpart, the National Football Conference, 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. 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 New England Patriots, who defeated the Denver Broncos in the 2025 season's AFC Championship Game for their twelfth conference championship.
As of 2025 the AFC only has one defined officer, the president, which is essentially an honorary position with few powers and mostly ceremonial duties, including awarding the conference championship trophy.
Teams
Like the NFC, the conference has 16 teams organized into four divisions each with four teams: East, North, South and West.| Division | Team | Stadium | Location | Ref |
| East | Buffalo Bills | Highmark Stadium | Orchard Park, New York | |
| East | Miami Dolphins | Hard Rock Stadium | Miami Gardens, Florida | |
| East | New England Patriots | Gillette Stadium | Foxborough, Massachusetts | |
| East | New York Jets | MetLife Stadium | East Rutherford, New Jersey | |
| North | Baltimore Ravens | M&T Bank Stadium | Baltimore, Maryland | |
| North | Cincinnati Bengals | Paycor Stadium | Cincinnati, Ohio | |
| North | Cleveland Browns | Huntington Bank Field | Cleveland, Ohio | |
| North | Pittsburgh Steelers | Acrisure Stadium | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | |
| South | Houston Texans | NRG Stadium | Houston, Texas | |
| South | Indianapolis Colts | Lucas Oil Stadium | Indianapolis, Indiana | |
| South | Jacksonville Jaguars | EverBank Stadium | Jacksonville, Florida | |
| South | Tennessee Titans | Nissan Stadium | Nashville, Tennessee | |
| West | Denver Broncos | Empower Field at Mile High | Denver, Colorado | |
| West | Kansas City Chiefs | Arrowhead Stadium | Kansas City, Missouri | |
| West | Las Vegas Raiders | Allegiant Stadium | Paradise, Nevada | |
| West | Los Angeles Chargers | SoFi Stadium | Inglewood, California |
Season structure
| AFC East | AFC North | AFC South | AFC West | |
| 1st | Bills | Ravens | Texans | Chiefs |
| 2nd | Dolphins | Steelers | Colts | Chargers |
| 3rd | Jets | Bengals | Jaguars | Broncos |
| 4th | Patriots | Browns | Titans | Raiders |
| NFC East | NFC North | NFC South | NFC West | |
| 1st | Eagles | Lions | Buccaneers | Rams |
| 2nd | Commanders | Vikings | Falcons | Seahawks |
| 3rd | Cowboys | Packers | Panthers | Cardinals |
| 4th | Giants | Bears | Saints | 49ers |
This chart of the 2024 season standings displays an application of the NFL scheduling formula. The Chiefs in 2024 finished in first place in the AFC West. Thus, in 2025, the Chiefs will play two games against each of its division rivals, one game against each team in the AFC South and NFC East, and one game each against the first-place finishers in the AFC East, AFC North and NFC North.
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 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 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. As of 2025 the AFC representative team has won the Super Bowl 27 out of the 55 total editions, with the Kansas City Chiefs being the most recent AFC Super Bowl winner in 2024. The New England Patriots have won the most AFC championships with 12, and share the record for the most Super Bowls won by a member of the conference with the Pittsburgh Steelers who won 8 AFC championships with 6.
History
With the impending merger with the American Football League 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, suggested 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 the other owners was rampant in who would move, since others wanted to simply have no realignment of NFL teams. The AFL had begun play in 1960 with eight teams before adding two more expansion clubs 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 and Wellington Mara, 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 Carroll Rosenbloom of the then-Baltimore Colts.
Thus, in order to equalize the number of teams in each conference, three NFL teams that predated the AFL's launch 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. 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 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 Tampa Bay Buccaneers joined the league in 1976, they were temporarily placed in the NFC and AFC, respectively. This arrangement lasted for one season 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 Colts relocated to Indianapolis. In 1995, the Browns 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, Pittsburgh Steelers, Denver Broncos, Baltimore Ravens, Indianapolis Colts, Kansas City Chiefs, Cincinnati Bengals, Las Vegas Raiders, Tennessee Titans. 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 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.