NFL Divisions Explained: History, Structure, How They Work NBC Insider

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Teams play teams in their division twice a year, once at home and once away, leading to epic matchups and some of the most anticipated fixtures on each team’s schedule, given their fierce rivalries. The winner of each division gets an automatic spot in the NFL playoffs, with the remaining teams left fighting it out for a Wild Card spot. Players who chose the AFL to develop their talent included Lance Alworth and Ron Mix of the Chargers, who had also been drafted by the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Colts respectively.

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In November 1959, Minneapolis-Saint Paul owner Max Winter announced his intent to leave the AFL to accept a franchise offer from the NFL. Los Angeles Chargers owner Barron Hilton demanded that a replacement for Minnesota be placed in California, to reduce his team’s operating costs and to create a rivalry. After initially being called the Oakland Señors,18 the rechristened Oakland Raiders officially joined the AFL on January 30, 1960. The AFL’s first draft took place the same day Boston was awarded its franchise, and lasted 33 rounds. Because the Oakland Raiders joined after the initial AFL drafts, they inherited Minnesota’s selections.1617 A special allocation draft was held in January 1960, to allow the Raiders to stock their team, as some of the other AFL teams had already signed some of Minneapolis’ original draft choices. This fourth version of the AFL was the most successful, created by a number of owners who had been refused NFL expansion franchises or had minor shares of NFL franchises.

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The Rams’ 2020 season also marked the long-awaited opening of the $5 billion-plus SoFi Stadium, the world’s costliest stadium. The pandemic kept fans out of the stadium’s 70,000 seats during its first year. The team, which had also undergone a rebranding of logos, colors and uniforms, won their first game of the 2020 season, 20–17, over the Cowboys. Near the game’s end, Dallas was denied a large gain that would have put them in scoring position when a controversial offensive-pass-interference penalty was called on Dallas receiver Michael Gallup against Ramsey.

As for games that air on ESPN’s Monday Night Football, KABC simulcasts these cable games carries those games as the two channels share common ownership. The league’s blackout policy is not currently in effect, meaning that besides road games, all Rams home games are televised in the Los Angeles market, regardless of attendance. In accordance with a 1957 NFL rule dictating that the home team wear dark, primary-colored jerseys and the road team light shirts, the Rams hurriedly readied for the regular season new royal-blue home jerseys with golden striping and golden front and back numerals with a white border. The Rams continued to wear their golden jerseys for 1957 road games, but the following year adopted a white jersey with blue numerals and stripes. In 1962–1963 the team’s road white jersey featured a UCLA-style blue-gold-blue crescent shoulder tri-stripe.

A series of events throughout the next few years demonstrated the AFL’s ability to achieve a greater level of equality with the NFL. On January 29, 1964, the AFL signed a lucrative $36 million television contract with NBC (beginning in the 1965 season), which gave the league money it needed to compete with the NFL for players. Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney was quoted as saying to NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle after receiving the news of the AFL’s new TV deal that, “They don’t have to call us ‘Mister’ anymore”. A single-game attendance record was set on November 8, 1964, when 61,929 fans packed Shea Stadium to watch the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills.

The NFL season format consists of a three-week preseason, an 18-week regular Athletes of Valor season (each team plays 17 games), and a 14-team single-elimination playoff culminating in the Super Bowl, the league’s championship game. The AFL also spawned coaches whose style and techniques have profoundly affected the play of professional football to this day. In addition to AFL greats like Hank Stram, Lou Saban, Sid Gillman and Al Davis were eventual hall of fame coaches such as Bill Walsh, a protégé of Davis with the AFL Oakland Raiders for one season; and Chuck Noll, who worked for Gillman and the AFL LA/San Diego Chargers from 1960 through 1965.

Each conference had an East Division, a Central Division, and a West Division. The short answer is that a divisional structure simply makes scheduling easier. NFL schedules are designed so that each team will play the other members of their division twice per season, which means six games out of the year are automatically within the divisional structure. The National Football League is a massive organization comprised of 32 teams, each featuring dozens of players, a coaching staff, and a massive fanbase.

The Los Angeles Rams are a professional American football team based in the Greater Los Angeles area. The Rams compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division. The team plays its home games at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, which it shares with the Los Angeles Chargers. Each division consists of four teams and involves some history and bitter rivalries.

The new helmet horns were white, wider, and separated at the helmet center front. The white jersey featured blue numerals and a wide blue crescent shoulder stripe. In 1970, in keeping with the standards of the newly merged NFL, names appeared on the jersey backs for the first time.

To accommodate the Rams’ move, the ballpark was reconfigured and enclosed to accommodate a capacity of 69,008 in the football configuration. When the National Football League as we know it formed in 1970, merging the NFL with the American Football League, it set up a divisional system to group teams roughly by region and make playoff structures easier to follow and set up. In the beginning, there were 13 teams in each of the newly formed conferences, and those 13 teams were grouped into three divisions, with one containing five teams and the other two containing four.