In retrospect, I have to question if they made the right decisions regarding alignment. The only NFC division that made any sense was the Central and the NFC Divisions were literally picked out of a fish bowl.

Why not blow the whole thing up and go geographically?

Or just keep the divisions as they were and have the AFC’s East join the NFL East and the AFC West join the NFC West?

I get that Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore eventually volunteered to move but maybe it would have made more sense for expansion teams Dallas, New Orleans, and Atlanta to make the switch? Or perhaps a pair of geographically isolated teams like San Francisco and the LA Rams?

The other thing that bothers me is that they never did anything to fix it—not when Tampa Bay & Seattle joined, not when the Colts or Cardinals relocated in the 80s; not when the Browns, Rams, or Oilers moved in the 90s. They even took the one NFC division that actually made sense and decided to add Tampa Bay to it.

Had it been up to you, how would you aligned things?

Presuming we still have to move CLE, PIT, & BAL to the AFC, mine would be:

NFC EAST: NYG, PHI, WAS, ATL
NFC CENTRAL: DET, CHI, GB, MIN, STL
NFC WEST: NO, DAL, LAR, SF

AFC EAST: NE, BUF, NYJ, MIA, HOU
AFC CENTRAL: BAL, PIT, CLE, CIN
AFC WEST: DEN, KC, SD, OAK

ATL, the easternmost of the NFL expansion teams joins the Northeastern trio; all 5 Midwestern NFL teams are together; DAL & NO are the odd men out and get sent West but as expansion teams, it’s not like they had deep roots with anyone.

On the AFC side, the AFL East moves in and has no membership changes, CIN joins the NFL crossovers in a geographically friendly Central. AFC West is just the old AFL West minus the 2 year old and geographic outlier CIN.

I’d then put the expansion SEA in the AFC West and TB in the NFC East.

Switch Baltimore and Houston.

(07-28-2026 10:25 AM)AZcats Wrote:  Switch Baltimore and Houston.

Houston had just spent a decade in the same division as the Jets, Bills, and Patriots (not to mention the Dolphins for every season of their existence). In terms of fan interest and rivalries, keeping them with the old guard AFL made far more sense than the AFC Central.

It also didn’t make a lot of sense putting the Baltimore Colts with the AFL teams when they at least had a little history with Cleveland (original Colts came over from the AAFC with the Browns) and nearby Pittsburgh. Considering that the Colts had been screwed by the NFL in division alignments, being forced to play in the West despite being right on the East Coast, then put in that dreadful Coastal Division with the 2 West Coast teams and expansion Atlanta, I think the whole reason they volunteered to go to the AFC was to avoid yet another crappy division assignment.

If the premise of the entire original argument is to align geographically, it makes no sense to have Baltimore in the central and Houston in the east.

Playing out my original scenario:

1982 OAK-> LA : no changes needed
1984 BAL -> IND : no changes needed
1988 STL -> ARZ : conceivably you could leave them in the NFC-C, or move them to the NFC-W
1995 LA Rams -> STL : I see the NFL putting the Rams and Cardinals both in the WEST
1995 LA Raiders -> OAK : no changes needed
1995 +JAX -> AFC CENTRAL
1995 +CAR -> NFL CENTRAL
1996 -CLE / +BAL : no changes needed
1997 HOU -> TEN : no changes needed
1999 +CLE : no changes needed
2002 where everything falls apart —follow up post to come

Starting with the AFC, 2002 becomes a nightmare trying to build divisions of 4.

The West is 4 AFL founders and a Seattle team that’s been with them since year 2.

The Central is Jacksonville and then 5 teams that hate each other— BAL hates IND for taking their team, CLE hates BAL for taking theirs. PIT & CLE have mutual hatred, as do CLE & CIN, and everyone is in pretty reasonable driving distance.

In the East you’ve got 5 teams that all came over in the merger, albeit 1 is a relocation.

Presuming SEA is still willing to go the NFC, they are the odd man out in the West. In the Central, it’s Jacksonville and Baltimore who get the boot, while the East loses TEN & MIA, but gains BAL.

The South then becomes HOU, TEN, JAX, & MIA.

In the NFC, the only clear cut division is the Central—newcomer Carolina joins the new South; while GB, MIN, CHI, and DET form the North.

In the East, NYG, PHI, & WAS are all locks to stay. TB obviously gets bumped to the South. Atlanta is tougher to decide on—they would have been part of that division since the merger and made a real strong case to stay despite the South being more sensible.

Out West, crossover SEA along with SF & ARZ seem like locks to stay West. NO seems like a likely candidate to go South.

So the South at this point is NO, TB, & CAR. But who do you make the 4th? ATL, DAL, or STL? I think you could make a good case for putting any of those in there but I ultimately think DAL stays West, ATL stays East, and the recently relocated Rams become the 4th team in the South.

That works great until the Rams decide to go back to LA—wrecking the whole thing.