National Football Conference
The National Football Conference or NFC is a conference in the National Football League.
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[edit] History
The conference was created after the NFL-AFL Merger of 1970. All of the NFL's teams, with the exceptions of the Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Baltimore Colts would begin play in the new National Football Conference (the other teams mentioned would play in the American Football Conference.
[edit] 1970 Arrangement
In 1970, the following alignment for the NFC was selected:
[edit] NFC West
[edit] NFC Central
[edit] NFC East
[edit] Expansion teams
In 1976, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were placed in the AFC for one season before being switched with the NFC's Seattle Seahawks; the Bucs played in the Central division. In 1995, the Carolina Panthers joined league, and began playing in the NFC West.
[edit] 2002 Rearrangement
In 2002, the league decided to rearrange the NFL into four divisions per conference to accomodate the AFC's new expansion team, the Houston Texans. To do so, the leauge decided to move the Seahawks back to the NFC in order to make a new NFC West division.
The following changes were made to the conference structure before the start of the 2002 season:
[edit] NFC West
- Seattle Seahawks moved from AFC to NFC West.
- Arizona Cardinals added from NFC East.
- Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons taken to NFC South.
[edit] NFC Central
- Division renamed to NFC North.
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers taken to NFC South.
[edit] NFC South
- New division to counterpart the NFC North.
- Carolina Panthers added from NFC West.
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers added from NFC Central.
- New Orleans Saints added from NFC West.
- Atlanta Falcons added from NFC West.
[edit] NFC East
- Arizona Cardinals taken to NFC West.
