American Football Conference
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American Football Conference
The American Football Conference (or AFC) is one of the two conferences that compose the National Football League. The AFC was formed before the 1970 NFL season from the American Football League when the AFL merged with the NFL. It was agreed that the new conferences should be equal in number, and thus the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers were obliged to join the new AFC. Initially, this proved to be very unpopular with fans in these cities.
The AFC currently consists of 16 teams, organized into four divisions (North, South, East, and West) of four teams each. Each team plays the other teams in their division twice (home & away) during the regular season in addition to 10 other games/teams assigned to their schedule by the NFL in the May before. 2 of these games are assigned on the basis of the teams' final record in the previous season. The remaining 8 games are split between the roster of two other NFL divisions. This assignment shifts each year. For instance, in the 2005 regular season, each team in the NFC East will play a game apiece against each team in both the AFC West and the NFC West. In this way division competition consists of common opponents, with the exception of the 2 games assigned on the strength of the each team's prior season record.
At the end of each football season, there are playoff games involving the top six teams in the AFC (the four division champions by place standing and the top two remaining non division champion teams ("wildcards") by record). The two teams remaining play in the AFC Championship game with the winner receiving the Lamar Hunt Trophy. The AFC Champion plays the NFC Champion in the Super Bowl.