AFC West

The AFC West is a division of the National Football League's American Football Conference, formed in 1960 as the American Football League's Western Division. In 1970, it became the AFC West as a result of the AFL-NFL merger. The new NFL was aligned into six divisions (two conferences of three divisions each), with each division being a successor to an earlier division in either the AFL or NFL. The original AFL West had four members - the Dallas Texans (which moved to Kansas City in 1963 as the Chiefs), Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers (which moved to San Diego in 1961) and Oakland Raiders. These four teams have remained in the AFL/AFC West since its inception, and are currently the only teams in the division. When the Raiders played in Los Angeles from 1982 to 1994, they remained in the AFC West.

The Cincinnati Bengals played their first two seasons in the AFL West, moving to the AFC Central (formerly the NFL Century Division, now the AFC North) in 1970.

When the Seattle Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers began play in 1976, the Buccaneers were put into the AFC West and the Seahawks were put into the NFC West. After one year, Seattle was moved into the AFC West and Tampa Bay was moved into the NFC Central. The Seahawks played in the AFC West until the 2002 re-alignment, when they were put back into the NFC West, thus restoring the pre-1976 alignment.

Each of the four AFC West teams won a division title in the first four years of the realignment - Oakland in 2002, Kansas City in 2003, San Diego in 2004 and Denver in 2005. It is the only one of the eight NFL divisions to have all of its teams win titles in the first four seasons of the North-East-West-South format.

ESPN's Chris Berman often calls this division the "AFC Smythe" due to its geographical similarity to the old Smythe Division of the NHL, now known as the Pacific Division. Ironically, the Kansas City Scouts moved to Denver to become the Colorado Rockies in 1976; both the Kansas City and Denver incarnations of the franchise played in the Smythe. The Rockies moved to East Rutherford, New Jersey in 1982 and became the New Jersey Devils (playing in the Meadowlands Sports Complex, where the NFL's two New York City area teams play).

In recent years, the division is often cited as one of the NFL's "Toughest Divisions"^[1][2][3] due partially to the home-field advantages of Invesco Field, Arrowhead Stadium, Qualcomm Stadium and the Oakland Coliseum (The Black Hole), although in 2008 the division was the NFL's weakest since the AFC Central in 1985 by sending the San Diego Chargers to the playoffs as division winners with an 8-8 record while the New England Patriots missed out at 11-5 after losing out on tiebreakers for both the AFC East and the wild-card. Although, it should also be noted that the Chargers beat the Patriots 30-10 in their Week 6 match-up.

Division champions

• ^!The Oakland Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs tied for the regular season division title at 12-2-0. The Raiders won the ensuing playoff game to represent the West in the AFL Championship Game.
• ^#A players' strike in 1982 reduced the regular season to nine games. Thus, the league used a special 16-team playoff tournament just for this year. Division standings were ignored, the Los Angeles Raiders had the best record of the division teams.

Wild Card qualifiers

• A players' strike in 1982 reduced the regular season to nine games. Thus, the league used a special 16-team playoff tournament just for this year. Division standings were ignored, the Los Angeles Raiders had the best record of the division teams.

Total playoff berths

^! Chiefs finished 1968 tied for first with Radiers, but lost ensuing playoff game.
¹ Known as the Los Angeles Raiders from 1982 until 1994, before moving back to Oakland.
² Realigned into the NFC West prior to the 2002 NFL season.
³ Have played in one Super Bowl after realignment to NFC.
⁴ Realigned into the NFC Central prior to the 1977 NFL season.

References