The National Football Conference-Southern Division, or NFC South, is one of four divisions in the National Football League's National Football Conference (NFC). The other three divisions are the NFC North, AFC West, and AFC South. The NFC South was created in 1950 when the NFL split its Western Division into the American and National Leagues.
The NFC South consists of eight teams that play each year as part of the NFL schedule. The division champions will go through the playoffs each season to determine who will represent the conference in the Super Bowl. Atlanta has won the most championships with three. The Saints were originally members of the old American Football League (AFL), but they joined the NFL after the 1969 season. Carolina also became an NFL team in 1953 when it replaced the Chicago Cardinals as the league's eighth franchise.
The terms "southern" and "southwestern" are commonly used descriptors for teams in the NFC South. All four franchises are located in the Southeastern United States, with three of them being from Louisiana (New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and New York City) and one from Georgia (Atlanta).
The teams are evenly divided between the National Football Conference (NFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). Each conference is divided into four divisions (East, North, South, and West), and each division has four teams. You may find free download links to this entire list in plain text (.txt) file format at the conclusion of the list. The file name is NFL Teams East 2016.txt.
Here's how the teams are split up:
Division Winner vs. Division Runner-Up Matchup
There is no tiebreaker system used by default to determine which team will play against whom in the playoffs. However, if one team is clear ahead of the other through common games won or lost, then the leading team can be given the benefit of the doubt in order to avoid a possible tie game. For example, if the Dallas Cowboys were to win their last three games and the Pittsburgh Steelers were to lose all of theirs, then the Cowboys would go into the playoffs as the first seed because they have more wins than the Steelers. In this case, it wouldn't matter that both teams have an equal record because one team has demonstrated itself to be better by winning its recent games.
In any case, there are several factors taken into account when determining the pairings for these games.
The National Football Conference (NFC) is one of the National Football League's two conferences (NFL). The National Football Conference (NFC) and its equivalent, the American Football Conference (AFC), now have 16 clubs divided into four divisions. The NFC has the highest average attendance of any conference in the NFL.
The other conference is the American Football Conference (AFC), which has the same number of teams as the NFC but with three fewer franchises. The AFC began with six teams back in 1998 when the Oakland Raiders and Jacksonville Jaguars were admitted to the league. Since then, only the New England Patriots have won more games than their AFC counterparts. However, since 2007, all but one team (Patriots) have made the playoffs. This is a clear sign that parity has set in among the teams of the AFC.
There was some debate as to which conference had the better regular season record until 2002, when both conferences finished with an identical 5-1 record. The winner of that year's Super Bowl went straight into the following season as champion.
Since 2003, when the AFC won five out of seven possible titles, the conferences have been tied at 4-4. In 2011, the last time these conferences met in the postseason, it resulted in a tie again.
The Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers are the current members of the NFC South. The division was created at the end of the 1994 season when the NFL realigned its divisions. The Saints joined the NFC South from the AFC East where they had been members since the team's inception in 1966.
The division is made up of football teams from the Southeastern United States. Florida lies across the border between the two leagues, making the Southeast a major market for both conferences. The five teams have similar geographic profiles with their main bases of operations in the Southern part of the state. However, the Saints are based in New Orleans while the Falcons are based in Atlanta. This is also reflected by their respective attendance figures which are below average compared to other NFC teams.
The Falcons went to the playoffs in each of their first three seasons before making it to the Super Bowl in 1996. They have not returned since then and currently sit at 1-4 this season.
The Panthers started out well when they were undefeated and winning the division in their first season but lost later on in the year when their defense fell apart. Since then they have never finished higher than third place in the division.
Copyright © 2020 - 2023 Sportsmanist Inc.
