Geographically speaking ,it would seem they should be in the southern division and the Carolina Panthers would be more suited for the NFC east.Is this more a case for the long time tradition of rivalries between the Giants, Redskins,Eagles and Cowboys?
That is EXACTLY what it is! Same reason the Chiefs are in the AFC West
What other AFC team would you switch the Chefs out with? The only other team further west is Houston, who beats KC out by one measly degree of longitude - and that’d put KC in the AFC South.
And the same reason the Ravens are in the AFC North, though the Titans, Bills and Colts would make more geographic sense.
That’s nothing compared to the old days when the Arizona Cardinals were in the NFC East and the Carolina Panthers in the NFC West!
My point was that the rivalries in the AFC West go back to 1960, much like the NFC East rivalries.
Yup, the old NFC East (during the three-division era, 1970-2001) was originally:
- New York Giants
- Philadelphia Eagles
- Washington Redskins
- Dallas Cowboys
- St. Louis Cardinals
Now, it might’ve made sense to put St. Louis or Dallas into the Central division (along with Green Bay, Chicago, Detroit, and Minnesota) during the 1970 realignment, but they didn’t. And, the NFC West in that era was stupid, too:
- Atlanta Falcons
- New Orleans Saints
- Los Angeles Rams
- San Francisco 49ers
At any rate, the old NFC East contained three long-time rivals (Giants-Redskins-Eagles), and the Cowboys quickly developed rivalries with their new divisional foes. The Cardinals were, in theory, rivals with the other four teams in their division, but those rivalries never seemed to be as strong (possibly because the Cardinals were lousy for most of those 3 decades). When the Cardinals moved to Arizona in 1988, that just made the old “NFC East” even more oddly-named.
When the NFL expanded to 32 teams, and went to the eight-division alignment, they tried to maintain as many of the old rivalries as they could. And, frankly, Jerry Jones and the Cowboys wield quite a lot of power within the league. They wanted to stay in the same division as the Giants, Eagles and Redskins, and, so, they did.
To be super pedantic on my own post, it was the Phoenix Cardinals back then.
That, and frankly it made the most sense. It made for a very handy NFC South in Tampa Bay, Carolina, Atlanta and New Orleans. And the NFC North is about as ready made a grouping as it possible. They could have been stuck in the NFC West but they would have been an even more awkward fit than St Louis.
The Cowboys are on a bit of an NFC island unless you wanted to create a Dallas, St Louis, Arizona, New Orleans division but that would have meant displacing someone else dramatically worse.
Well, the Arizona Cardinals were in the NFC East because the St. Louis Cardinals had been in the NFC East, and St. Louis was in the East because the Chicago Cardinals had been in the NFL Eastern Conference, while the Chicago Bears were in the Western Conference. Which made perfect sense – in 1947.
And from 1995-2001 the NFC West consisted of Atlanta, Carolina, New Orleans, St. Louis and San Francisco.:eek:
As Yakov Smirnoff might put it, "In America, you follow compass. In NFL, compass follows YOU!
Agreed…with the exception of Dallas, the current NFC alignment makes a lot of sense geographically.
The ideal geographical realignment would swap the Cowboys and Panthers in the NFC, and in the AFC the Ravens would move to the East (opposite the Redskins), the Dolphins to the South and the Colts to the North.
NFC
East: Giants, Redskins, Eagles, Panthers
North: Bears, Packers, Vikings, Lions
South: Saints, Falcons, Bucs, Cowboys
West: 49ers, Seahawks, Cardinals, Rams
AFC
East: Jets, Patriots, Bills, Ravens
North: Steelers, Browns, Bengals, Colts
South: Texans, Jaguars, Titans, Dolphins
West: Chargers, Chiefs, Raiders, Broncos
If you read up on the details of the AFL-NFL merger you’ll see that the Colts, Steelers and Browns moved to the AFC with the absorbed AFL teams to balance the conferences and the divisions were re-aligned. There were a few options (five, to be specific) that were put in for re-alignment, mostly to maintain old rivalries, and the only one that had the 'Girls in the East was the one chosen in order to maintain the Redskins rivalry. That aspect was maintained again when they went from 3 to 4 divisions.
So in a sense it is not necessary that they be in the East but for the desire to pit them against the Redskins twice a year. If they switched, who would they play that has that same intensity of hate? I mean, everybody hates Dallas, but Redskin fans’ hate is much deeper than most.
The answer is that “NFC South” is the name of the division. It is not a description of the division.
Remember “name <> description.” This will help you avoid untold confusion.
No, it really is a description. They definitely tried to make the divisions as geographically correct as was reasonable during the 2002 realignment. They weren’t going to torpedo any premiere rivalries, of course, but they did everything else they could.
Putting aside rivalries and only concerned about minimizing distance between cities, the NFC divisions would look like this: (IMO)
Division I Giants, Eagle, Redskins, Lions
Division II Rams, Bears, Packers, Vikings
Division III Panthers, Falcons, Bucs, Saints
Division IV Cowboys, Seahawks, 49ers, Cardinals
The AFC would be what Ellis Dee outlined.
There were not enough teams out west so they had to put some eastern teams out there. In baseball and FB Atlanta got stuck out west for a good while.
It’s clearly not a description, since it doesn’t describe the division.
Nope. The Cowboys are much farther geographically than the Rams for the other western teams. The Rams are much farther geographically from the rest of North than the Lions are. Like I said earlier, that division’s geography cannot be improved upon. The NFC East teams are simply isolated. Swapping the Panthers and Cowboys would reduce travel distances for the East teams but it’d increase distances for the South teams. Ellis’ divisions probably would amount to the shortest flight times but the difference would be slight.
It’s clearly a description, since it clearly describes the division.
My Bengals have a tough enough time winning games, keep the Colts out of the AFCN!!!
In the NFC divisional I outlined above, the total distance between intra division cities is 20,718 miles.
In Ellis Dee’s divisional outline (Cowboys in the South, Panthers in the East and rams in the West), the total miles between intra division cities is 22750
Data:
Atlanta Charlotte Chicago Dallas Detroit Green Bay Minneapolis New Orleans NY Giants Philadelphia Phoenix San Francisco Seattle St Louis Tampa Washington
Atlanta 0 359 949 1167 973 1238 1465 688 1177 1069 2566 3447 3514 756 670 869
Charlotte 359 0 947 1498 828 1201 1512 1044 835 728 2867 3702 3675 914 824 531
Chicago 949 947 0 1298 377 295 572 1345 1135 1070 2340 2990 2793 423 1619 958
Dallas 1167 1498 1298 0 1614 1512 1393 714 2192 2093 1425 2386 2705 884 1478 1907
Detroit 973 828 377 1614 0 457 863 1522 775 723 2715 3357 3104 734 1614 649
Green Bay 1238 1201 295 1512 457 0 419 1630 1215 1173 2406 2958 2652 680 1908 1106
Minneapolis 1465 1512 572 1393 863 419 0 1696 1631 1584 2060 2550 2243 752 2123 1502
New Orleans 688 1044 1345 714 1522 1630 1696 0 1861 1753 2118 3099 3382 965 773 1554
New York Giants 1177 835 1135 2192 775 1215 1631 1861 0 109 3434 4124 3865 1390 1597 308
Philadelphia 1069 728 1070 2093 723 1173 1584 1753 109 0 3349 4057 3825 1303 1495 200
Phoenix 2566 2867 2340 1425 2715 2406 2060 2118 3434 3349 0 1052 1794 2047 2890 3188
San Francisco 3447 3702 2990 2386 3357 2958 2550 3099 4124 4057 1052 0 1093 2808 3862 3926
Seattle 3514 3675 2793 2705 3104 2652 2243 3382 3865 3825 1794 1093 0 2772 4069 3743
St Louis 756 914 423 884 734 680 752 965 1390 1303 2047 2808 2772 0 1388 1143
Tampa 670 824 1619 1478 1614 1908 2123 773 1597 1495 2890 3862 4069 1388 0 1317
Washington 869 531 958 1907 649 1106 1502 1554 308 200 3188 3926 3743 1143 1317 0
