The NBA and NHL consist of separate conferences based on regions.  MLB has two separate “leagues” mainly due to the designated hitter position.

And I know why the NFL formed an “American Football Conference” and a “National Football Conference” (roots from the old AFL and NFL) so long ago.  But what I don’t know is why we STILL have them.  It’s been almost 50 years since the AFL-NFL merger.  When that took place, the majority of current football fans weren’t even born yet.  Other than tradition for tradition’s sake, there’s really no reason to have those two separate designations anymore.

In 2002, when the NFL became a 32-team league and they CORRECTLY restructured the divisions by region (finally no more Arizona Cardinals in the East, or Carolina Panthers in the West),  it was a big step in the right direction.  But again, I wondered why they decided to keep the same conference labels as “AFC” and “NFC.”  They serve no purpose other than to remind us of where these teams came from originally, as well as keep any sort of Super Bowl tradition going.

So here’s a BOLD idea:  instead of a ridiculous amount of divisions (eight!) of four teams each, let’s flip that.  Four divisions of eight teams, based on regional location.

And it could look something like this (now with better divisional names!):

The Colonial Division – New England Patriots, Washington Redskins, Baltimore Ravens, NY Jets, NY Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, Carolina Panthers

The Gulf Coast Division – Dallas Cowboys, Houston Texans, Tennessee Titans, Jacksonville Jaguars, New Orleans Saints, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Atlanta Falcons, Miami Dolphins

The Great Lakes Division – Buffalo Bills, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, Chicago Bears, Indianapolis Colts, Cleveland Browns, Cincinnati Bengals

The Wild West Division – Seattle Seahwawks, San Francisco 49ers, LA Rams, Arizona Cardinals, Denver Broncos, Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers, Kansas City Chiefs

With this format, a 16-game regular season COULD still exist.  Each team plays 10 games within their own division, and two games against teams from each of the other divisions.  Playoff structure could still involve 12 teams, with the top two from each division getting automatic bids, and then the next top four teams overall would make it in as wild cards.  Then the playoff bracket would be based on overall records.  This means seeding teams 1 through 12.

Why, you may ask?  I’ll tell you why.  The first big reason would be to reduce some travel time for many teams.  If we focus on a team like the New England Patriots in the current setup they would travel to their three divisional games in Buffalo, New Jersey, and Miami every year.  But then they have two road games against the NFC each season, and only once every few years would those two games potentially be just a short distance away if they faced the NFC East division (Philly, Washington, Jersey again…).  Same goes for the AFC North with teams nearby in Baltimore and Pittsburgh.  But again, those aren’t teams they play every single season.  If you added four more “northeastern” teams to the Patriots’ division, then they have those particular shorter trips EVERY year, meaning less trips all the way down to Miami or over to Buffalo, as well as less trips out west.  Every three years, the Pats have to make at least TWO trips to the other side of the country.  In this new format, it would only be one trip.

Another reason (and this is a big one) is the potential for a better Super Bowl each year.  Ideally, you want the two best teams in the league to face off for the Lombardi trophy.  But during many seasons in the past, the two best teams were actually in the same conference, which meant that only one of them could make it to the Super Bowl.  Be honest, wouldn’t it have been epic to have Manning and Brady facing off in Super Bowls rather than just their conference championships?  With this new format, it eliminates that past absurdity, and allows for ANY possible Super Bowl matchups.

This idea isn’t perfect.  The big knock against it would be that it does eliminate some of the annual rivalry games that currently exist (Dallas/Washington, Baltimore/Pittsburgh for example).  On the flip side, it doesn’t eliminate ALL of them.  Many would still stay intact (Green Bay/Chicago and New England/NY Jets for examples).  I would argue that new rivalries would eventually form in their place anyway.  A slightly more devastating downside would be that certain teams could play each other even less often than every four years potentially.  A Seattle/Pittsburgh matchup could go six or seven years before it happened again.  Hopefully though, the new playoff structure would increase the frequency of those matchups back to what they are now.

Having two big conferences in other major sports makes sense.  If the NFL restructured theirs to something more practical like a West/East setup, then I may not be writing about this idea.  But currently, I see no reason to keep the old monikers of “American” and “National” after this many years.