Talking about sports on a global level, you would be hard pressed to find the Super Bowl in the list of the biggest sporting events in the world. After all, the NFL is not a hugely popular sport outside of the United States. The Americans like to keep their sports leagues to themselves for the most part, but the recent trend has been changing and the NFL is working hard on attracting the international market. Having said that, one thing is for sure, the NFL and the Super Bowl more specifically is the biggest sporting event in most of North America.
The NFL, which has a total of 32 teams has divided them into two different conferences, which are the AFC and the NFC. While this article will focus specifically on the NFC conference, the structure and the system remains the same in both conferences.
NFL’s NFC Conference
The second of the two conferences in the NFL is known as the NFC or rather the National Football Conference. As is the case with the AFC, the NFC also has 16 teams in the conference. The NFC first came into existence post the 1970 merger between two rival leagues called the National Football League and the American Football League. Initially, the league only consisted of 26 teams.
During the time of the merger, the NFL consisted of only 26 teams and thus thirteen teams from the NFL formed the new NFC while the remaining three NFL teams in addition to all ten AFL teams made up the new AFC. Since then, few expansion teams have joined the league at various stages.
Teams in the NFC
The structure of the NFL works in such a way that both the conferences are further divided into four divisions each. Divisions play an important role in how the season will shape up for the teams as each team will play their division opponents twice in a season making those games even more important. The four NFC divisions are: NFC East, NFC West, NFC North and NFC South.
NFC Standings
The NFL standings are of utmost importance heading into the postseason as only the top seven teams from each conference can make it. Therefore, as each team plays 17 games in the regular season, the standings are determined by the number of wins, losses, tied games, and tiebreakers in case of similar win-loss records.
Moreover, the standings also help determine the seeding process for the teams. An important aspect of the standings table is that no matter what the win-loss record is, all four division winners will occupy the first four spots followed by the remaining teams respectively. As per the latest 2022-23 NFL season, the NFC standings are as follows:
2022 NFC standings
| Team | Win | Loss | Tie | Rank |
| Philadelphia Eaglesxz* | 14 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| San Francisco 49ersxz | 13 | 4 | 0 | 2 |
| Minnesota Vikingsxz | 13 | 4 | 0 | 3 |
| Tampa Bay Buccaneersxz | 8 | 9 | 0 | 4 |
| Dallas Cowboysx | 12 | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| New York Giantsx | 9 | 7 | 1 | 6 |
| Seattle Seahawksx | 9 | 8 | 0 | 7 |
| Detroit Lions | 9 | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| Washington Commanders | 8 | 8 | 1 | 9 |
| Green Bay Packers | 8 | 9 | 0 | 10 |
| Carolina Panthers | 7 | 10 | 0 | 11 |
| New Orleans Saints | 7 | 10 | 0 | 12 |
| Atlanta Falcons | 7 | 10 | 0 | 13 |
| Los Angeles Rams | 5 | 12 | 0 | 14 |
| Arizona Cardinals | 4 | 13 | 0 | 15 |
| Chicago Bears | 3 | 14 | 0 | 16 |
Legend:
xz* - Clinched Division and Homefield Advantage
xz- Clinched Division
x- Clinched Playoffs
FAQs
A. The Philadelphia Eagles were the number one seed in the NFC in 2022-23 with a 14-3 record.
A. The NFC has a total of four divisions which are the NFC East, NFC West, NFC North, and the NFC South.
A. In the NFL, the NFC is one of the two conferences along with the AFC. The NFC stands for the National Football Conference.
A. The current NFL came into existence after the merger of the two rival leagues in 1970 which were the NFL and the AFL. Post merger, 13 teams were put in the AFC while the other 13 were put in the NFC.
