For so long, the AFC has embodied what the NFC likes to believe about itself. It has been the dominator and the tastemaker, hoarding a disproportionate number of football blessings. In the first quarter of this century, an AFC that began as a league absorbed into the 1970 merger has flaunted the best quarterbacks, the two defining dynasties, five of the eight winningest teams since 2000 and nearly all of the era-shaping styles of play.
For so long, the AFC has embodied what the NFC likes to believe about itself. It has been the dominator and the tastemaker, hoarding a disproportionate number of football blessings. In the first quarter of this century, an AFC that began as a league absorbed into the 1970 merger has flaunted the best quarterbacks, the two defining dynasties, five of the eight winningest teams since 2000 and nearly all of the era-shaping styles of play.
Lately, we’ve been conditioned to start every season thinking about the AFC. It’s the land of Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen. The conference houses the Kansas City Chiefs, who have won three of the past six Super Bowls, as well as two consistent, high-level contenders that would run the league if not for the Chiefs: the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens. Aaron Rodgers, dating from his Green Bay heyday, is the only NFC superstar to interrupt a run of regular season MVPs from the AFC over the past dozen seasons. And, of course, Rodgers is now a creaky old quarterback in the AFC learning hard lessons.
This isn’t the 1980s and 1990s, when the NFC once won 13 straight Super Bowls. This isn’t a sport that rotates around the dominance of the NFC East division or the black-and-blue mythology of the NFC North. The San Francisco 49ers aren’t the undisputed innovators of the league.
Those days seem ancient now, which makes this potential NFC comeback an even better story. As the 2025 season moves into Week 11, the NFC looks deeper and healthier than it has in a long time. And the AFC has a bunch of underperforming name brands hoping to recover as crunch time begins.
Entering this week, 13 teams have winning percentages of at least .600. Eight are from the NFC. Although the AFC trio of Indianapolis, New England and Denver are currently tied with the league’s best record (8-2), you can make a credible case that only the Colts have an impressive enough résumé to be considered among the league’s top five teams. The NFC has reigning champion Philadelphia (7-2), the Los Angeles Rams (7-2), Seattle (7-2) and Detroit (6-3) all worthy of top-five consideration. The conference is so balanced that, if the playoffs started today, Green Bay (5-3-1), which may have the league’s most dangerous defense, would be the seventh and final seed.
While 60 percent of one season isn’t enough time to declare a trend, the results so far indicate a potential shift that has been brewing for a while. Perhaps the NFC’s recovery would have been clearer if the 49ers hadn’t blown double-digit leads in two Super Bowl losses to Kansas City. The AFC has an unquestioned advantage in elite quarterback depth, but as the sport tilts back toward defense, formulas for winning have changed.
Complementary football is more important than ever. It still takes good quarterback play to be a sustainable championship contender, but there’s a misguided notion that beating Mahomes — or before him, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning — requires a superhuman calling the signals on the other side.
We will always be fascinated with quarterback rivalries, but in the two Super Bowls that Mahomes has lost (and been dominated), the Chiefs didn’t lose because the other team had a comparable gunslinger. Those defeats were the result of overpowering, quarterback-badgering defensive performances by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers five years ago and the Eagles last season. Jalen Hurts was the Super Bowl LIX MVP, and he’s an outstanding quarterback despite criticism of his unorthodox style. But the magic is in the thoughtful manner in which the Eagles are constructed, and how Hurts functions as the most important piece of the machine rather than the savior.
You see similar philosophies in all of the NFC teams that are emerging. You also see it in two AFC contenders that continue to improve: Denver and the Los Angeles Chargers. The quarterbacks on all the these teams range from a likely Hall of Famer (the Rams’ Matthew Stafford) to successful reclamation projects (Seattle’s Sam Darnold and Tampa Bay’s Baker Mayfield). They’re all playing good football on teams designed for balance. They win with efficiency more than brilliance. Ask them to do too much, and the structure collapses. The opposing pass rushers are too potent, and the defensive schemes are too clever.
In this era, the question isn’t just whether you have The Guy at quarterback. It’s how you make him a factor. That’s why the Lions, led by their run game, have reactivated Jared Goff. That’s why the Colts have Daniel Jones in MVP contention. With its historic defensive roots, the NFC always seems to benefit the most when the game isn’t overly dependent on quarterback greatness. Right now, with good quarterbacks in great situations, the conference is starting to thrive.
But how will the season finish? There’s still a chance that, for all this evidence of the conferences rebalancing and the NFL spinning into an inevitable new cycle, AFC supremacy isn’t over. If the playoffs began today, the Chiefs (5-4) and Ravens (4-5) wouldn’t be in. Buffalo (6-3) is just the No. 6 seed as it tries to overcome bouts of inconsistency. Still, for those teams, the season is longer than for others. They’re never out of it until they’re dead.
In 2023, Kansas City had a 9-6 record after a loss on Christmas Day, and the Chiefs still ended up winning the championship. Despite starting 1-5, the Ravens remain the betting favorite to win the AFC North. Because Buffalo has done everything except advance to the Super Bowl with Allen as its star, it’s understandable that the Bills would have regular season lapses because they know they’re only judged by postseason success now. By the end of the regular season, the power rankings could look very difficult.
But the NFC has put itself in position to reclaim its influence, now and in the future. The teams have done so by diversifying the quarterback tiers. There is room for various shades of good quarterbacks to compete with the greats because franchises are getting smarter about building their rosters. Style of play is a multidimensional conversation again. Defense is no longer secondary to offense. If this is a new league cycle, the AFC may soon be chasing the balance the NFC has found again.
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