No Way Houston Goes in NFC in 2002

[Anthony]

You think the court challenges over this presidential election are gnarly - they are nothing compared to what would happen if the NFL ever tries to put Houston in the NFC. CBS would have a fit - they would never allow Fox to have both Texas teams and would do anything to stop it.
So here's what they should do regarding realignment:

AFC Eastern Division: Jacksonville, Miami, New England, N.Y. Jets (unless the Jaguars and Dolphins go in the same division, Wayne Weaver will vote No - and he is one of the seven owners who have been appointed by Paul Tagliabue to the "realignment task force.")

AFC Northern Division: Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh (anybody who has ever lived in the eastern Great Lakes region - and I have a brother who used to - knows that this division makes perfect sense; the Bills-Dolphins rivalry is over-hyped by the media).

AFC Southern Division: Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Tennessee (I know, I'm splitting up the Chiefs and the Raiders. But Lamar Hunt is one of the league's great statesmen - heck, the trophy they give to the AFC champion has his name on it, even though he's still alive - and I just have a hunch he'll put the league's best interest above his own when the time comes).

AFC Western Division: Denver, Oakland, San Diego, Seattle (Art Modell wants to be the one that switches conferences; Paul Allen doesn't. Both will get their wish).

NFC Capitol Division: Baltimore, N.Y. Giants, Philadelphia, Washington (To prove how unpopular - and how uninfluential - Jerry Jones is among his fellow owners).

NFC Century Division: Atlanta, Carolina, New Orleans, Tampa Bay (neither the Panthers nor the Bucs will particularly like moving out of their present divisions, but their owners don't have the seniority - and thus the clout - to stop it).

NFC Central Division: Chicago, Detroit, Green Bay, Minnesota (the makeup of this division is the one fixed point in all realignment schemes. No one wants to break this group up - and no one will).

NFC Coastal Division: Arizona, Dallas, St. Louis, San Francisco (When Tagliabue named his seven-owner committee, he picked one owner from each of the current divisions except the AFC Central, from which he picked two because it has one more team. The NFC East representative chosen was Bill Bidwill - NOT Jerry Jones. That speaks volumes!)

[Marc]

Welcome, Anthony, and excellent post and subject! However, I disagree with you somewhat on how you have things setup.

In the AFC East, Miami shouldn't be there, they should be in the South.

In the AFC South, I think the Bengals should swap divisions with the Colts - who are more of a North team.

And just a question about your NFC, why does it have a different setup than the AFC? I would think they would both be the same...

[Anthony]

In response to your three points, Marc:

1. Are you aware of the fact that Paul Tagliabue has gone on record as saying that he is dead-set against any Houston/Jacksonville/Miami/Tennessee division in the AFC? He says he doesn't want three "new market" teams in the same division. Personally I think he's being silly, but even so, otherwise I would have used this as one of my proposed divisions.

2. As it turns out you may be right about the Colts and Bengals - when Tagliabue visited Cincinnati earlier this month he refused to "guarantee" that the Bengals would get to stay in the same division as the Browns, Steelers etc. Still, if you're going to lure the Chiefs out of the West you'll have a better chance of doing it by including the Colts instead of the Bengals in their new division for the simple reason that Indianapolis is closer to Kansas City than Cincinnati is.

3. As far as my NFC being "set up" differently - I assume you mean the names of the divisions? A few owners have expressed the idea of wanting all eight of the divisions to have its own separate name, saying "AFC East" and "NFC East" etc. causes too much confusion. So I took the liberty of recycling the four division names the NFL used from 1967 through 1969 to name the NFC divisions.

Hope this clears up all of your concerns!