AFC West

Oldest NFL division in its present form, with four original teams.

The AFC West is a division in the NFL's American Football Conference, made up of the Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs, Las Vegas Raiders, and Los Angeles Chargers. It started in 1960 as the Western Division of the American Football League and stayed mostly the same when the leagues merged in 1970. Teams from this division have reached the Super Bowl 21 times, starting with the Chiefs in the first Super Bowl against the Green Bay Packers. They've won ten of those games, which is the second-highest total among all divisions, behind only the NFC East.

Through the 2023 season, the Chiefs lead the division with four Super Bowl wins. The Broncos have made the most Super Bowl appearances with eight, the Chiefs have seven, and the Raiders have five. The Chargers have only one appearance, a loss in Super Bowl XXIX. Two division teams have won back-to-back Super Bowls: the Broncos in 1997 and 1998, and the Chiefs in 2022 and 2023.

The Broncos won their 16th AFC West title in 2025, the most recent. In 2022, the Chiefs' division win made the AFC West the only NFL division where all four teams had exactly 15 titles each.

The original AFL West had the Dallas Texans (who moved to Kansas City in 1963), the Denver Broncos, the Los Angeles Chargers (who moved to San Diego in 1961 and back to Los Angeles in 2017), and the Oakland Raiders (who moved to Los Angeles in 1982, back to Oakland in 1995, and then to Las Vegas in 2020). These four teams have been together since 1960, making the AFC West the oldest division in the NFL in its current form. Because they've played each other at least twice a year for over 60 years, the entire division is considered one big rivalry.

The Cincinnati Bengals were in the AFL West for the last two AFL seasons, even though they were farther east than the Houston Oilers, who were in the AFL East. In 1970, the Bengals and Oilers moved to the AFC Central. The Seattle Seahawks joined the AFC West in 1977 after their first season in the NFC West, then moved back to the NFC West in 2002. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers played in the AFC West during their first season in 1976 before shifting to the NFC Central in 1977.

After the NFL realigned into eight divisions in 2002, each AFC West team won a division title in the first four years: Oakland in 2002, Kansas City in 2003, San Diego in 2004, and Denver in 2005.