2015 AFC West Division Title

Lore & Background

The division was formed in 1960 as the American Football League's Western Division. In 1970, it entered the merged NFL as the AFC West. The original AFL West members—the Dallas Texans (who moved to Kansas City in 1963 as the Chiefs), Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers (who moved to San Diego in 1961, then back to Los Angeles in 2017), and Oakland Raiders (who moved to Los Angeles in 1982, back to Oakland in 1995, and Las Vegas in 2020)—have remained in the division since its inception. While the four current franchises have been together since 1960, relocations mean the division is not intact in its original form.

In Their Own Story

The air inside Arrowhead Stadium crackled with a different kind of electricity on that final Sunday. It wasn't just noise; it was anticipation. As Alex Smith dropped back, scanning the field, he saw the defense collapse inward, but his eyes found the open lane for Jamaal Charles. The running back took the handoff, lowered his shoulder, and drove forward through a wall of defenders. The crowd roared as he crossed the goal line, sealing the AFC West title. In that moment, the weight of past failures lifted, replaced by the heavy, golden promise of what was to come.

Reader's Guide

As of the conclusion of the 2023 season, the Chiefs have the most Super Bowl wins of any AFC West team with four. The Broncos have appeared in the most Super Bowls in the division with eight, the Chiefs have appeared in seven, and the Raiders have appeared in five. The Chargers lost their lone Super Bowl appearance in Super Bowl XXIX. Two members of the division won back-to-back Super Bowls: the Broncos in 1997 and 1998, and the Chiefs in 2022 and 2023. The Denver Broncos won the most recent AFC West title in 2025. Kansas City's win in 2022 made the AFC West the only division in the NFL where all four teams had the same number of division titles (15 each).

Did You Know?

• The AFC West has sent teams to the Super Bowl twenty-one times, beginning with Super Bowl I when the Chiefs played the Green Bay Packers.
• The division is the only one of the eight NFL divisions to have all its teams win division titles in the first four seasons of the North-East-West-South format (Oakland in 2002, Kansas City in 2003, San Diego in 2004, De
• In 2010, the Raiders swept the entire division, going 6–0, but failed to qualify for the playoffs as they only won two non-divisional games.