AFC West
The American Football Conference – Western Division or AFC West is one of the four divisions of the American Football Conference in the National Football League. The division comprises the Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs, Las Vegas Raiders, and Los Angeles Chargers.
The division has sent teams to the Super Bowl sixteen times beginning with Super Bowl I vs. Green Bay. As of the 2019 season, the Broncos and Raiders were tied with the most Super Bowl wins within the division with 3 each; The Broncos have appeared in the most Super Bowls in the division with 8 and the Raiders have appeared in 5. The Chiefs are 2–1 in the Super Bowl, while the Chargers lost their lone Super Bowl appearance in Super Bowl XXIX.
History
The division was formed in 1960 as the American Football League's Western Division. In 1970, as part of the new NFL's two-conference, six-division alignment, the AFL West entered the merged league more or less intact as the AFC West.The original AFL West had four members – the Dallas Texans, Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers and Oakland Raiders. These four teams have remained in the AFL/AFC West since its inception, and are currently the only teams in the division. Largely because of this, and the fact they have played each other twice a year for over half a century, the entire division is considered one very large and very heated rivalry.
The Cincinnati Bengals played the last two AFL seasons in the AFL West despite being further east than Houston, where the Houston Oilers played at the time and were members of the AFC East. The Bengals moved to the AFC Central in 1970, instantly forming rivalries with the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
In 1977, the Seattle Seahawks were added to the AFC West after spending their expansion season in the NFC West; they would move back to the NFC West in 2002. The first-year Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1976 played as a member of the AFC West before being aligned into the NFC Central in 1977.
Each of the four AFC West teams won a division title in the first four years of the realignment – Oakland in 2002, Kansas City in 2003, San Diego in 2004 and Denver in 2005. It is the only one of the eight NFL divisions to have all of its teams win titles in the first four seasons of the North-East-West-South format.
In the early and mid-2000s, the division was often cited as one of the NFL's "Toughest Divisions" due partially to the home-field advantages of Empower Field at Mile High, Arrowhead Stadium, Qualcomm Stadium and the Oakland Coliseum, although in 2008 the division was the NFL's weakest since the AFC Central in 1985 by sending the San Diego Chargers to the playoffs as division winners with an 8–8 record while the New England Patriots missed out at 11–5 after losing out on tiebreakers for both the AFC East and the wild-card. 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.
The division was very weak in 2011 as well, when a loss by the Raiders in the last game of the season gave the Broncos the division title with only an 8-8 record. Only the NFC West in 2010 and the NFC South in 2014 have historically sent a worse division winner to the playoffs, when the Seahawks won that division with a 7-9 record and the Panthers won the NFC South division with a 7–8–1 record. Along with the AFC East, the AFC West is the oldest NFL division in terms of creation date.
Division lineups
Place cursor over year for division champ or Super Bowl team.Division champions
- !The Oakland Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs tied for the regular season division title at 12–2. The Raiders won the ensuing playoff game to represent the West in the AFL Championship Game.
- #A players' strike in 1982 reduced the regular season to nine games. Thus, the league used a special 16-team playoff tournament just for this year. Division standings were ignored, the Los Angeles Raiders had the best record of the division teams.
Wild Card qualifiers
- A players' strike in 1982 reduced the regular season to nine games. Thus, the league used a special 16-team playoff tournament just for this year. Division standings were ignored, the Los Angeles Raiders had the best record of the division teams.
Total playoff berths
;Former division members
The table below reflects division titles and playoff appearances from former members of the AFL/AFC West while still in the division.
| Team | Years in division | AFL/AFC West Division Championships | Playoff Berths | AFC Conference Championships | Super Bowl Championships |
| Seattle Seahawks | 1977–2001 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| Cincinnati Bengals | 1968–1969 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 1976 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |