The American Football Conference – Western Division or AFC West is one of the four divisions of the

American Football Conference The American Football Conference (AFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States. The AFC and its counterpart, the National Football Conference ...

(AFC) in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

(NFL). The division comprises the

Denver Broncos The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC West, West division. The team is headquartered in E ...

, Kansas City Chiefs, Las Vegas Raiders, and

Los Angeles Chargers The Los Angeles Chargers are a professional American football team based in the Greater Los Angeles, Greater Los Angeles area. The Chargers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC W ...

. The division has sent teams to the

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...

twenty-one times beginning with

Super Bowl I The first AFL–NFL World Championship Game (known retroactively as Super BowlI and referred to in contemporaneous reports, including the game's radio broadcast, as the Super Bowl) was an American football game played on January 15, 1967, at th ...

when the Chiefs played the

Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. They ar ...

, winning ten times, second only to the

NFC East The National Football Conference – Eastern Division or NFC East is one of the four Division (sport), divisions of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). It has four members: the Dallas Cowboys, New Yo ...

. As of the conclusion of the 2023 season, the Chiefs have the most Super Bowl wins of any AFC West team with four Super Bowl victories. 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 Super Bowl XXIX was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion San Diego Chargers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion San Francisco 49ers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champ ...

. Two members of the Division also won back-to-back Super Bowls. The Broncos in

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

and

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

and the Chiefs in

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

and

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

. The Chiefs won the most recent, ninth straight, and a record-extending 17th AFC West title in 2024. Kansas City's win in 2022 made the AFC West the only division in the NFL where all 4 teams had the same amount of division titles (15 each).

History

The division was formed in 1960 as the

American Football League The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, AFL–NFL merger, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Foot ...

'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 (who moved to Kansas City in 1963 as the Chiefs),

(who moved to San Diego in 1961, then back to Los Angeles in 2017) and

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team based in Oakland, California, from its founding in 1960 to 1981, and again from 1995 to 2019 before Oakland Raiders relocation to Las Vegas, relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan ...

(who moved to Los Angeles in 1982, back to Oakland in 1995, and Las Vegas in 2020). 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 60 years, the entire division is considered one very large and very heated rivalry. Given the fact that all four teams have played each other in the same division since 1960, the AFC West could be considered the oldest division (in its present form) in the NFL. The

Cincinnati Bengals The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team plays its h ...

played the last two AFL seasons in the AFL West despite being further east than

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

, where the Houston Oilers played at the time and were members of the AFL Eastern Division. The Bengals (along with the Oilers) moved to the AFC Central (formerly the NFL Century Division, now the

AFC North The American Football Conference – Northern Division or AFC North is one of the four Division (sport), divisions of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The division was created after the NFL realign ...

) in 1970, forming rivalries with the

Cleveland Browns The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. The Browns compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team is named after ...

and the

Pittsburgh Steelers The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. Founded in 1933 P ...

. In 1977, the Seattle Seahawks were added to the AFC West after spending their expansion season in the

NFC West The National Football Conference – Western Division or NFC West is one of the four Division (sport), divisions of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). It currently has four members: the Arizona Card ...

; 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 The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team in the National Football League (NFL). The Chargers played in San Diego, California from 1961 until 2016, before relocating back to the Greater Los Angeles area, where the franch ...

to the playoffs as division winners with an 8–8 record while the

New England Patriots The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. The Patriots compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The Pa ...

missed out at 11–5 after losing out on conference record tiebreakers for both the

AFC East The American Football Conference – Eastern Division or AFC East is one of the four Division (sport), divisions of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). There are currently four teams that reside in th ...

and the wild-card. In

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

, 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 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

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

in 2010, the

NFC South The National Football Conference – Southern Division or NFC South is one of the four Division (sport), divisions of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). It was created before the 2002 NFL season when th ...

in 2014 and 2022, and the

in 2020 have historically sent a worse division winner to the playoffs, when the Seahawks (themselves a former AFC West member) won that division with a 7–9 record, the Panthers won the

division with a 7–8–1 record, the Washington Football Team won the

division with a 7–9 record, and the Buccaneers won the

with an 8–9 record. Along with the AFC (formerly AFL) East, the AFC West is the oldest NFL division in terms of creation date (1960).

Division lineups

Place cursor over year for division champ or Super Bowl team. :Dallas Texans moved to

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Pl ...

and were subsequently renamed the Kansas City Chiefs (1963 season) :Los Angeles Chargers moved to

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

(1961 season) but moved back in 2017. :Oakland Raiders moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

(1982 season). The team returned to Oakland for the 1995 season. :Cincinnati Bengals enfranchised (1968 season). After 1970 merger with NFL, the team moved to the AFC Central. :Tampa Bay was enfranchised in 1976. The Buccaneers moved to the NFC Central after their inaugural season, and departed for the newly formed

after the 2001 season. :Seattle Seahawks moved from the

division (1977 Season). In 2002 they moved back to the NFC West. :Oakland Raiders moved to the

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

area (2020 season).

Division champions

* ^!The

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

^# In 1969, The Western Division 2nd place team played the Eastern Division 1st place team in an Interdivisional 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.

Total playoff berths

''Updated through the 2023–24 NFL playoffs'' ;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.

Season results

References

{{Los Angeles Chargers NFL divisions Cincinnati Bengals Denver Broncos Kansas City Chiefs Las Vegas Raiders Los Angeles Chargers Seattle Seahawks Tampa Bay Buccaneers Sports in the Western United States 1960 establishments in the United States