National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and the highest professional level of American football in the world.[5] Each NFL season begins annually with a three-week preseason in August, followed by the 18-week regular season which runs from early September to early January, with each team playing 17 games and having one bye week. Following the conclusion of the regular season, seven teams from each conference (four division winners and three wild card teams) advance to the playoffs, a single-elimination tournament that culminates in the Super Bowl, which is contested in February and is played between the winners of the AFC and NFC championship games.
"NFL" redirects here. For other leagues of the same name and other uses, see National Football League (disambiguation) and NFL (disambiguation).Formerly
American Professional Football Conference (1920)
American Professional Football Association
(1920–1921)
September 17, 1920
Canton, Ohio, U.S.[1][2]
32
United States[A]
345 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10154
U.S.[3]
Kansas City Chiefs
(4th title)
Green Bay Packers
(13 titles)
United States[4]
CBS
Fox
NBC
ESPN (ABC, ESPN2)
NFL Network
Telemundo Deportes
ESPN Deportes
International
See list
United States
Paramount+
Peacock
ESPN+
Amazon
International
DAZN
The NFL was formed in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association (APFA) before renaming itself the National Football League for the 1922 season. After initially determining champions through end-of-season standings, a playoff system was implemented in 1933 that culminated with the NFL Championship Game until 1966. Following an agreement to merge the NFL with the rival American Football League (AFL), the Super Bowl was first held in 1967 to determine a champion between the best teams from the two leagues and has remained as the final game of each NFL season since the merger was completed in 1970.[6] The NFL is the wealthiest professional sports league in the world by revenue[7] and the sports league with the most valuable teams.[8] The NFL also has the highest average attendance (67,591) of any professional sports league in the world[9] and is the most popular sports league in the United States.[10] The Super Bowl is also among the biggest club sporting events in the world,[11] with the individual games accounting for many of the most watched television programs in American history and all occupying the Nielsen's top 5 tally of the all-time most watched U.S. television broadcasts by 2015.[12] The NFL is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan.
The Green Bay Packers hold the most combined NFL championships with thirteen, winning nine titles before the Super Bowl era and four Super Bowls afterwards. Since the creation of the Super Bowl, the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers are tied for the most Super Bowl victories at six each. The reigning league champions are the Kansas City Chiefs, who defeated the San Francisco 49ers by a score of 25–22 in Super Bowl LVIII.
Free agency
Free agents in the National Football League are divided into restricted free agents, who have three accrued seasons and whose current contract has expired, and unrestricted free agents, who have four or more accrued seasons and whose contract has expired. An accrued season is defined as "six or more regular-season games on a club's active/inactive, reserved/injured or reserve/physically unable to perform lists".[140] Restricted free agents are allowed to negotiate with other clubs besides their former club, but the former club has the right to match any offer. If they choose not to, they are compensated with draft picks. Unrestricted free agents are free to sign with any club, and no compensation is owed if they sign with a different club.[140]
Clubs are given one franchise tag to offer to any unrestricted free agent. The franchise tag is a one-year deal that pays the player 120% of his previous contract or no less than the average of the five highest-paid players at his position, whichever is greater. There are two types of franchise tags: exclusive tags, which do not allow the player to negotiate with other clubs, and non-exclusive tags, which allow the player to negotiate with other clubs but gives his former club the right to match any offer and two first-round draft picks if they decline to match it.[141]
Clubs also have the option to use a transition tag, which is similar to the non-exclusive franchise tag but offers no compensation if the former club refuses to match the offer.[142] Due to that stipulation, the transition tag is rarely used,[143] even with the removal of the "poison pill" strategy (offering a contract with stipulations that the former club would be unable to match) that essentially ended the usage of the tag league-wide.[144] Each club is subject to a salary cap, which is set at US$188.2 million for the 2019 season,[145] US$11 million more than that of 2018.[145]
Members of clubs' practice squads, despite being paid by and working for their respective clubs, are also simultaneously a kind of free agent and are able to sign to any other club's active roster (provided their new club is not their previous club's next opponent within a set number of days) without compensation to their previous club; practice squad players cannot be signed to other clubs' practice squads, however, unless released by their original club first.[146]
