The NFC and its counterpart, the American Football Conference (AFC), each have 16 teams organized into four divisions.

Both conferences were created as part of the 1970 NFL merger with the rival American Football League (AFL).

A series of league expansions and division realignments have occurred since the merger, thus making a total of 16 clubs in each conference.

In this way, non-divisional competition will be mostly among common opponents – the exception being the three games assigned based on the team's prior-season divisional standing.

Both the AFC and NFC were created after the NFL merged with the American Football League (AFL) in 1970.

The alignment proposals were narrowed down to five finalists (each one sealed in an envelope), and then the plan that was eventually selected was picked out of a glass bowl by then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle's secretary, Thelma Elkjer,[3] on January 16, 1970.

When the Seattle Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers joined the league in 1976, they were temporarily placed in the NFC and AFC, respectively, for one season before they switched conferences.

With the exception of the aforementioned relocations since that time, the divisional setup established in 2002 has remained static ever since.