AFC North

The American Football Conference North Division, or AFC North, is a division of the National Football League (NFL)'s American Football Conference (AFC). It was created prior to the 1967 season as the NFL Century Division when the NFL split into four divisions. It became the AFC Central in 1970 following the completion of the AFL-NFL merger when two of the NFL Century teams—the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers—moved from the "old" NFL to join the former American Football League teams in the AFC, in order to give the two conferences an equal number of teams. The division adopted its current name in 2002, when the league realigned divisions after expanding to 32 teams. It is the only AFC division to be the successor to a former NFL division from 1967.

Formation

The AFC North is usually called "the toughest division in football". The AFC North currently has four members: Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, and Pittsburgh Steelers. The original four members of the AFC Central were the Houston Oilers (now the Tennessee Titans), the Cleveland Browns, the Cincinnati Bengals and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Dating back to the NFL Century's formation in 1967, only the Steelers have remained members for the division's entire history, due to most of the other teams either leaving for other divisions or joining later and the Browns failing to keep pace due to being out of the league for three years.