I'm going to explain how two teams get to the Super Bowl and why some teams are arch rivals.



First there's the NFL (National Football League-All professional American Football Teams fall under this category.)



The NFL has two conferences:

AFC and NFC (Both conferences have 4 divisions).



AFC

1. North

2. South

3. East

4. West



NFC

1. North

2. South

3. East

4. West



Each of these divisions have 4 teams each, equaling 32 NFL teams.



AFC

1. North

    1. Baltimore Ravens

    2. Cincinnati Bengals

    3. Cleveland Browns

    4. Pittsburgh Steelers

2. South

    1. Houston Texans

    2. Indianapolis Colts

    3. Jacksonville Jaguars

    4. Tennessee Titans

 3. East

    1. Buffalo Bills

    2. Miami Dolphins

    3. New England Patriots

    4. New York Jets

4. West

    1. Denver Broncos

    2. Kansas City Chiefs

    3. Oakland Raiders

    4. San Diego Chargers



NFC

1. North

    1. Chicago Bears

    2. Detroit Lions

    3. Green Bay Packers

    4. Minnesota Vikings

2. South

    1. Atlanta Falcons

    2. Carolina Panthers

    3. New Orleans Saints

    4. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

3. East

    1. Dallas Cowboys

    2. New York Giants

    3. Philadelphia Eagles

    4. Washington Redskins

4. West

    1. Arizona Cardinals

    2. San Francisco 49ers

    3. Seattle Seahawks

    4. St. Louis Rams



There are 17 weeks of regular football. Sixteen games and 1 bye week for each team. A bye week is the team's week off from playing.



As each week goes by, the scores add up. For example if a team wins 12 games and loses 4, you would say they are 12 and 4.



At the end of the 16 games are the play-offs. Only the top 4 teams plus 2 wild cards from each conference will go to the play-offs (12 teams total). That would be the teams that came in first place in each division plus the four top second place teams (2 from each conference).



The four teams in each division are considered rivals because they are rivaling for first place in that division or at the very least they compete for the wild card.



All questions, comments and corrections welcome. :)