Don't Fear De Remer: NFL Realignment is Coming

No league is more famous for its delusional geography than the NFL. Dating back to the expansion of the 70's, the disoriented alignment of New Orleans and Atlanta in the NFC West and Dallas and Arizona in the NFC East has since been deeply ingrained in the minds of its fans.

But by June at the latest, the NFL will announce a realignment plan with a keener eye towards location in order to accommodate the Houston Texans in 2002. Those fictitious eight-year olds who use the NFL standings as their trusty atlas will finally have a fighting a chance in our nation's schools--unless they're from Dallas.

Since no realignment plan has actually been approved, the NFL isn't showcasing potential pairings on every other commercial, yet everyone seems to have a pretty good idea what's going to happen.

Long ago, the league announced that it would split into eight four-team divisions with Houston guaranteed a spot in the AFC, forcing somebody else to move out. Naturally, the team to move must have nothing to lose by switching conferences--in other words, a team that is flat out worthless to begin with, much like the Milwaukee Brewers when they switched leagues in baseball.

The team of choice right now is none other than the Seattle Seahawks.

As for actual divisional setup, here is the tentative distribution that has leaked out. I would set the margin of error at three misplacements:

AFC East--Baltimore, Buffalo, New England, NY Jets

AFC Central--Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh

AFC South--Jacksonville, Miami, Houston, Tennessee

AFC West--Denver, Kansas City, Oakland, San Diego

NFC East--Dallas, New York, Philadelphia, Washington

NFC Central--Chicago, Detroit, Green Bay, Minnesota

NFC South--Atlanta, Carolina, New Orleans, Tampa Bay

NFC West--Arizona, St. Louis, San Francisco, Seattle

No matter what happens, no team is going to get exactly what it wants (except Dallas). In the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, Pittsburgh, Cleveland [the present-day Baltimore Ravens], and Baltimore [the present-day Indianapolis Colts] all had to be coaxed to switch into the AFC. Once that was taken care of, the NFC alignment was determined by picking one plan at random out of five possibilities.

The upcoming realignment is much less complicated and contentious, however. The NFL has far surpassed its fellow professional leagues in terms of egalitarianism and fairness towards all. A committee of seven owners, one from each division, (the AFC Central gets two because it's bigger and better) has been working out the details.

Already, they have agreed to a radical revenue sharing plan in which 40 percent of gate receipts earned by each visiting team will be split evenly among all 32 teams. This alleviates the complaints of teams like Arizona, who will miss out on playing a big market team like Dallas twice a year under the new format.

Since the suggested distribution keeps three former division rivals together in every division but the NFC West, there is very little room for contention. Although some owners, namely those of the newer southeastern teams, would prefer radical geographic realignment, there is no indication that any such plan is being considered.

In contrast, Dallas owner Jerry Jones has refused to end his team's ancient rivalries from the NFC East. Every indication points towards him getting his way.

The AFC East will similarly want to keep its division together, thus making a Baltimore-Miami deviation from the above plan highly probable. If Baltimore prefers to stay in the same division with Tennessee and Jacksonville, it just might work.

Also open to debate is whether to expand to the playoffs from the current level of 12 to 14, thus giving only regular-season conference champions a first-round bye. 16 teams, is, and absolutely should be, out of the question.

Although the NFL plans are different, they will certainly disappoint those who wanted a more radical plan. Among those ignored suggestions is team grouping by nickname. NFL.com writer Craig Ellenport suggests such groupings as the Bird Division, Cat Division, and the Old West Division. My personal favorite is the Fighting and Plundering Division, featuring the Buccaneers, Patriots, Raiders, and Vikings.

But stability is a good thing, and I appreciate the NFL's tendency not to change its look too rapidly. Be happy that these days the NFL is "expanding" only into markets where it has failed before. For those of us who stare at the NHL standings every day and still can't quite fathom where all those awful southern teams came from, the NFL is a welcome sight.