Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Posted: **Tue Aug 26, 2025 4:11 pm**

Ten Minute Ticker wrote: ↑Tue Aug 26, 2025 10:24 am The one change to the 2002 realignment I would make is flipping the Colts and Ravens.

All of the then-“new” teams in one division. All of the former NFL teams in a geographically sensible division.

100% Agreed.
I've said the same thing here several times.

JuggernautJ wrote: ↑Mon May 26, 2025 7:17 am The one change I would make (and it confounded me at the time of realignment) is to swap Indianapolis and Baltimore...
Indianapolis is further North than Baltimore.
And Indiana was pretty solidly in the Union (going back to a previous North/South divide) while Maryland was technically blue but certainly had some divided loyalties.

I know Modell and the original Browns (now Ravens) had to stay in the AFC North to maintain all those old rivalries and bad feelings...
But the single change I would've wanted to see made switched those two teams so that the AFC would have the following divisions:

AFC North
Pittsburgh
Cincinnati
Cleveland
Indianapolis

AFC South
Tennessee
Jacksonville
Houston
Baltimore

Aside from being geographically more precise it has the three teams that left the NFL to join the AFC all in the same division (Steelers, Browns and Colts).

Posted: **Sat Aug 30, 2025 3:28 am**

I like that one too. Houston vs Baltimore has always been a uniform matchup I've had a thing for, having them as division rivals works for me. Also dig the NFL cast off division, that works too, with the lone AFL original the Bengals being a team that was built and designed for the NFL to begin with by Paul Brown. I approve this alternate alignment.

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Teams that benefited from the 2002 realignment

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