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As with all sports leagues, there are a number of significant rivalries in the National Football League. Rivalries are occasionally created due to a particular event that causes bad blood between teams, players, coaches, or owners, but for the most part, they arise simply due to the frequency with which some teams play each other, and sometimes exist for geographic reasons. Purely geographic rivalries are rare in the NFL, since crosstown rivals do not play each other nearly as often as in other leagues that have more games (and therefore more opportunities to play other teams). For example, Major League Baseball teams face every other league opponent at least three times in the regular season, and within a division as many as 19 times. In recent years, the NFL changed its scheduling formula to ensure every possible matchup happens within a four-year span, not counting pre-season games or the Super Bowl. A main factor in the fact that crosstown rivals are almost always in opposing conferences is history: in the two current markets (New York/New Jersey and San Francisco Bay Area) that have two NFL teams, two have one team (Jets in New York, Raiders in Oakland) that was a member of the American Football League. As part of the AFL–NFL merger, all AFL teams had to be retained, even if it meant multiple teams in one metropolitan area. The newly merged league opted not to go through an extensive geographical realignment, and instead, the AFL formed the basis of the AFC, and the old NFL formed the basis of the NFC; as a result, each team ended up in an opposite conference from their crosstown rival. This allowed the combined league to retain both existing television partnerships of each league—NBC for the AFL/AFC, and CBS for the NFL/NFC—instead of choosing one or the other (ABC joined the mix in 1970 with ''Monday Night Football''). Games can be classified in three main categories: * Division rivals: Games between opponents in the same NFL division. Since 2002, there are 32 teams in eight divisions of four teams each. Each team plays each division opponent twice in the regular season (once at home, once away) for a total of six regular season games out of 16 total. Thus, every NFL team, regardless of its age, could fairly be said to have at least three primary rivals. Occasionally, two teams will play three times in a year if they meet again in the playoffs. Division rivals will never play each other in the preseason. * Conference rivals: Games between opponents in different divisions but within the same conference. Teams do not play a given conference opponent from outside their division more than once during the regular season, however they may meet again for a second time in the playoffs. The NFL schedules divisions to play against each other on a rotating basis, so that every team from one division will play every team from another division, for a total of four games per team. Each team will also play one team from each of the remaining two divisions within the conference that finished in the same divisional standing position in the prior year—for a grand total of 12 conference games. Conference games are often important, as a team's record in common games, as well as its overall record against its conference, is sometimes used as a tiebreaker for playoff seeding at the end of the regular season. Also, many regular season opponents have met again in the playoffs, and the result of a regular season game can affect where the playoff game will be played. Conference rivals will play each other at least once every three years in the regular season, and as frequently as once every year depending on record, and can play each other in the preseason. * Inter-conference: Games between opponents in different conferences. Teams do not play a given inter-conference opponent more than once during the season unless they were to meet up in the Super Bowl. The NFL schedules inter-conference divisions to play each other exactly once on a rotating basis within a four-year cycle. For instance, given the 2012 NFL season as a reference, the NFC East played the AFC North during the 2012 season, then the AFC West during the 2013 season, AFC South during the 2014 season, and finally the AFC East in the 2015 season before repeating the cycle. The league also schedules inter-conference games on an eight-year cycle so any particular team will both host and visit any given team in the league within eight years.〔NFL scheduling#Formula〕 Inter-conference rivals may play each other more frequently in the preseason, where no structured scheduling formula is used. The league's teams do not play, and do not have rivalries with, teams outside the league, such as there are no games or scrimmages against CFL teams. (There is some off-field rivalry in some markets, most evidently in the Buffalo Niagara Region, where the NFL's Buffalo Bills and CFL's Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats, all located within a 50-mile radius of each other, have partially overlapping fan bases. The Bills and Tiger-Cats did play each other once, in a 1961 contest won by the Tiger-Cats, and encroached on the Argonauts' territory between 2008 and 2013 in the Bills Toronto Series.) The last game against a non-league team happened in 1972, and under current collective bargaining agreement rules, the NFL cannot, and will not, schedule an actual game (even an exhibition game) against a non-NFL opponent, making such a rivalry academic. The oldest NFL rivalry, dating back to when the league was founded in 1920, consists of its two remaining charter members: the Decatur Staleys/Chicago Bears and Chicago/St. Louis/Phoenix/Arizona Cardinals. The longest rivalry is between the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears (they did not play each other in 1982 due to the player's strike, though). It dates back to 1921 and is currently approaching 190 games, with 48 Pro Football Hall of Famers and 21 league championships between the two teams. The longest ''continuous'' rivalry in the NFL is between the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers, as they have played each other at least ''twice'' every season since 1932. In the AFC, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns have the longest rivalry with over 120 games, two in the playoffs, and 10 league titles between them. The "turnpike rivalry" as it is called is only separated by a two-hour drive and began during the 1950 NFL season. Both teams were NFL franchises predating the AFL that formed the basis of the AFC, and were moved to the AFC when the leagues merged in 1970; the only break in the rivalry was during the 1990s when the Browns suspended operations for three years. While the Indianapolis Colts also moved over from the "old" NFL to the AFC, it hasn't had a continuous rival with either team from before the merger, though it had a minor rivalry with the Browns in the 1960s when the Colts were located in Baltimore. The longest ''continuous'' rivalry in the AFC is several divisional rivalries from the AFC East (entire division except the Miami Dolphins) and AFC West (entire division) dating to the league's founding in 1960. ==American Football Conference== 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「National Football League rivalries」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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