KC Chiefs: Four division realignments should Chargers move to London

Scenario 3: Each Conference Nabs Two Different Teams

Before the breakdown, take a look at the map from the first slide again. I want to point something out to you that you probably already knew, but that when you think about it while considering a map makes it even more startling: there are few and far between teams in Western USA. Let’s use good old Kansas City as our marker.

West of the Chiefs you have, excluding the Chargers, seven teams: the Seattle Seahawks, Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers, Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders, Arizona Cardinals, Denver Broncos, and Dallas Cowboys.

The Texans are close, as is one other team, a team that predominantly features in this third scenario.

• London Chargers to NFC East.
• Washington Redskins to AFC South.
• Indianapolis Colts to NFC North.
• Minnesota Vikings to AFC West.

The Chargers and Colts go from the AFC to the NFC while the Redskins and Vikings do the opposite. This scenario pits London against the Giants and Eagles as well as the Dallas Cowboys, something I’m sure Jones would love. His team already has worldwide appeal, but this would really enable him to get a foothold in Europe.

The Colts, meanwhile, switch from the AFC South (odd) to the NFC North (less odd). They’d take on teams relatively close to them geographically from the Bears to the Packers and Lions. The NFC North would then be more grouped together than it is now.

Meanwhile, the Redskins switch conferences as they move to the AFC South to take on the Jacksonville Jaguars, Houston Texans, and Tennessee Titans. I mean, at least the Titans and Redskins are in the same time zone, right? The AFC South as its charted right now is already weird, and there’s nothing weirder about a division of teams based in D.C., Nashville, Houston, and Jacksonville.

The strangest move, though, belongs to the AFC West, who loses the Chargers in favor of the Vikings. If I’m an owner of either the Raiders, Chiefs, or Broncos, I’d demand that my division get back a solid team when the Chargers bolt (sorry) for London. And if the Cowboys are off the table, then that leaves the Vikings.

Would the NFC North miss the Vikings all that much? Maybe. So what? The NFL doesn’t deal in sentimentality. (Just ask St. Louis). It’s a business, and adding the Vikings to the AFC West would make that division much stronger than it is now.

In fact, all four of these divisions would get better, if not exactly stronger: the NFC East adds a planned jewel of the league; the NFC North adds a well-built team in the Colts; the AFC West adds a competitive franchise in the Vikings (I’ll point out here that the Minnesota Wild play in the NHL’s Western Division, so there’s that); and the AFC South gets the Red–

You know what? The AFC South gets hosed in this scenario, but some division is bound to draw the short stick.