RiverDog
Well-known member
Tampa and us started play in the same year, 1976. We each played in different conferences in our first two seasons before we moved to our permanent home in 1978 with us going to the AFC and Tampa to the NFC.We came in 1-2 years before Tampa and the conferences were already unbalanced because of us.
The only time the league was unbalanced was in 1999-2001 when they awarded a 31st franchise to Cleveland to replace the Browns, who had moved to Baltimore and become the Ravens.
We did not voluntarily leave the AFC. When the Houston Texans started play in 2002 and brought the total teams to 32, the league went through a major realignment. They wanted to keep the original AFL franchises, ie KC, Den, Oak, and SD, in the same division as much as possible, so we were the odd man out.
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