The five oldest teams in the NFL (2024)

In the US and around the world, the National Football League (NFL) is the most elite form of the sport. The American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC) are the two conferences into which its 32 teams are divided. There are four groups (North, South, East, and West) with four teams each within each conference. The Super Bowl, which is played by the conference winners and is viewed by almost half of US homes in addition to being televised in around 150 countries globally, marks the culmination of the season.

The physical and demanding nature of American football calls for a variety of skills, such as dynamic strength, power, agility, speed, and mental and physical toughness. The sport is a spectacle because of the massive collisions and complex movements featuring the 22 athletes on the pitch. Since each play is frequently extremely tactical, games can appear quite complex and take up to three hours to finish. In actuality, football is a reasonably simple game to follow and take pleasure in. The complexity of the sport—acquired through years of intense observation—is what elevates it above a simple demonstration of physical prowess.

The NFL's five oldest franchises are as follows:

Arizona Cardinals: The nation's longest continually operating professional American football franchise was founded in Chicago in 1898.

Chicago Bears: One of the first NFL teams, founded in 1919 in Decatur, Illinois, and relocated to Chicago in 1921.

Green Bay Packers: One of the league's oldest clubs, the Packers were established in 1919 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, by Earl "Curly" Lambeau and George Calhoun.

New York Giants: The Giants have a rich history in the NFL and are among the league's oldest clubs, having been founded in 1925.

Detroit Lions: One of the more established NFL teams, the Lions, were founded in 1930 and were first located in Portsmouth, Ohio, until relocating to Detroit in 1934. Each of these teams has a rich and illustrious NFL history and has made major contributions to the league's history.

The sport is popular at the amateur level in countries such as Mexico, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Women's leagues have emerged in recent years despite the sport primarily being played by men.