American Football League (Colony Crisis Averted)

The American Football League (AFL) is a professional American football league that constitutes one of the four major professional sports leagues in North America. It is composed of 64 teams divided equally between the Premier Football Conference (PFC) Canadian Football Conference (CFC), National Football Conference (NFC), and the American Football Conference (AFC). As of 2014, the league will feature a 17-week regular season, which traditionally runs from late June to early November; each team plays 16 games with at least two bye weeks. Following the regular season, six teams compete in the league's three-week divisional playoffs, which culminate in the Grey Cup and the Super Bowl championship,

Out of the league's 64 teams, six (four division winners and two wild-card teams) from each conference compete in the AFL playoffs, a single-elimination tournament culminating in the late-November Super Bowl, played between the champions of the NFC and AFC and the Grey Cup, played between the champions of the CFC and UFC. The winners of the Grey Cup and the Super Bowl would go to the Premier Football Championship, the country's largest annual sports and television event.The champions of the American Bowl are awarded the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

The AFL was officially founded on January 19, 1958, making it the oldest professional gridiron football league in North America still in operation, although most of its teams long predate the modern formation of the league. The AFL is the second-most popular major sports league in the NAU, after the National Hockey League.

Season format
The AFL season format consists of a four-week preseason, a seventeen-week regular season, and a twenty four-team single-elimination playoff culminating in the Super Bowl, the league's championship game.

Preseason
The AFL preseason begins with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, played at Fawcett Stadium in Canton. Each AFL team is required to schedule four preseason games, two of which must be at their home stadium, but the teams involved in the Hall of Fame game, as well as any teams playing in an American Bowl game, play five preseason games. Preseason games are exhibition matches and do not count towards regular-season totals. Because the preseason does not count towards standings, teams do not focus on winning games; instead, they are used by coaches to evaluate their teams and by players to show their performance, both to their current team and to other teams if they get cut. The quality of preseason games has been criticized by some fans, who dislike having to pay full price for exhibition games, as well as by some players and coaches, who dislike the risk of injury the games have, while others have felt the preseason is a necessary part of the AFL season.

Regular Season
The American Football League runs a seventeen-week, 512-game regular season. Since 2001, the season has begun the week after Labor Day and concluded the week after Christmas. The opening game of the season is normally a prime time home game for the league's defending champion.

Most AFL games are played on Sundays, with a Monday night game typically held at least once a week and Thursday night games occurring on most weeks as well. AFL games are not normally played on Fridays or Saturdays until late in the regular season, as federal law prohibits professional football leagues from competing with college or high school football. Because high school and college teams typically play games on Friday and Saturday, respectively, the AFL cannot hold games on those days until the third Friday in December

AFL regular season matchups are determined according to a scheduling formula. Within a division, all four teams play fourteen out of their sixteen games against common opponents - two games (home and away) are played against the other three teams in the division, while one game is held against all the members of a division from the NFC and a division from the AFC division as determined by a rotating cycle (three years for the conference the team is in, and four years in the conference they are not in). The other two games are intraconference games, determined by the standings of the previous year - for example, if a team finishes first in their division, they will play two other first-place teams in their conference, while a team that finishes last would play two other last-place teams in the conference. In total, each team plays sixteen games and has one bye week, where they do not play any games.

Although the teams any given club will play are known by the end of the previous year's regular season, the exact dates, times, and home/away status for AFL games are not determined until much later because the league has to account for, among other things, the National Baseball League postseason and local events that could pose a scheduling conflict with AFL games. During the 2010 season, over 500,000 potential schedules were created by computers, 5,000 of which were considered "playable schedules" and were reviewed by the AFL's scheduling team. After arriving at what they felt was the best schedule out of the group, nearly 50 more potential schedules were developed to try and ensure that the chosen schedule would be the best possible one.

Postseason
Following the conclusion of the regular season, a twelve-team single elimination tournament, the AFL Playoffs, is held. Six teams are selected from each conference: the winners of each of the four divisions as well as two wild card teams (the two remaining teams with the best overall record). These teams are seeded according to overall record, with the division champions always ranking higher than either of the wild card teams. The top two teams (seeded one and two) from each conference are awarded a bye week, while the remaining four teams (seeded 3-6) from each conference compete in the first round of the playoffs, the Wild Card round, with the third seed competing against the sixth seed and the fourth seed competing against the fifth seed. The winners of the Wild Card round advance to the Divisional Round, which matches the lower seeded team against the first seed and the higher seeded team against the second seed. The winners of those games then compete in the AFL Championship Finals, beginning with Conference Championships with the higher remaining seed hosting the lower remaining seed. The AFC and NFC champions then compete in the American Bowl and the CFC and the PFC then compete in the Grey Cup. The winners the of each semifinals then compete in the Super Bowl to determine the leagues champion. The only other postseason event hosted by the AFL is the Pro Bowl, the league's all-star game. The Pro Bowl is held the week before the Super Bowl at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii

Super Bowl
Main articles: AFL Championship Finals and the Super Bowl 

The Dallas Cowboys and Drakestown 49ers have won six Super Bowls victories each, the most of any other team; the Cowboys are also the only team to appeared and win four Super Bowls in a row; and both the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers have five Super Bowl championships. Eleven other NFL franchises have won at least one Super Bowl. Eight teams have appeared in Super Bowl games without a win. The Minnesota Vikings were the first team to have appeared a record four times without a win. The Buffalo Bills played in a record four Super Bowls in a row, and lost only two wins. Three teams (the Astoria Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Houston Texans) have never appeared in a Super Bowl. The Browns and Lions both won NFL Championships prior to the Super Bowl's creation, while the Jaguars (1995) and Texans (2002) are both recent NFL expansion teams. The Minnesota Vikings won the last NFL Championship before the merger, but lost to the AFL champion Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl IV.

Super Bowl 50 will be the last original Super Bowl before the introduction of of the AFL Championship Finals and the complete expansion of the AFL. The Super Bowl will now be the final game between the victors of the Grey Cup and the American Bowl, and it is seen as the official continuation of the original Super Bowl so prevoius Super Bowl victories won't be disregarded.

National Fall Football League (NFFL)
The NFFL is a professional developmental football league for the AFL, that serves as a platform for the development of players, coaches and referees and provides high quality professional football at an affordable price in family-oriented venues. The NFFL employs advanced technologies to offer fans a truly interactive game day experience.