NFL Teams by State 2024

The National Football League consists of 32 teams, divided between the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC). The NFL was founded on August 20, 1920, and is headquartered in New York City. The early NFL differed from the modern version in several ways. For example, the NFL was named the American Professional Football Association until 1922, the inagural season included only 14 teams (sometimes more, sometimes less, as teams were added and dropped throughout the season), a season-finale championship game wasn't added until 1933, and that game did not become the Super Bowl until 1967, after the NFL merged with the rival American Football League.

The 32 NFL teams are located in 22 states. Twenty-eight states do not have a football team. Some states have multiple teams, such as California, which has three: the Los Angeles Rams, the Los Angeles Chargers, and the San Francisco 49ers.

Two of the original 14 NFL teams still exist today: the Chicago Bears (originally the Decatur Staleys) and the Arizona Cardinals (originally the Chicago Cardinals). The Green Bay Packers have the most NFL Championships with 13 titles (nine before the Super Bowl and four Super Bowl titles). The New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers are tied for the most Super Bowl titles at six each.

Football teams occasionally relocate from one home city and state to another. For instance, the Rams were founded as the Cleveland (Ohio) Rams in 1936, moved to Los Angeles, CA in 1946, moved to St Louis, MO in 1994, then returned to Los Angeles in 2016. Similarly, the Las Vegas Raiders were founded in 1960 as the Oakland (CA) Raiders, moved to Los Angeles in 1982, returned to Oakland in 1995, and relocated to Las Vegas, NV in 2020. While the Raiders and Rams simply changed addresses, some teams change their entire brand when they move, including their name, logo, and team colors. Nashville's Tennesee Titans were previously known as the Houston Oilers, the Kansas City Chiefs were originally the Dallas Texans, and the Detroit Lions were originally the Portsmouth Spartans.

In most cases, the question of which state a particular NFL team belongs to has a simple answer: It's the state in which the team's namesake city is located. For instance, the Chicago Bears play home games in Chicago and are headquartered in the Chicago suburb Lake Forest, IL, so the Bears are clearly an Illinois team. In some instances, a team's home stadium or other facilities are located outside the city proper—for instance, the San Francisco 49ers play home games in nearby Santa Clara—but they remain in the same state.

However, three teams are exceptions to this pattern: The New York Giants, the New York Jets, and the Washington Commanders. The Jets and Giants are named after New York, but both teams play home games at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Both teams' headquarters are also located in New Jersey. Similarly, the Washington Commanders are considered a Washington, DC team, but the team's headquarters is located in Ashburn, Virginia, and its home stadium, Commanders Field, is in Landover, Maryland.