Sorry, NFC: You're still 2nd-best to AFC

Week 15 wasn’t kind to the NFC.

The top two teams in the standings fell, with New Orleans losing its bid for a perfect season and Minnesota flopping again on the road against lowly Carolina. A surging wild-card contender (Green Bay) went down. Three NFC teams — St. Louis (1-13), Tampa Bay (2-12) and Detroit (2-12) — also remained on track to land the top three picks in next year’s draft. The conference hasn’t suffered that indignity since 1989.

Such struggles, though, have become par for the course.

As one decade ends and another begins, the AFC has clearly established itself as the NFL’s dominant conference. The AFC has a 35-25 record in interconference matchups this season and a .553 winning percentage since the 2000 campaign. Seven of the nine Super Bowl champions in that span have come from the AFC. At this point in 2009, the AFC can boast of the team with the best record (Indianapolis) and having far more squads still in the playoff hunt at .500 or better.

Sure, at first glance it seems the NFC is gaining ground on its counterpart — with the potential playoff field this year including exciting passers like Drew Brees, Brett Favre, Kurt Warner, Donovan McNabb, and with Aaron Rodgers, Tony Romo and Eli Manning fighting to join them at one heck of a playoff party.

But upon further review, the AFC is starting to pull away again.

The balance of power has drastically changed since the 1980s and 1990s when the NFC won 15 Lombardi Trophies in 16 seasons, including a string of 13 in a row. Here’s a look at why things have changed and whether the NFC can get its mojo back heading into a new era.

The demise of dynasties

San Francisco, Dallas and Washington accounted for 11 of the NFC’s Super Bowl titles in a 15-year span (1981 to 1995). The last time one of those clubs advanced to a conference title game was 12 seasons ago. No other NFC franchise has risen to take the “dynasty” mantle during the free agency era. The AFC has three squads – New England, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis – that could potentially stake claim to Team of the Decade honors depending on how this season finishes.

Defense

The NFC was once known as a black-and-blue conference. Not anymore. No NFC defense has come close to matching the decade-long success enjoyed by Pittsburgh and Baltimore, with New England deserving an honorable mention. The defensive trend has continued this season. Five of the top six rankings are held by AFC units. The lone exception is Green Bay, which just yielded 503 passing yards to Roethlisberger in last Sunday’s 37-36 loss.

Bad franchises

The AFC has its share of stinkers, but even stiffs like Cleveland, Oakland and Kansas City had their moments earlier this decade. The same can’t be said of Detroit, where this year’s record actually represents progress after an 0-16 finish in 2008. St. Louis has won six of its past 46 games. Tampa Bay has regressed to its “Yucs” origins. This is even scarier: All three teams will need at least one more solid draft class before being ready to even approach respectability.

Quarterbacking

This is the most important element of all. Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger are to the AFC what Joe Montana, Steve Young and Troy Aikman were to the NFC during its heyday. Brady, Manning and Roethlisberger have combined for six championships and probably aren’t done winning titles. Among the NFC Super Bowl starters since the 2000 campaign, only Kurt Warner and Donovan McNabb are certain to generate Hall of Fame discussion when their careers end. “Game managers” like Kerry Collins with the Giants and Rex Grossman with the Bears were exposed on the NFL’s biggest stage.

No slight to current NFC standouts like Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Tony Romo and Eli Manning. But for the conference overall, the quarterbacking future looks shakier for the NFC than the AFC. Five NFC teams – Washington, Carolina, San Francisco, Seattle and St. Louis – will enter the offseason with major questions at the position. That number could jump to seven if Minnesota’s Brett Favre and Arizona’s Warner retire. The NFC needs Matt Ryan, Josh Freeman and Matthew Stafford to become the next generation of stars and help the conference keep pace with the AFC, which has its own promising youngsters in Joe Flacco, Chad Henne and Mark Sanchez.