This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.
Various sections in this article may refer to either a team's total National Football League championships, or their total Super Bowl championships. Please remember that these values are different because the NFL's first season was held in 1920, several decades before Super Bowl I was played at the end of the 1966 regular season. Thank you.
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Assess : newly added and existing articles, maybe nominate some good B-class articles for GA; independently assess some as A-class, regardless of GA status.
Cleanup : * Sport governing body (this should-be-major article is in a shameful state) * Field hockey (History section needs sources and accurate information - very vague at the moment.) * Standardize Category:American college sports infobox templates to use same font size and spacing. * Sport in the United Kingdom - the Popularity section is incorrect and unsourced. Reliable data is required.
* Fix project template and/or "to do list" Current version causes tables of content to be hidden unless/until reader chooses "show."
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On 3 March 2024, it was proposed that this article be moved to NFL. The result of the discussion was All articles except main article and timeline article moved..
In the first paragraph there is an opinion, being "the highest professional level of American football in the world.". This is clearly just someone's opinion and due to the competition not being open to any other countries, I don't see how this claim can be made. John arneVN (talk) 02:29, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's nothing stopping another country to pick up American football and organize a high-level professional league. Its just that no body has done it. So by reduction, the NFL is the highest professional level of American football in the world. Removing the "in the world" part would imply that there was another league higher or same level as NFL and that is simply not true. JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 16:20, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Heck, it's the only fully professional American football league in the world, save the newly merged UFL, which is by its own admission a lower tier. This is approaching WP:BLUE territory. oknazevad (talk) 16:46, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's also a source already in the lead backing the claim up. ToaNidhiki05 01:58, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The result of the move request was: All articles except main article and timeline article moved.. Upon review, there is general support for almost all of these moves, many contingent on not moving the main article, and some contingent on not moving the timeline article. Therefore, I believe sufficient consensus has been established based on the discussion below for the movement of all articles as proposed except for the main National Football League article, and the Timeline of the National Football League article. (closed by non-admin page mover) EggRoll97(talk) 23:59, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose all – The NFL is not only called the NFL and it's not beneficial to move it to the short form acronym. Then, for consistency, it doesn't make sense to use the acronym for the rest of the pages. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:32, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The status quo actually isn't consistent. For example, there's the existing season pages (e.g. 2023 NFL season) and the drafts (2023 NFL draft), among others. —Bagumba (talk) 14:46, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, especially the main article per WP:ACRONYMTITLE. As an encyclopedia, we should use the actual name of a topic as our title, rather than an abbreviation of that name, unless "NFL" was used exclusively, which is not the case. The other articles are less important because those are names we made up, but I see no compelling reason to change them. As long as one version redirects to the other, it makes little difference. Station1 (talk) 14:57, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support all except standalone National Football League The main National Football League page's existing name is consistent with MOS:ACROTITLE and its Central Intelligence Agency example (...in view of arguments that the full name is used in professional and academic publications). The full "National Football League" expansion can be seen on The New York Times, for example. For the others, where NFL is part of a longer descriptive title, the WP:CONCISE policy seems more applicable. The desciptive titles aren't ambiguous, as they are American football specific. There are other longstanding examples such as NFL playoffs, NFL preseason, NFL lockout and the individual seasons (2023 NFL season), and drafts (2023 NFL draft) where the meaning is clear, and the primary topic of NFL is anyways the football league.—Bagumba (talk) 15:27, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
yeah i was gonna say by scarletviolet's logic, we'd have to abbreviate every sports league title too EricDoesEdits (talk) 12:30, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose changing the main article as well as 'Timeline of the National Football League' and Support the rest per the above comments as well as reasoning at the NBA requested move. The timeline is a historical record of the league and its development and ongoing heritage, so the full name seems historically significant there. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:36, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose National Football League → NFL. Srnec (talk) 16:27, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Srnec, do you mind clarifying, do you just oppose NFL, but support the other proposed moves? « Gonzo fan2007(talk) @ 21:55, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I oppose the first move. I do not have an opinion on the others. Srnec (talk) 22:08, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support all but NFL (and neutral on the timeline) for the sake of concision. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 18:55, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Bagumba: I like the title of Natonal Hockey League, Major League Baseball etc. But, i have mixed feelings about XFL, USFL etc. PlaneCrashKing1264 (talk) 13:50, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@PlaneCrashKing1264: Sorry, I meant to ask you about all the other longer NFL titles in the above nomination (e.g. List of NFL awards, etc.) —Bagumba (talk) 13:54, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Completely unnecessary and adds needless ambiguity. Abbreviations are usually best avoided for article titles. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:14, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Although I would suspect an attempt to rename it would fail as it would be considered primary topic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:13, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support all except main article National Football League - reading the full name takes up too much space and distracts from what everyone is attempting to decipher. We want to know the specific contents of the article and NFL is self-explanatory. Is the opposition assuming the readers are 2 years old and learning world sports culture for the first time? If so, it does not take a rocket scientist to put two and two together or maybe these newcomers should avoid these one-off pages and start out at the main articles then to learn the basics first before diving into these more esoteric topics. - BeFriendlyGoodSir (talk) 18:49, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the renaming of all of the above articles. Catfurball (talk) 19:01, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support renaming except for the league article itself and Timeline of the National Football League. The name "NFL" is globally ubiquitous, like "FIFA", and the most logical search terms. Redirects will be maintained for the 0.5% of users typing in the full name of the league as a search term. Carrite (talk) 17:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support all except for National Football League. Regarding the added ambiguity, I believe that NFL is a sufficiently-common acronym to be generally understood. Any added ambiguity is, in my opinion, worth the shorter article names. Useight (talk) 23:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I think consensus has been reached here. Should this be closed soon? Majority seems to support shortened form (NFL) for all except main article and Timeline article. - BeFriendlyGoodSir (talk) 06:07, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It was relisted on the 13th (arguably, there was even consensus then, as the "opposes" were mostly just regarding a single page—the main National Football League page), so it is scheduled to be reviewed again soon.—Bagumba (talk) 06:16, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
It's not particularly large. What would be added? Consider the guideline WP:AVOIDSPLIT:
...editors are encouraged to work on further developing the parent article first, locating coverage that applies to both the main topic and the subtopic. Through this process, it may become evident that subtopics or groups of subtopics can demonstrate their own notability, and thus can be split off into their own article.
It's useful for this page and doesn't need a split. Remember that for every split a large percentage of readers are lost, so best to keep everything in this article presentable and in one place. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:46, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not got too much detail, it's a good amount to summarise the main points of how teams, conferences and TV blackouts work, which are all key concepts to understanding the NFL (particularly for readers that don't watch much NFL). Joseph2302 (talk) 15:06, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Can someone please update the regular season section of the season format section of this page to include the 2023–24 NFL standings? Please. 2601:40A:8400:1820:75F2:A114:503F:13FC (talk) 22:04, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The is American football this is not soccer we did not use the term club. Every fan and every player also every owner reference there club as team. 2601:2C6:8400:DCF0:A6E7:21:B52A:912D (talk) 07:44, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this and have made the change, although another person then reverted it on the theory that the NFL uses "clubs." As anyone who edits Wikipedia knows, the league's usage is not controlling—the rule is to use the terminology most seen in common usage. I don’t see how anyone can seriously dispute that in American English the normal term is "teams," except perhaps among some soccer fans who persist in using other odd terminology like "kit" when they mean "uniform" and "match" when they mean "game." 1995hoo (talk) 01:02, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This has been "Club" for over a decade now, as a good article. The proper term is "Club". The league always uses this term when referring to the organizations. We need to be accurate when referring to things - it's not a matter of WP:COMMONNAME, it's a matter of basic accuracy. "Club", "franchise", "team" - all of these have meanings. Using them incorrectly can confuse, but more importantly, it's simply not accurate. "Club" is the organization itself, "franchise" is the slot in the league, and "team" is the actual team out on the field; see, for example, the Carolina Panthers website, where "Team" links to the roster listing. See, as an example, this recent NFLPA report, which uses "club" to refer to the organization and "team" to refer to the team on the field. Team and club are not the same thing. That being said - the article, as it is right now, is inconsistent in usage, and this should be corrected. ToaNidhiki05 01:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It’s 10:00 at night, so I’m not going to think about it further tonight. But I believe your analysis, while "technically" accurate as a matter of word definitions, is unnecessarily hypertechnical because there is no doubt that the commonly used, and widely understood, term is "teams." No reader will be remotely confused by the use of "teams," which is also consistent with the usage in all the other North American major leagues' articles (even MLS, where I’d expect people to be militant about using British terminology). I sincerely doubt this word is even remotely relevant to good article status. 1995hoo (talk) 02:06, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not British terminology. It's the terminology the league uses, and has always used. There are exceptions - we don't call the "extra point" the "try", for example - but it's not like "club" is unknown. ToaNidhiki05 02:16, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]