NFL London Preview – Part 2
Posted on 27 October 2010 by Rob
On Sunday the NFL International Series will hold it’s 4th regular season game at Wembley Stadium, London between the Denver Broncos and the San Francisco 49ers. In SportyLondoners’ 2nd preview article we’ll be looking at the tournament system used in the NFL, the fortunes of the two teams in the current season and which players you should be looking out for.
Firstly though some background information that you might not know about the NFL. Last time we went through the rules and now it’s time to go through the structure of the league. There are 32 teams in the National Football League from all across the United States and these 32 teams are split first into 2 conferences, the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). Each conference has 16 teams in it and these 16 are then split into geographical division, East, West, North and South and consist of 4 teams in each division. In total there are 8 divisions (the AFC West, East, South and North and the NFC West, East, South and North)
From these divisions each team will play each of their 3 divisional rivals twice (home and away) and 10 other games picked at random, to complete the 16 game regular season. At the end of the regular season the teams that have the best record of wins and losses in each division (therefore winning their division) get a place in the end of season play-offs (8 teams in total). These divisional winners are ranked 1st to 4th depending on their win-loss record. They are then joined by 4 teams, 2 from each conference, with the best records that didn’t win their respective divisions. These are called Wildcards and are ranked 5th and 6th depending on their win-loss record.
Once these have been decided after the regular season the post-season begins (the play-offs). The 1st and 2nd ranked teams from AFC and NFC get byes into the Divisional Round whilst the remaining 8 teams play against each other in the Wildcard Round. In the Wildcard Round the 3rd ranked team in each conference plays the 6th ranked, and the 4th ranked plays the 5th. The winners of these 4 games go into the Divisional Round, where they’re joined by the teams that received a bye. The lowest ranked teams remaining in both conferences are then automatically pitted against the 1st ranked team, with the 2nd ranked team facing off with the remaining team.
The winners of the Divisional Round go into the Conference Championship game, where the overall winners of the AFC and NFC are realised. The winners of these two games then go onto the Superbowl and the winner of that is crowned the best team in the NFL for that season. Phew, that took a long time! Don’t worry if you got confused because it can take a while to understand.
Now that’s been cleared up we can look at the two teams involved in Sunday’s game. Firstly the designated away team, the Denver Broncos. The Broncos play in the AFC West along with the San Diego Chargers, the Oakland Raiders and the Kansas City Chiefs and have a win-loss record of 2-5 going into Week 8 of the 17 week season. Things haven’t been going very well for the Broncos, in a season when they hoped to mount a challenge for the AFC West title with some weak rivals. They come into London having lost 3 games on the bounce, with the last being a humiliating thrashing by divisional rivals Oakland at home, 59-14. Quarterback Kyle Orton will look to star wide receiver Brandon Lloyd to respond to this defeat on Sunday and put the Broncos play-off bid back on track. Lloyd has caught 35 passes this season for 709 yards and 3 touchdowns, with many of these catches being for long yardage. He’s certainly an explosive player with his lightning speed.
On the other side are the designated home team, the San Francisco 49ers. The Niners play in the NFC West along with the Seattle Seahawks, the St. Louis Rams and the Arizona Cardinals. The Niners are currently propping up the combined NFL standings, with a league worst 1-6 win-loss record. The NFC West is seen as the worst division in the NFL and hopes were high that San Francisco would be able to win their division quite comfortably. However, quarterback Alex Smith has been error prone through the first 7 games and this has led to 9 intercepted passes bring thrown by the 26 year old, the same number of touchdown passes he’s thrown.
So with the trigger man a bit rusty it’s probably better to look to Frank Gore, the Niners star running back. Gore’s really been the shining light in a bad San Francisco season so far and has run for 573 yards (ranked 7th in the league) and a touchdown whilst catching 37 passes for 341 yards and 2 touchdowns on the season. Look out for the red and gold no.21 because he’s certain to see a lot of the ball!
