National Football League
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
- For other uses of the acronym "NFL," see NFL (disambiguation).
For many decades, the NFL traditionally started the regular season on Labor Day Weekend and lasted through Christmas week. However, declining television ratings on Labor Day have pushed the start of the regular season ahead one week (which is where scheduling currently stands), although for the past two years, the regular season has begun on the Thursday after Labor Day.
At the end of each season, the winners of the playoffs in the American Football Conference and the National Football Conference meet in the NFL championship, the Super Bowl (held in different cities, in both team sites and neutral sites), and one week later, selected all-star players from both the AFC and NFC meet in the Pro Bowl, currently held in Hawaii.
Current NFL franchises
| National Football Conference | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| East | North | South | West |
| Dallas Cowboys | Chicago Bears | Atlanta Falcons | Arizona Cardinals |
| New York Giants | Detroit Lions | Carolina Panthers | Saint Louis Rams |
| Philadelphia Eagles | Green Bay Packers | New Orleans Saints | San Francisco 49ers |
| Washington Redskins | Minnesota Vikings | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | Seattle Seahawks |
Playoffs
At the conclusion of each 16-game regular season, six teams from each conference qualify for the playoffs, which culminate in the Super Bowl championship game:
- The four division champions, which are seeded #1 through #4 based on their regular season won-lost-tied record, and
- Two "wild card" qualifiers (those non-division champions with the conference's best won-lost-tied percentages), who are seeded #5 and #6 within the conference.
The two surviving teams from the Divisional Playoff games meet in Conference Championship games, with the winners of those contests going on to face one another in the Super Bowl.
The draft
Most of the USA's college football players want to play in the NFL. There is a highly organized and formal process called the draft (consisting of seven rounds) that takes place over two days in April, in which all NFL teams participate. The NFL team with the worst record in the previous year gets first pick of the draft -- that is, they get to choose one of all the college football players in the USA who are eligible for the draft. The hope is that weak teams can thereby become strengthened over time, in the specialties where they need strengthening. Draft picks continue, in the order from the weakest team to the strongest team, and once all teams have picked one player, they all pick again starting with the weakest team.
However, draft picks are frequently traded in advance for players and other draft picks. For example, before the draft occurs, Team A might trade its first-round draft pick plus a certain player (who already plays for Team A) to Team B in exchange for another particular player who already plays for Team B.
Occasionally a player drafted out of college will go right into a "first-string" position as the team's primary player in that position. However, usually these players begin as second- or third-string backups, only playing games if the first-stringer is injured, or if there has been a runaway score and the coach decides to put a backup in the game for a little experience, and to ensure his first-stringer doesn't get injured at the end in a play that is not meaningful to the team.
Salaries and the salary cap
The minimum salary for an NFL player is $225,000 in his first year, and rises after that based on the number of years in service:
- Year 0: $225,000
- Year 1: $300,000
- Year 2: $375,000
- Year 3: $450,000
- Year 4-6: $525,000
- Year 7-9: $650,000
- Year 10+: $750,000
Escalating player salaries throughout the 1980s and 1990s led to the creation of a salary cap, a maximum amount of money each team can pay its players in aggregate. The cap is determined via a complicated formula based on the revenue that all NFL teams receive during the previous year. For the 2004 season, the NFL's salary cap will be approximately $ 80.5 million, an increase of $ 5.5 million from 2003.
Proponents of the salary cap note that it prevents a well-financed team in a major city from simply spending giant amounts of money to secure the very best players in every position and thus dominating the entire sport. This has been seen as a problem in American baseball, among other sports. Proponents also claim that player salaries are out of control, and that fans end up paying higher ticket prices to pay for these salaries. Critics of the salary cap note that the driving reason for the cap was to maximize the profitability of the NFL teams, and limit the power of NFL players to command the high salaries they are said to deserve in exchange for bringing in large numbers of paying fans to the stadiums. They also note that the salary cap could hypothetically drive prospective athletes to other sports that do not cap the salaries of players.
Racial policies
Although the NFL in 2004 is dominated at virtually every position by black athletes, that was not always the case. The league had a few black players until 1933, one year after entry to the league of George Preston Marshall. Marshall's racist policies not only excluded blacks from his Washington Redskins team but influenced the entire league to drop blacks until 1946, when pressure from the competing All-America Football Conference induced the NFL to be more liberal in its signing of blacks. Still, Marshall refused to sign black players until threatened with civil-rights legal action by the Kennedy administration in 1962. This action, and pressure by another competing league, the more liberal American Football League, slowly managed to reverse the NFL's racial quotas. However, to this day, the NFL's head-coach hiring policies are questioned, and it has had to institute measures to attempt to have black head-coach candidates be treated more equitably.
Public image
The NFL is one of the most powerful entities in the United States in terms of its public relations activities. Because most sports media outlets - print, Radio-TV, and internet, are dependent on good relations with the league in order to keep their sources of information (and in some cases, their advertising base), uncomplimentary aspects of the league are often glossed over. Failure to "support" the NFL can result in poorly-veiled sanctions by the league, as in the case of ESPN's recent series "Playmakers". The NFL expressed its displeasure with the show for portraying drug and spousal abuse problems in pro football. ESPN, which carries NFL games, dropped the series after one season.
NFL Films, which provides game films to media outlets for highlight shows, is owned by the NFL and shows only positive aspects of the league. No series comparable to the classic "Baseball", by Ken Burns, has ever been made about the NFL, nor have the NFL's racial policies, outlined above, ever been treated in more than a cursory manner in any documentary film.
Rules and policies pioneered by other leagues are often credited to the NFL, simply because it survives. In November 1963, the NFL played its full schedule of games the Sunday after JFK's assassination, while the rival American Football League (AFL) postponed its games in respect to the fallen president. The older league later merged with the new league, after the AFL began to successfully sign stars from the NFL. After the merger, the NFL adopted innovative features first instituted by the AFL, such as names on player jerseys, official scoreboard clocks (in the NFL, field and scoreboard clocks often did not agree, leading to confusion), and the two-point conversion. Even before the merger, the NFL adopted the AFL's revolutionary concept of network television broadcasts and sharing of gate and television revenues by both the home and visiting teams. Eventually, the NFL adopted virtually every pioneering aspect of the American Football League, except its name.
Premerger championships (1920-1965)
From 1920 to 1932, the NFL champion was the team with the best record during the season. This was tricky to sort out, as teams played anywhere from eight to twenty games in a season. In 1932, Chicago Bears and Portsmouth Spartans were tied and played a grudge match of sorts, Chicago winning 9-0. The game proved so popular that the league reorganized to make it a permanent feature.
Between 1933 and 1966, the NFL decided its champion through a single postseason playoff game. During this period, the NFL was divided into two groupings, sometimes referred to as divisions and sometimes called conferences. The first place team in each of the two groupings at the end of the regular season played a title game to determine the championship. If there was a tie for first place, an extra playoff game was played in order to determine which team would play the title game. At various times during this period, the two groupings were called Eastern Division and Western Division ( 1933-1949); American Conference and National Conference(1950-1952); Eastern Conference and Western Conference(1953-1966).
From 1960 through 1969, a week before the NFL championship game, the NFL also had a post-season game called the "Playoff Bowl", the "Bert Bell Benefit Bowl" or the "Runner-up Bowl". Vince Lombardi called it "a rinky-dink game". At the time of the games, CBS-TV advertised them as "playoff games for third place in the NFL", but today the NFL claims they were exhibition games and does not include records of the game participants or results in league playoff statistics. The games were quietly discontinued after 1969.
AFL-NFL merger
In 1966, the success of the American Football League (AFL), the spectre of the NFL's losing more stars to the AFL, and concern over a costly "bidding war" precipitated by the NFL's Giants' signing of Pete Gogolak, who was under contract to the AFL's Buffalo Bills, led the leagues to discuss a merger. Key to this was approval by Congress of a law (PL 89-800) that would waive anti-trust requirements for the merged leagues. The major point of the testimony given by the leagues to obtain the law was that if the merger were permitted, "Professional football operations will be preserved in the 23 cities and 25 stadiums where such operations are presently being conducted." The merger became effective in 1970, and since then, in spite of the testimony to the contrary, there have been a dozen franchise moves.
World Championships (1966-1969)
After expansion in 1967, the NFL split the Eastern Conference into the Capitol and Century Divisions and the Western Conference into Coastal and Central Divisions, and the playoff schedule was expanded from a single game between two teams to a four team tournament, with the four divisional champions participating.
After the 1966 through 1969 seasons, the NFL champion played the American Football League champion in Super Bowls I through IV, the only true inter-league World Championships of professional football. The first two were won by the Packers, the last two by the AFL's New York Jets and the AFL's Kansas City Chiefs, respectively, leaving the leagues all even in World Championship competition.
Postmerger championships (1970-present)
After 1970, the AFL and NFL fully merged and underwent a realignment. Six divisions were allocated among two conferences. Since there is now only one league, the winner of the Super Bowl is the NFL champion. See Super Bowl for a complete list of Super Bowl winners.
In 2002, the National Football League realigned again, this time into eight divisions of four teams each. The realignment was to accommodate a 32nd team.
The NFL on television
The televison rights to pro football are the most lucrative (and most expensive) rights of any sport available. In fact, it was television that brought pro football into prominence in the modern era of technology.
The American Football League initiated the concept of network coverage of an entire league schedule, sharing revenue from all games aired by ABC-TV, with Curt Gowdy and Paul Christman as the prime crew. As it did with most innovative concepts begun by the American Football League, the NFL followed suit with a CBS-TV contract.
But one network did dominate pro football coverage for almost three-and-a-half decades, beginning in 1965...NBC, which would, in turn, set the standard for all of sports television. At first, the Peacock network covered the American Football League (while CBS covered the NFL), before the NFL merged with the American Football League. As a result, the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game (Super Bowl I) was covered by both NBC and CBS (the only time two networks covered one pro football championship game). But Gowdy's move to NBC gave the network's football coverage its popularity, and through the years, helped to propel the broadcasting careers of Dick Enberg, Jim Simpson, John Brodie, O.J. Simpson, Merlin Olsen, Marv Albert, Don Criqui, and Jim Lampley.
CBS, meanwhile, gained notoriety in the early 1960s by refusing to give American Football League scores on its NFL telecasts.
Then, in 1970, the NFL began playing games on Monday night, thus a unique partnership between the NFL and ABC was launched, and the Monday Night Football franchise was born. MNF itself pushed the limits of football coverage with its halftime highlights segment, occasional banter from Howard Cosell and Dennis Miller, and celebrity guests such as John Lennon and President Clinton.
Each of the three major networks had their own talent. Announcers such as Cosell, Frank Gifford, and Al Michaels (from ABC); Pat Summerall and John Madden (from CBS); and the aforementioned NBC broadcast crew, had their own unique analysis of the game. Even the individual networks' football coverage was innovative. For example, CBS' The NFL Today was the first pre-game show to have a female co-hostess (Phyllis George); and NBC made history in the 1980s with announcerless football, one-announcer football, and even the first female play-by-play football announcer (which in its own way, set the mold for female sportscasters of today).
The Super Bowls were also ratings blockbusters for the networks that aired it, assuring them of annual ratings victory, and drawing in millions and millions of dollars in advertising.
The middle of the 1980s ushered in the cable era, and ESPN became the first cable network to broadcast NFL games. Chris Berman helped redefine the pre- and post-game shows when he launched NFL Countdown and NFL Primetime, and they have since become the top-rated pre- and post-game shows on television.
For a few short years in the 1990s, Turner's TNT network broadcast Sunday night games for the first half of the season before ESPN took it over full-time in 1997.
In 1993, CBS (which had been home to National Conference games) lost their rights to the fledging Fox Network, taking with it their prime announcers, Summerall and Madden. It was Fox that made pro football coverage their own, using the same style of presentation that CBS did.
Meanwhile, NBC's rebound in the ratings in both the 1980s and 1990s (after years in the bottom of the ratings cellar) were attributed in part to its continuing coverage of the NFL. But in 1998, an era of pro football broadcasting came to an unceremonious conclusion when, after almost three-and-a-half decades, NBC (the network that helped define pro football on television) lost its NFL rights to CBS (which had not carried pro football for six years), thus marking the beginning of a slow (and continuing) decline for the Peacock network's sports division.
Today, despite annual financial losses, CBS continues its position as the prime network for NFL football (with its American Conference package), although Fox continues to air National Conference games, ESPN still airs Sunday night games, and ABC has its Monday Night Football franchise. The current NFL television contract ends with the 2005 season, and negotiations for new contracts are expected to begin soon, perhaps opening the door for the return of pro football to NBC. And the cost of television rights continues to rise.
But the style of pro football broadcasting is ever changing, with its female hostesses/sideline reporters, visual first-down markers, advanced graphics, and new multi-camera angles, all of which will carry football telecasts into the new century.
APFA-NFL standings champions
| Year | Team | Wins-Losses-Ties |
|---|---|---|
| 1920 | Akron Pros | 8-0-3 |
| 1921 | Chicago Staleys | 9-1-1 |
| 1922 | Canton Bulldogs | 10-0-2 |
| 1923 | Canton Bulldogs | 11-0-1 |
| 1924 | Cleveland Bulldogs | 7-1-1 |
| 1925 | Chicago Cardinals | 11-2-1 |
| 1926 | Frankford Yellow Jackets | 14-1-2 |
| 1927 | New York Giants | 11-1-1 |
| 1928 | Providence Steam Roller | 8-1-2 |
| 1929 | Green Bay Packers | 12-0-1 |
| 1930 | Green Bay Packers | 10-3-1 |
| 1931 | Green Bay Packers | 12-2-0 |
| 1932 | Chicago Bears | 7-1-6 |
NFL championship games
- 1933 - Chicago Bears 23, New York Giants 21
- 1934 - New York Giants 30, Chicago Bears 13 (the "Sneaker Game")
- 1935 - Detroit Lions 26, New York Giants 7
- 1936 - Green Bay Packers 21, Boston Redskins 6
- 1937 - Washington Redskins 28, Chicago Bears 21
- 1938 - New York Giants 23, Green Bay Packers 17
- 1939 - Green Bay Packers 27, New York Giants 0
- 1940 - Chicago Bears 73, Washington Redskins 0
- 1941 - Chicago Bears 37, New York Giants 9
- 1942 - Washington Redskins 14, Chicago Bears 6
- 1943 - Chicago Bears 41, Washington Redskins 21
- 1944 - Green Bay Packers 14, New York Giants 7
- 1945 - Cleveland Rams 15, Washington Redskins 14
- 1946 - Chicago Bears 24, New York Giants 14
- 1947 - Chicago Cardinals 28, Philadelphia Eagles 21
- 1948 - Philadelphia Eagles 7, Chicago Cardinals 0
- 1949 - Philadelphia Eagles 14, Los Angeles Rams 0
- 1950 - Cleveland Browns 30, Los Angeles Rams 28
- 1951 - Los Angeles Rams 24, Cleveland Browns 17
- 1952 - Detroit Lions 17, Cleveland Browns 7
- 1953 - Detroit Lions 17, Cleveland Browns 16
- 1954 - Cleveland Browns 56, Detroit Lions 10
- 1955 - Cleveland Browns 38, Los Angeles Rams 14
- 1956 - New York Giants 47, Chicago Bears 7
- 1957 - Detroit Lions 59, Cleveland Browns 14
- 1958 - Baltimore Colts 23, New York Giants 17 (OT) (the "greatest game ever played")
- 1959 - Baltimore Colts 31, New York Giants 16
- 1960 - Philadelphia Eagles 17, Green Bay Packers 13
- 1961 - Green Bay Packers 37, New York Giants 0
- 1962 - Green Bay Packers 16, New York Giants 7
- 1963 - Chicago Bears 14, New York Giants 10
- 1964 - Cleveland Browns 27, Baltimore Colts 0
- 1965 - Green Bay Packers 23, Cleveland Browns 12
- 1966 - Green Bay Packers 34, Dallas Cowboys 27
- 1967 - Green Bay Packers 21, Dallas Cowboys 17 (the "Ice Bowl")
- 1968 - Baltimore Colts 34, Cleveland Browns 0
- 1969 - Minnesota Vikings 27, Cleveland Browns 7
AFL-NFL Super Bowl Championship games
- 1967 (1966 post-season) Super Bowl I NFL Green Bay Packers defeated AFL Kansas City Chiefs 35 - 10
- 1968 (1967 post-season) Super Bowl II NFL Green Bay Packers defeated AFL Oakland Raiders 33 - 14
- 1969 (1968 post-season) Super Bowl III AFL New York Jets defeated NFL Baltimore Colts 16 - 7
- 1970 (1969 post-season) Super Bowl IV AFL Kansas City Chiefs defeated NFL Minnesota Vikings 23 - 7
Super Bowls NFL Championship games
- 1970 - Super Bowl V - 1/17/71 AFC Baltimore Colts 16, NFC Dallas Cowboys 13
- 1971 - Super Bowl VI - 1/16/72 NFC Dallas Cowboys 24, AFC Miami Dolphins 3
- 1972 - Super Bowl VII - 1/14/73 AFC Miami Dolphins 14, NFC Washington Redskins 7
- 1973 - Super Bowl VIII - 1/13/74 AFC Miami Dolphins 24, NFC Minnesota Vikings 7
- 1974 - Super Bowl IX - 1/12/75 AFC Pittsburgh Steelers 16, NFC Minnesota Vikings 6
- 1975 - Super Bowl X - 1/18/76 AFC Pittsburgh Steelers 21, NFC Dallas Cowboys 17
- 1976 - Super Bowl XI - 1/09/77 AFC Oakland Raiders 32, NFC Minnesota Vikings 14
- 1977 - Super Bowl XII - 1/15/78 NFC Dallas Cowboys 27, AFC Denver Broncos 10
- 1978 - Super Bowl XIII - 1/21/79 AFC Pittsburgh Steelers 35, NFC Dallas Cowboys 31
- 1979 - Super Bowl XIV - 1/20/80 AFC Pittsburgh Steelers 31, NFC Los Angeles Rams1919
- 1980 - Super Bowl XV - 1/25/81 AFC Oakland Raiders 27, NFC Philadelphia Eagles 10
- 1981 - Super Bowl XVI - 1/24/82 NFC San Francisco 49ers 26, AFC Cincinnati Bengals 21
- 1982 - Super Bowl XVII - 1/30/83 NFC Washington Redskins 27, AFC Miami Dolphins 17
- 1983 - Super Bowl XVIII - 1/22/84 AFC Los Angeles Raiders 38, NFC Washington Redskins 9
- 1984 - Super Bowl XIX - 1/20/85 NFC San Francisco 49ers 38, AFC Miami Dolphins 16
- 1985 - Super Bowl XX - 1/26/86 NFC Chicago Bears 46, AFC New England Patriots 10
- 1986 - Super Bowl XXI - 1/25/87 NFC New York Giants 39, AFC Denver Broncos 20
- 1987 - Super Bowl XXII - 1/31/88 NFC Washington Redskins 42, AFC Denver Broncos 10
- 1988 - Super Bowl XXIII - 1/22/89 NFC San Francisco 49ers 20, AFC Cincinnati Bengals 16
- 1989 - Super Bowl XXIV - 1/28/90 NFC San Francisco 49ers 55, AFC Denver Broncos 10
- 1990 - Super Bowl XXV - 1/27/91 NFC New York Giants 20, AFC Buffalo Bills 19
- 1991 - Super Bowl XXVI - 1/26/92 NFC Washington Redskins 37, AFC Buffalo Bills 24
- 1992 - Super Bowl XXVII - 1/31/93 NFC Dallas Cowboys 52, AFC Buffalo Bills 17
- 1993 - Super Bowl XXVIII - 1/30/94 NFC Dallas Cowboys 30, AFC Buffalo Bills 13
- 1994 - Super Bowl XXIX - 1/29/95 NFC San Francisco 49ers 40, AFC San Diego Chargers 26
- 1995 - Super Bowl XXX - 1/28/96 NFC Dallas Cowboys 27, AFC Pittsburgh Steelers 17
- 1996 - Super Bowl XXXI - 1/26/97 NFC Green Bay Packers 35, AFC New England Patriots 21
- 1997 - Super Bowl XXXII - 1/25/98 AFC Denver Broncos 31, NFC Green Bay Packers 24
- 1998 - Super Bowl XXXIII - 1/31/99 AFC Denver Broncos 34, NFC Atlanta Falcons 19
- 1999 - Super Bowl XXXIV - 1/30/00 NFC Saint Louis Rams 23, AFC Tennessee Titans 16
- 2000 - Super Bowl XXXV - 1/28/01 AFC Baltimore Ravens 34, NFC New York Giants 7
- 2001 - Super Bowl XXXVI - 2/03/02 AFC New England Patriots 20, NFC Saint Louis Rams 17
- 2002 - Super Bowl XXXVII - 1/26/03 NFC Tampa Bay Buccaneers 48, AFC Oakland Raiders 21
- 2003 - Super Bowl XXXVIII - 2/01/04 AFC New England Patriots 32 vs. NFC Carolina Panthers 29
Commissioners and presidents of the NFL
- 1920-21......Jim Thorpe, President
- 1921-39......Joseph Carr, President
- 1939-41......Carl Storck, President
- 1941-46......Elmer Layden, Commissioner
- 1946-59......Bert Bell, Commissioner
- 1959-60......Austin Gunsel, interim President following death of Bell
- 1960-89......Alvin "Pete" Rozelle, Commissioner
- 1989- .......Paul Tagliabue, Commissioner
League offices
- 1920-21......Canton, OH
- 1921-41......Columbus, OH
- 1941-46......Chicago, IL
- 1946-60......Philadelphia, PA
- 1960- .......New York, NY
Players
See also
- American Football League
- Defunct NFL teams
- Pro Bowl
- Pro Football Hall of Fame
- Professional Football Championship Games
- List of leagues of American football
- List of NFL first overall draft choices
External links