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Home | | 1970 NFL season
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The merger forced a realignment between the combined league's clubs. Because there were 16 NFL teams and 10 AFL teams, three teams needed to transfer to balance the two new conferences at 13 teams each. The Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, and the Pittsburgh Steelers agreed to join the other AFL teams to form the American Football Conference (AFC). The remaining NFL teams formed the National Football Conference (NFC). The conferences were divided into three divisions: East, Central, and West. The two Eastern divisions had five teams; the other four divisions had four teams each. The realignment discussions were so contentious that at one point team names were pulled out of a hat. The 26-team league began to use an eight-team playoff format, four from each conference, that included the three division winners and a wild card team, the second-place team with the best record. The season concluded with the Colts defeating the Dallas Cowboys 16 - 13 in Super Bowl V, the first Super Bowl played for the NFL Championship. The game was held at the Orange Bowl in Miami, and was the first Super Bowl played on artificial turf. To televise their games, the combined league retained the services of CBS and NBC, who were previously the primary broadcasters of the NFL and the AFL, respectively. It was then decided that CBS would televise all NFC teams (including playoff games) while NBC all AFC teams. For interconference games, CBS would broadcast them if the visiting team was from the NFC and NBC would carry them when the visitors were from the AFC. The two networks also divided up the Super Bowl on a yearly rotation. Meanwhile, with the debut of Monday Night Football on ABC in September 21, 1970, the league became the first professional sports league in the United States to have a regular series of nationally televised games in prime-time. The Chicago Bears' first home game of the season against the Philadelphia Eagles was played at Northwestern University's Dyche Stadium as part of an experiment. Before the season, the league demanded that the Bears find a new home field because the seating capacity of their then-current home, Wrigley Field, was less than 50,000. Ultimately, a deal to make Dyche Stadium as the Bears' new home fell through and the team moved to Soldier Field in 1971. On November 8, New Orleans Saints placekicker Tom Dempsey kicked a 63-yard field goal (still the NFL record as of the 2009 NFL Season) as the Saints beat the Detroit Lions 19-17. |
