Early years
From the league's founding in 1920 until 1932, there was no scheduled championship game. From 19201923, the championship was awarded to a team by a vote of team owners at the annual owners' meeting. From 19241932, the team having the best winning percentage was awarded the championship. As each team played a different number of games, simply counting wins and losses would have been insufficient. Additionally, tie games were not counted in the standings in figuring winning percentage (under modern rules, ties count as ½ win and ½ loss).[5][6]
[edit]1932 playoff game
Further information: NFL Playoff Game, 1932
In 1932, the Chicago Bears (616) and the Portsmouth Spartans (614) were tied at the end of the season with the identical winning percentage of .857 (The Green Bay Packers (1031) had more wins, but a lower winning percentage (.769) as calculated under the rules of the day, which omitted ties). An additional game was therefore needed to determine a champion. It was agreed that the game would be played in Chicago at Wrigley Field, but severe winter weather and fear of a low turnout forced the game to be moved indoors to Chicago Stadium. The game was played under modified rules on a shortened 80-yard dirt field, and the Bears won with a final score of 90.[5][7] As a result of the game, the Bears had the better winning percentage (.875) and won the league title. The loss gave the Spartans a final winning percentage of .750, and moved them to third place behind the Packers. While there is no consensus that this game was a real "championship" game (or even a playoff game), it generated considerable interest and led to the creation of the official NFL Championship Game in 1933.[7]
[edit]Before the Super Bowl
Further information: List of NFL champions
Given the interest of the impromptu "championship game", and the desire of the league to create a more equitable means of determining a champion, the league divided into two conferences beginning in 1933. There was no tie-breaker system in place, any ties in the final standings of either conference resulted in a playoff game being played at 1941, 1943, 1947, two games in 1950, one in 1952, 1957, 1958, and 1965. Since the venue and date of the championship game were often not known until the last game of the season had been played, these playoff games sometimes resulted in delaying the end of the season by one week.
The playoff structure used from 1933 to 1966 was considered inequitable by some because of the number of times it failed to match the teams with the two best records in the championship game. Four times between 1950 and 1966 (in 1951, 1956, 1960, and 1963) the team with the second-best win-loss record did not qualify for the playoffs while the team with the third-best record advanced to the championship game.
For the 1967 NFL season, the NFL expanded to 16 teams, and split its two conferences into two divisions each, with four teams in each division. The four division champions would advance to the NFL playoffs, and to remain on schedule, a tie-breaker system was introduced. The first round of playoffs determined the conference's champion and its representative in the NFL Championship Game, played the following week. Thus, 1967 was the first season there was a scheduled playoff tournament to determine the teams to play for the NFL Championship.[8]
During the three years (1967-69) that this playoff structure was in effect, there was one use of the tie-breaker system. In 1967 the Los Angeles Rams and Baltimore Colts ended the season tied at 11-1-2 for the lead in the Coastal Division. The Colts came into the last game of the season undefeated, but were beaten by the Rams. Though the Colts shared the best won/loss record in the NFL that year, they failed to advance to the playoffs while three other teams with worse records won their divisions. This event figured into the decision in 1970 to include a "wildcard" team in the playoff tournament.
During the 1960s, a third-place playoff game was played in Miami, called the Playoff Bowl. It was contested in early January following the 196069 seasons. Though official playoff games at the time they were played, the NFL now officially classifies these ten games (and statistics) as exhibitions, not as playoff games.[9]
[edit]AFL playoffs
Since it would eventually merge with the NFL, the history of the AFL's playoff system merits some explanation. For the 196068 seasons, the AFL used the two-divisional format identical to the NFL to determine its champion. There was no tie-breaker system in place, so ties atop the Eastern Division final standings in 1963 and Western Division in 1968 necessitated playoff games to determine each division's representative in the championship.
For the 1969 season, a first round was added whereby the each division winner played the second place team from the other division. The winners of these games met in the AFL Championship Game.[8] In the only year of this format, the AFL Champion Kansas City Chiefs were actually the second place team in the Western division. The Chiefs would go on to win Super Bowl IV that season, thus becoming the first non-division winner to win a Super Bowl.[10]
