1970 NFL Season

The 1970 NFL season was the 51st regular season of the National Football League, and the first one after the AFL-NFL Merger.

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 all ten AFL teams to form the American Football Conference (AFC). The remaining NFL teams formed the National Football Conference (NFC). Replacing the old Eastern and Western conferences (although divisions from those conferences still existed but were renamed to suit the realignment), the new conferences, AFC and NFC, function similar to Major League Baseball's American and National leagues, and each of those two 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 glass jar.

The format agreed on was as follows:

NFC East: Dallas, New York (Giants), Philadelphia, St. Louis, Washington

NFC Central: Chicago, Detroit, Green Bay, Minnesota

NFC West: Atlanta, Los Angeles, New Orleans, San Francisco

AFC East: Baltimore, Buffalo, Miami, New England, New York (Jets)

AFC Central: Cincinnati, Cleveland, Houston, Pittsburgh

AFC West: Denver, Kansas City, Oakland, San Diego

This arrangement would keep most of the pre-merger NFL teams in the NFC conference and the AFL teams in the AFC. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Baltimore were placed in the AFC in order to balance it out, while the NFC equalized the competitive strength of its East and West divisions rather than sorting out teams just geographically.

Prior to 1967, the NFL had two seven-team conferences:

Eastern Conference: Cleveland, Dallas, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Washington

Western Conference: Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Green Bay, Los Angeles, Minnesota, and San Francisco.

In 1967, when expansion teams were added in Atlanta and New Orleans, this alignment was changed:

Eastern Conference/Capitol Division: Dallas, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Washington

Eastern Conference/Century Division: Cleveland, New York, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis

Western Conference/Central Division: Chicago, Detroit, Green Bay, and Minnesota

Western Conference/Coastal Division: Baltimore, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco.

Meanwhile, the AFL for its 10-year existence had:

Eastern Division: Boston, Buffalo, Houston, and New York (with Miami added in 1966)

Western Division: Dallas/Kansas City, Denver, Los Angeles/San Diego, and Oakland (with Cincinnati added in 1968).

Division alignment in 1970 was largely intended to preserve the pre-merger setups, keeping traditional rivals in the same division. Plans were also made to add two expansion teams, but this would not take place until 1976, seven years after the merger.

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 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. Interestingly, both teams that advanced to the Super Bowl, the Baltimore Colts and the Dallas Cowboys, had suffered humiliating defeats on Monday Night Football during the season.

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 too small (after the merger, all stadiums were required to seat at least 50,000). Ultimately, a deal to make Dyche Stadium the Bears' new home fell through and the team moved to Soldier Field in 1971 where they remain to the present day, save for a temporary relocation in 2002 to the University of Illinois' Memorial Stadium.

On November 8, New Orleans Saints placekicker Tom Dempsey kicked a 63-yard field goal (still the NFL record as of the 2011 NFL Season) as the Saints beat the Detroit Lions 19–17. The record is now shared with Jason Elam (Denver Broncos) who tied it in 1998, Sebastian Janikowski (Oakland Raiders) who tied it in 2011, and David Akers (San Francisco 49ers), who tied it in 2012.

The Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, and Los Angeles Rams all started 3–0 but lost in Week Four. Only the Lions would go on to the playoffs after the 3–0 start.