Division Races
The AFL had 8 teams, grouped into two divisions. Each team would play a home-and-away game against the other 7 teams in the league for a total of 14 games, and the best team in the Eastern Division would play against the best in the Western Division in a championship game. If there was tie in the standings, a playoff would be held to determine the division winner.
The Buffalo Bills won their first nine games, before Boston beat them at home on November 15, 36-28. Buffalo came back from a 24-14 deficit at San Diego on Thanksgiving Day to eke out a 27-24 win. On December 6 at Oakland, the Raiders beat the Bills on the final play of the game, 16-13, and did not try for an extra point. Boston won at Kansas City, 31-24, to take Buffalo's lead away. In Week Fourteen, Boston was idle, and Buffalo took a 1/2 game lead with a 30-19 win at Denver. As it turned out, the Eastern Division title would come down to the final game of the season, with Buffalo (11-2-0) traveling to Boston (10-2-1) on December 20, with the winner to take all. Jack Kemp led the Bills to three touchdowns for a 24-14 win to capture the title.
The Western Division race was less dramatic. In Week Six, the Chargers took a lead over the Chiefs during a six game winning streak, and held that lead for the rest of the season.
| Week | EASTERN | WESTERN | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tie (Bos, Buf, NYJ) | 1-0-0 | SAN DIEGO | 1-0-0 |
| 2 | Tie (Bos, Buf) | 1-1-0 | SAN DIEGO | 1-1-0 |
| 3 | Tie (Bos, Buf) | 3-0-0 | KANSAS CITY | 1-1-0 |
| 4 | Tie (Bos, Buf) | 4-0-0 | KANSAS CITY | 2-1-0 |
| 5 | BUFFALO | 5-0-0 | KANSAS CITY | 2-2-0 |
| 6 | BUFFALO | 6-0-0 | SAN DIEGO | 3-2-1 |
| 7 | BUFFALO | 7-0-0 | SAN DIEGO | 4-2-1 |
| 8 | BUFFALO | 8-0-0 | SAN DIEGO | 5-2-1 |
| 9 | BUFFALO | 9-0-0 | SAN DIEGO | 6-2-1 |
| 10 | BUFFALO | 9-1-0 | SAN DIEGO | 7-2-1 |
| 11 | BUFFALO | 9-1-0 | SAN DIEGO | 7-2-1 |
| 12 | BUFFALO | 10-1-0 | SAN DIEGO | 7-3-1 |
| 13 | BOSTON | 10-2-1 | SAN DIEGO | 8-3-1 |
| 14 | BUFFALO | 11-2-0 | SAN DIEGO | 8-4-1 |
| 15 | BUFFALO | 12-2-0 | SAN DIEGO | 8-5-1 |
Read more about this topic: 1964 American Football League Season
Famous quotes containing the words division and/or races:
“Major [William] McKinley visited me. He is on a stumping tour.... I criticized the bloody-shirt course of the canvass. It seems to me to be bad “politics,” and of no use.... It is a stale issue. An increasing number of people are interested in good relations with the South.... Two ways are open to succeed in the South: 1. A division of the white voters. 2. Education of the ignorant. Bloody-shirt utterances prevent division.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the Southern states. The Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of almost all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily show themselves as enemies.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)