Playoffs. The second season. The win or go home reality of the playoffs creates a different kind of football. More tense. More memorable. The Super Bowl has clipped our postseason memories. Gone is the football history prior to 1966. There were championship games before the Super Bowl. There were playoff games too. Not as many as you might think but there were some.
The NFL started play in 1920 but there were no playoffs or championship games until 1932. That first championship game was never intended. It was only played to break a tie in the season standings. The game was such a hit that the league decision makers decided to play a championship game every year. Prior to 1932, the league crowned the champion based on the season standings. The NFL pretty much copied everything that college football did. College football couldn't figure out a playoff format so the NFL didn't either. Thankfully, the professionals were smart and decided that a championship game was best. The colleges still haven't figured out that simple matter. In 1933, the NFL split the league into two conferences. The Eastern and Western Conference champions would play for the NFL title. On several occasions a playoff game was needed to break ties in one or both conferences. This worked perfectly until the NFL and AFL merged to form the NFL that we know today. This merger started in 1966 with the playing of what would become the Super Bowl. The two leagues were still separate and then the respective champions would meet to decide it all. By 1970, they were fully merged into one league. The NFL formed two conferences (NFC and AFC) with three divisions each. Due to the AFL having fewer teams, long time NFL teams Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Baltimore moved over to the AFC. For the playoffs a wild card team was added to make for a total of four teams from each conference playing for a shot at the title. In 1978 a second wild card team was added. This remained the format until the NFL realigned in 2002. This resulted in four divisions of four teams in each conference. Four division winners and two wild cards created a twelve team tournament for a chance at immortality.
Here's hoping that the 2012 version of the NFL tournament is a great one.
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