1970 National Football League season
Regular season
Duration	September 18, 1970–December 20, 1970
Playoffs
Start date	December 26, 1970
AFC Champions	Baltimore Colts
NFC Champions	Dallas Cowboys
Super Bowl V
Date	January 17, 1971
Site	Miami Orange Bowl, Miami, Florida
Champions	Baltimore Colts
Pro Bowl
Date	January 24, 1971
National Football League seasons  < 1969 1971 >

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 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.

Contents 1 Major rule changes 2 Division races 3 Final standings 3.1 Tiebreakers 4 Playoffs 5 References

[edit] Major rule changes

• The NFL rules become the standardized rules for the merged league, including the rule that a point after touchdown is worth one point, (that is, no two-point conversion). The AFL had had the two-point conversion, which would not be adopted in the NFL until 1994.
• The official game clock is the stadium's scoreboard clock, an AFL innovation.
• Rules are added to place last names on the back of players' jerseys. The AFL had had names on jerseys, the pre-merger NFL teams did not.

[edit] Division races

Starting in 1970, and until 2002, there were three divisions (Eastern, Central and Western) in each conference. The winners of each division, and a fourth "wild card" team based on the best non-division winner, qualified for the playoffs. The tiebreaker rules were changed to start with head-to-head competition, followed by division records, common opponents records, and conference play.

The New York Giants lost their last regular-season game. Had they won that game, they would have tied for first place in the NFC East division and taken the division championship on a tie-breaker; then, the tie-breakers would have led to a coin toss between Dallas and Detroit for the NFC wild card.

National Football Conference

Week	Eastern		Central		Western		Wild Card
1	DALLAS	1-0-0	3 teams	1-0-0	3 teams	1-0-0	4 teams	1-0-0
2	DALLAS	2-0-0	3 teams	2-0-0	2 teams	2-0-0	3 teams	2-0-0
3	ST. LOUIS*	2-1-0	DETROIT	3-0-0	LOS ANGELES	3-0-0	6 teams	2-1-0
4	ST. LOUIS*	3-1-0	DETROIT*	3-1-0	SAN FRANCISCO*	3-1-0	4 teams	3-1-0
5	ST. LOUIS	4-1-0	DETROIT*	4-1-0	LOS ANGELES	4-1-0	MINNESOTA	4-1-0
6	ST. LOUIS*	4-2-0	DETROIT*	5-1-0	SAN FRANCISCO	4-1-1	MINNESOTA	5-1-0
7	ST. LOUIS*	5-2-0	MINNESOTA	6-1-0	SAN FRANCISCO	5-1-1	3 teams	5-2-0
8	ST. LOUIS	6-2-0	MINNESOTA	7-1-0	SAN FRANCISCO	6-1-1	LOS ANGELES	5-2-1
9	ST. LOUIS	7-2-0	MINNESOTA	8-1-0	SAN FRANCISCO	7-1-1	N.Y. GIANTS	6-3-0
10	ST. LOUIS	7-2-1	MINNESOTA	9-1-0	SAN FRANCISCO	7-2-1	LOS ANGELES	6-3-1
11	ST. LOUIS	8-2-1	MINNESOTA	9-2-0	LOS ANGELES*	7-3-1	SAN FRANCISCO	7-3-1
12	ST. LOUIS	8-3-1	MINNESOTA	10-2-0	LOS ANGELES*	8-3-1	SAN FRANCISCO	8-3-1
13	N.Y. GIANTS*	9-4-0	MINNESOTA	11-2-0	SAN FRANCISCO	9-3-1	DALLAS*	9-4-0
14	DALLAS	10-4-0	MINNESOTA	12-2-0	SAN FRANCISCO	10-3-1	DETROIT	10-4-0

American Football Conference

Week	Eastern		Central		Western		Wild Card
1	2 teams	1-0-0	3 teams	1-0-0	DENVER	1-0-0	3 teams	1-0-0
2	4 teams	1-1-0	3 teams	1-1-0	DENVER	2-0-0	6 teams	1-1-0
3	BALTIMORE*	2-1-0	2 teams	2-1-0	DENVER	3-0-0	2 teams	2-1-0
4	BALTIMORE*	3-1-0	CLEVELAND	3-1-0	DENVER	3-1-0	MIAMI	3-1-0
5	BALTIMORE*	4-1-0	CLEVELAND	3-2-0	DENVER	4-1-0	MIAMI	4-1-0
6	BALTIMORE	5-1-0	CLEVELAND	4-2-0	DENVER	4-2-0	MIAMI	4-2-0
7	BALTIMORE	6-1-0	CLEVELAND	4-3-0	OAKLAND	3-2-2	DENVER	4-3-0
8	BALTIMORE	7-1-0	CLEVELAND*	4-4-0	OAKLAND	4-2-2	KANSAS CITY	4-3-1
9	BALTIMORE	7-1-1	CLEVELAND*	4-5-0	OAKLAND	5-2-2	KANSAS CITY	5-3-1
10	BALTIMORE	7-2-1	CLEVELAND	5-5-0	OAKLAND	6-2-2	KANSAS CITY	5-3-2
11	BALTIMORE	8-2-1	CLEVELAND*	5-6-0	OAKLAND*	6-3-2	KANSAS CITY	6-3-2
12	BALTIMORE	9-2-1	CLEVELAND*	6-6-0	OAKLAND*	7-3-2	KANSAS CITY	7-3-2
13	BALTIMORE	10-2-1	CINCINNATI	7-6-0	OAKLAND	6-3-2	MIAMI	9-4-0
14	BALTIMORE	11-2-1	CINCINNATI	8-6-0	OAKLAND	8-4-2	MIAMI	10-4-0

[edit] Final standings

W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, PCT= Winning Percentage, PF= Points For, PA = Points Against

  x  - clinched wild card berth,   y  - clinched division title

Note: Prior to 1972, the NFL did not include tie games when calculating a team's winning percentage in the official standings

[edit] Tiebreakers

• Green Bay finished ahead of Chicago in the NFC Central based on better division record (2–4 to Bears' 1–5).

[edit] Playoffs

Note: Prior to the 1975 season, the home teams in the playoffs were decided based on a yearly rotation.

	Divisional Playoffs				Conf. Championship Games				Super Bowl V
	December 27 - Oakland Coliseum
	Miami Dolphins	14
					January 3 - Memorial Stadium
	Oakland Raiders	21
					Oakland Raiders	17
	December 26 - Memorial Stadium
					Baltimore Colts	27
	Cincinnati Bengals	0
									January 17 – Miami Orange Bowl
	Baltimore Colts	17
									Baltimore Colts	16
	December 26 - Cotton Bowl
									Dallas Cowboys	13
	Detroit Lions	0
					January 3 - Kezar Stadium
	Dallas Cowboys	5
					Dallas Cowboys	17
	December 27 - Metropolitan Stadium
					San Francisco 49ers	10
	San Francisco 49ers	17
	Minnesota Vikings	14

[edit] References

• NFL Record and Fact Book (ISBN 1-932994-36-X)
• NFL History 1961-1970 (Last accessed December 4, 2005)
• 1970 season in details
• Total Football: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League (ISBN 0-06-270174-6)

1970 NFL season v • d • e
AFC	East	Central	West	NFC	East	Central	West
	Baltimore	Cincinnati	Denver		Dallas	Chicago	Atlanta
	Boston	Cleveland	Kansas City		NY Giants	Detroit	Los Angeles
	Buffalo	Houston	Oakland		Philadelphia	Green Bay	New Orleans
	Miami	Pittsburgh	San Diego		St. Louis	Minnesota	San Francisco
	NY Jets				Washington
1970 NFL Draft • NFL Playoffs • Pro Bowl • Super Bowl V

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