The NFL hierarchy keeps telling us that they are doing all they can to reduce concussions and injuries, but playing 21 games in one season (as the Rams and Bengals did this year) hardly seems like an intelligent way to reduce concussions and injuries.
From 1947 to 1960, league teams played 12 regular-season games. The NFL expanded to 14 regular-season games from 1961 to 1977, the same number played by teams in the old American Football League.
From 1978 to 2020, the NFL had a 16-game regular-season schedule. Before the 2021 season, the league voted to expand the number of regular-season games from 16 to 17 games.
What about post-season play? From 1933 through 1965, the NFL had only one post-season game, the NFL Championship. During those 33 years, there were also nine other playoff games–all tie-breaker contests. Then, in 1966, the season ended with the usual NFL Championship game and the first Super Bowl. The AFL also had only one post-season game to determine the league champion, but that also changed in 1966–and again in 1967–with the Super Bowl.
How many teams qualified for post-season play? In 1966, the NFL and AFL had 24 teams combined. Only four teams qualified for post-season play. From 1967 to 1969, the NFL played two divisional playoff games in addition to the NFL Championship game and the Super Bowl. Then, in 1968, the AFL had one divisional tie-breaker playoff game, the AFL Championship Game, and the Super Bowl. The AFL expanded their post-season in 1969 to include two divisional playoff games: the AFL Championship and the Super Bowl.
After the leagues merged in 1970, each conference (NFC and AFC) had two divisional playoffs and one Championship game. That system continued through the 1977 season.
In 1977, fewer than 30% of the league’s teams qualified for the playoffs, and that seemed just right, in my opinion.
But, then, in 1978, two more post-season games were added–called Wild Card Games–which increased to 10 the number of playoff teams (36% of league teams). That post-season format continued through the 1989 season. From 1990 through 2019, the league added two more teams to the playoff bracket, which brought the playoff total to 43% of the franchises. More expansion came in 2020 when two more teams were added, upping post-season participation to 44%.
Now, let’s compare the total number of games played, then and now.
In 1960, the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles went all the way to the NFL Championship Game (Philadelphia won), and each team played 13 games that season (12 regular-season games and the NFL Championship Game). By contrast, participants in this year’s championship game, the Rams and Bengals, played 21 games each (17 regular-season games and four post-season games). The difference between then and now is a 62% increase in the number of total games played.
To its credit, the NFL has decreased the number of pre-season games to three from what had been six pre-season games decades ago. Still, one could argue that most injuries didn’t happen in pre-season contests. After Joe Namath severely injured his knee in a 1971 pre-season game, most coaches have kept their best players off the field for a good share of pre-season games.
While I do not doubt that the league is concerned about players’ injuries, it also seems that the seemingly endless appetite for NFL football–and the revenues that come with it–has overarching implications. It propels an ever-expanding season schedule, including creating more playoff opportunities for more teams, which adds up to more teams playing more games.
At issue is whether we’ve seen the last of regular-season schedule expansion and growth in the number of playoff competitors.
Thank you for this informative information. I now know the history of the NFL Playoffs.