Nfl conference championship games history

Green Bay won both post-season games at home, beating the injury-riddled Colts with third-string QB Tom Matte in overtime by a controversial field goal, and taking the title 23—12 on a very muddy field in what turned out to be Jim Brown 's final NFL game. These games matched the second-place teams from the two conferences; the CBS television network advertised them as "playoff games for third place in the NFL.

The NFL now classifies these contests as exhibition games and does not include the records, participants, or results in the official league playoff statistics. Starting with the game the winning team received the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy. The trophy was named after Ed Thorp, a noted referee, rules expert, and sporting goods dealer. Thorp died in and a large, traveling trophy was made that year, passed along from champion to champion each season with each championship team's name inscribed on it.

Teams would also receive a replica trophy. The trophy was last awarded to the Minnesota Vikings in The actual trophy, however, is now missing.

Late in the season, NFL President Carl Storck announced that sudden death periods would be authorized for any playoff game needed to decide either division title. It was emphasized that this did not apply to the final championship game, which would crown co-champions in the event of a tie. Commissioner Elmer Layden approved a similar arrangement for the season, with the same limitation.

A coin toss would decide possession of the Ed Thorp trophy that accompanied the league title should the championship game result in a tie.

Sudden death overtime was finally approved for the NFL championship game in [4] and has remained in effect ever since. The and NFL championship games were played on Monday afternoons, Christmas having fallen on a Sunday in those years. Even though the league outdrew the NFL in attendance, the continuing dominance of the Cleveland Browns led to the league's downfall.

For its first three seasons, the league was divided into two divisions: Eastern and Western — The league had no divisions in The site of the championship game during the first three was determined just as it was in the NFL a divisional rotation. In , the league held a four-team playoff, with home field based upon won-lost record.

The Browns, led by Quarterback Otto Graham , won all four of the league championship games. Semifinal playoff games were held in , setting up a championship final between the first-place Browns and the second-place San Francisco 49ers. In , the Browns became the first professional football team to complete an entire season undefeated and untied — 24 years before the Miami Dolphins of the NFL would accomplish the task, but this feat is not recognized by NFL record books.

With its creation in , the AFL determined its champion via a single playoff game between the winners of its two divisions, the Eastern and Western.

The AFL Championship games featured classics such as the double-overtime championship game between the Dallas Texans and the defending champion Houston Oilers. At the time it was the longest professional football championship game ever played.

Also in , an Eastern Division playoff was needed to determine the division winner between the Boston Patriots and Buffalo Bills.

Pivotal to this was approval by Congress of a law PL that would waive jeopardy to anti-trust statutes for the merged leagues.

The major point of the testimony given by the leagues to obtain the law was that if the merger were permitted, "Professional football operations will be preserved in the 23 cities and 25 stadiums where such operations are presently being conducted. The playoff format was expanded from a single championship game to a four-team tournament, with the four divisional champions participating.

The two division winners in each conference met in the "Conference Championships," with the winners advancing to the NFL Championship Game. Again, the home team for each playoff game was determined by a yearly divisional or conference rotation.

The AFL on the other hand, raised its total franchise number to nine in with the Miami Dolphins , joining the Eastern Division and a tenth team, the Cincinnati Bengals in The league kept using the one-game-playoff format except when division tie-breakers were needed.

With the addition of the Bengals to the Western Division in , the AFL adopted a four-team playoff to determine its champion. Three of the four league champions who lost one of the first four Super Bowls would eventually win at least one.

The exception is the Minnesota Vikings which went to three others and lost all of them. Since there was now only one league, the Super Bowl became a league championship and the winner is the NFL champion. With only six division winners in the newly merged league, the NFL designed an eight-team playoff tournament, with four clubs from each conference qualifying.

Along with the three division winners in each conference, two wild card teams one from each conference , the second-place finishers with the best records in each conference, were added to the tournament.

With the introduction of the wild card, a rule was instituted to prohibit two teams from the same division champion and wild card from meeting in the first-round Divisional Playoffs. This rule would remain in effect through the season. More significantly, the home teams in the playoffs were still decided by a yearly divisional rotation, not on regular-season records excluding the wild-card teams, who would always play on the road.

This lack of "home-field advantage" was most evident in the playoffs , when the undefeated Miami Dolphins played the AFC Championship Game against the Pittsburgh Steelers , who had recorded three losses during the regular season, at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Beginning in , tie games were included in the computing of each team's winning percentage. Each tie was then counted as half of a win and half of a loss, rather than being omitted from the computation.

There were no overtime games played during the regular season. In , the league modified its playoff format by instituting a seeding system. The surviving clubs with the higher seeds were made the home teams for each playoff round. The three division champions in each conference were seeded first through third based on their regular-season records, with the wild-card team in each conference as the fourth seed. Teams that earned the top seed became known as clinching " home-field advantage " throughout the playoffs, since they played all of their playoff games at their home stadium except for the Super Bowl, played at a neutral site.

However, the league continued to prohibit meetings between teams from the same division in the Divisional Playoffs. Thus, there would be times when the pairing in that round would pit the first seed versus the third, and the second versus the fourth.

This system is identical to that now in use by Major League Baseball. The league expanded the playoffs to 10 teams in , adding a second wild-card team a fifth seed from each conference.

The two wild-card teams from each conference the fourth and fifth seeds played each other in the first round, called the "Wild Card Playoffs. In the divisional round, much like the playoff format, teams from the same division were still prohibited from playing each other, regardless of seeding. Under the format, teams from the same division could meet only in the wild-card round or the conference championship.

Thus, as before, a divisional champion could only play a divisional foe in the conference championship game. A players' strike shortened the season to nine games.

The league used a special team playoff tournament for that year. The top eight teams from each conference qualified ignoring the divisional races—there were no division standings, and in some cases 2 teams from the same division did not play each other at all that season. The playoffs reverted to the format in the following year. In , the NFL expanded the playoffs to twelve teams by adding a third wild-card team a sixth seed from each conference.

The restrictions on intra-division playoff games during the Divisional Playoffs were removed. Between , the Chiefs appeared in one AFC championship game. Since ditching their shtick of retread quarterbacks feat. A Dee Ford offside infraction allowed the Patriots to escape Missouri with an overtime win two years ago, but the Chiefs booked their first Super Bowl berth in 50 years last season after initially falling behind the Titans.

Chiefs-Bills marks Andy Reid's eighth conference title game; he is entering Sunday. This streak will be nearly impossible to even approach. No one else has made six straight conference title game appearances. Last season's loss to the Titans ended this era, and a declining roster sent Brady to Tampa -- where he is again in a conference championship game.

The Jim Harbaugh-Trent Baalke era started quite well, with the coach-GM combo resurrecting a franchise that had not made the playoffs since Harbaugh rebooted Alex Smith in , leading to a classic 49ers-Saints second-round game, but pivoted to Colin Kaepernick in While both QBs enjoyed success, defensive consistency three top-three units powered these 49ers.

Harbaugh was gone by , sliding the 49ers into a rebuild. Reid's Chiefs will follow his Eagles as the only teams to host three straight conference title games since the merger.

Not as flashy as Mahomes, Donovan McNabb managed to reach this round four times without much receiving help. Terrell Owens' leg break shelved him for the NFC playoffs. And a better Bucs defense closed Veterans Stadium emphatically a year later. The team ranked first on offense and defense and beat three playoff squads by at least two scores, routing Carolina in the NFC title game.

Brett Favre from is the only player to win three straight MVPs, and he defeated the 49ers by multiple scores in each of these playoffs. Steve Young's masterful throw in the first-round ended the Favre-Mike Holmgren era, however. A defining NFL "what if? The brash head coach led a rapid rebuild in Dallas, with the Herschel Walker trade igniting a dynasty. Dallas won at least 12 games from , and the Troy Aikman-, Emmitt Smith-, and Michael Irvin-driven squads beat the 49ers in two of the rivals' three NFC championship duels.

The Cowboys also eliminated the Packers in three of these seasons, with the Barry Switzer-led squads doing so twice to make the best "Team of the '90s" claim. Aikman and Co. The Steve Young leg of the 49ers dynasty produced one of the league's most memorable rivalries, with 49ers-Cowboys viewed as the de facto NFL championship at the time. Nfl conference championship games history. The Green Bay.

NFL post-season history can be traced to the first NFL Championship Game in though in the early years qualification for the game was based solely on regular season records.

In his year career, he only played in one conference championship game. Championship in and The Packers didn't make a pitch for , since Lambeau Field is scheduled to host a non Wide receiver Mike Evans Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In his second season, Sanchez became only the second quarterback ever to reach the conference championship in his first This year, Kansas City is attempting to host its fourth straight conference championship game. No team in NFL history has ever done so.

Again, the question perplexing the AFC. Who is going to stop Entering , nearly The league opted to return to business as usual. The Ringer. Adams became the first player in NFL history to register plus CBS Boston. Those dates will be announced during the weeks of the respective games. We wanted to give a nod to the past and Cleveland Browns. The NBA's conference finals are chock-full of new blood.

The former Clemson receiver who caught arguably the most legendary pass in Tiger history in the national championship Sports Illustrated. For the first time in history , there is a unified start Houston Chronicle.