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With tomorrow night's Lions/Vikings matchup shaping up to potentially being a classic, I thought I'd start a discussion on the greatest games in league history... that happened to be regular season games. A few that quickly came to mind that I'll list in chronological order....
The 1932 "league championship" between the Bears and Spartans. Many consider this a playoff game but since it was counted in the league standings I'm considering it a regular season game.
1964 "AFL east championship game" between the Bills and Patriots.
The 1972 Jets/Colts Namath/Unitas showdown. 872 combined yards passing.
1979 Cowboys/Redskins. Winner gets the top seed. Loser misses the playoffs.
2023 "AFC east championship game" between the Bills and Dolphins.
There are some more popping into my head but I have to get started on the rest of my day.
1993 Week 18 Broncos@Raiders: If the Broncos win, they go 10-6 and get home field for the WC game. If the Raiders win, they make the playoffs, and host the Broncos the next week. It ended up being an OT thriller that the Silver and Black pulled out.
Bears (11-0) at Detroit (10-1) on Thanksgiving Day 1934. Bears come back from 9 points down to win 19-16 on a Bronco Nagurski TD pass, then win a rematch 3 days later in Chicago to finish 13-0. Lions, who opened the season with 7 straight shutout wins, finish 10-3, all 3 losses by 3 points. The Bears went on to lose to the NY Giants in the title game.
They didn’t have direct playoff implications, but two excellent regular season games are the following:
2007 Patriots at Colts: Dubbed the “Undefeated Bowl” because it was the deepest into an NFL season that two undefeated teams had faced off.
Most people may not know this, but we saw the number one offense and number one defense face off. When I calculated Score% Differential, the 07 Colts showed up as the best team that didn’t lead in its year by raw separation.
2009: Browns at Lions: The shootout between Matthew Stafford and Brady Quinn was a really good game in my book. Neither team had anything to play for but it was high scoring and the finish with Stafford going back into the game to throw one more pass produced one of my favorite NFL Films mic’d up moments as well.
Good exercise, but it will also be too easy for people to list offensive shootouts, where defenses were exhausted by the end of the game. It should be about games that had an impact beyond just winning the division or making the playoffs, though those are significant.
The Heidi Bowl ... an offensive shootout sure, but a brutally intense game in terms of ferocity, illegal and dirty plays, penalties, which got the Jets fined--it might have been the first game where coaches got fined for criticizing the officials-- and a ending which went into primetime and insisted the need for networks to adjust and slide their coverage, as well as irate people blowing up a networks phone lines over what affiliates could show or not, according to schedule. Even the NBC president at the time, knew the drama unfolding with the game and didnt want it switched to a Heidi movie ...
Other than the 1958 NFL Championship, The 1960, 1963, 66 and 67 NFL Championship games, was any other game at that time more dramatic? The Jets fans and family members thought they had the game won, and confusion ensued when the team got back to NY, although NBC embarrassingly ran the first known sports scrawl across screens during the movie, with the final score.
Had the Jets won, KC would have won the western division and played for the right to go to the SB. They might have beaten the Jets and Baltimore. I felt with Dawson fully healthy, they were stronger than the 69 team. Instead, they faced the Raiders in a playoff, while the Jets had a bye for resting up. The Colts, like the Raiders, didnt get a bye ...
Last edited by Brian wolf on Sat Jan 04, 2025 2:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Good call 7D ... on a saturday, at that. The greatest shootout, I had ever seen at that time. Wes Chandler was making spectacular catches in that game.
1990 Seahawks/Chiefs (Derrick Thomas 7 sacks, Dave Krieg Hail Mary)
1990 Giants/49ers (7-3 final)
1992 Bills/49ers "No Punt Game"
1986 Dolphins/Jets (51-45 game)
1989 Giants/Broncos (14-7 in the hardest-hitting game you'd ever see)
