Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

As we all know, the American Football League for its final season adopted a new playoff format featuring extra teams which effectively inaugurated the concept of a wild card playoff to professional football. This was done to give an extra postseason weekend to keep pace with the NFL. Under the new format, each division winner hosted the second place team in the opposite division. It was this format which allowed Kansas City to take the title, as they finished second in the West behind Oakland.

My question is . . . supposing, just supposing there had been a tie for second place in one of the divisions?

Would such a tie have necessitated yet another playoff round to break the deadlock? Oakland and KC had participated in a special tiebreaking playoff just the year before to determine the division champion. Or did the AFL have some tie-breaking procedure in place such as the NFL had used to break the deadlock between the Rams and Colts in '67?

I am guessing there was a tie-breaker format in place similar to whatever the NFL was using. However, the Bills and Patriots participated in a divisional playoff in 1963, so the precedent had been set.

Even before it went to the four divisions and had a tiebreaker based on total points in two games (as with the Rams and the Colts both finishing 11-1-2 in 1967), it had the same plan since 1960 to see who qualified for the Playoff Bowl. I was noticing that Detroit and San Francisco both finished at 7-5-0 in the Western in 1960, but the Lions played for the extra Bert Bell Benefit Bowl money. An AP reporter explained in a December 18, 1960 article that "If the 49ers should deadlock for second with Detroit, the Lions get the nod since the league ruled the point spread in the games between the two teams will be the deciding factor".

Mark L. Ford wrote:An AP reporter explained in a December 18, 1960 article that "If the 49ers should deadlock for second with Detroit, the Lions get the nod since the league ruled the point spread in the games between the two teams will be the deciding factor".

10/9 @ Detroit: 49ers 14, Lions 10
11/6 @ SF: Lions 24, Niners 0

Todd Pence wrote:As we all know, the American Football League for its final season adopted a new playoff format featuring extra teams which effectively inaugurated the concept of a wild card playoff to professional football. This was done to give an extra postseason weekend to keep pace with the NFL. Under the new format, each division winner hosted the second place team in the opposite division. It was this format which allowed Kansas City to take the title, as they finished second in the West behind Oakland.

My question is . . . supposing, just supposing there had been a tie for second place in one of the divisions?

Would such a tie have necessitated yet another playoff round to break the deadlock? Oakland and KC had participated in a special tiebreaking playoff just the year before to determine the division champion. Or did the AFL have some tie-breaking procedure in place such as the NFL had used to break the deadlock between the Rams and Colts in '67?

Yes, there was a tiebreaking procedure in place in the AFL in 1969 if two or more teams were tied for first or for the runner-up spot. There would not have been another playoff round or special playoff.

Mark L. Ford wrote:Even before it went to the four divisions and had a tiebreaker based on total points in two games (as with the Rams and the Colts both finishing 11-1-2 in 1967), it had the same plan since 1960 to see who qualified for the Playoff Bowl. I was noticing that Detroit and San Francisco both finished at 7-5-0 in the Western in 1960, but the Lions played for the extra Bert Bell Benefit Bowl money. An AP reporter explained in a December 18, 1960 article that "If the 49ers should deadlock for second with Detroit, the Lions get the nod since the league ruled the point spread in the games between the two teams will be the deciding factor".

As was the case after the 1964 season (GB over MIN) and also in 1965 (DAL over NYG). PHI went in 1966 over CLE since they had played the least recently in the Playoff Bowl.

And that's the answer-- when I say that Ivan wrote the book when it comes to the history of NFL scheduling, I mean that he LITERALLY wrote the book.

IvanNYC wrote:

Mark L. Ford wrote:Even before it went to the four divisions and had a tiebreaker based on total points in two games (as with the Rams and the Colts both finishing 11-1-2 in 1967), it had the same plan since 1960 to see who qualified for the Playoff Bowl. I was noticing that Detroit and San Francisco both finished at 7-5-0 in the Western in 1960, but the Lions played for the extra Bert Bell Benefit Bowl money. An AP reporter explained in a December 18, 1960 article that "If the 49ers should deadlock for second with Detroit, the Lions get the nod since the league ruled the point spread in the games between the two teams will be the deciding factor".

As was the case after the 1964 season (GB over MIN) and also in 1965 (DAL over NYG). PHI went in 1966 over CLE since they had played the least recently in the Playoff Bowl.

1964: Minnesota nips Pack, 24-23, in GB, then Pack goes to Minnesota and blows them out 42-13.
1965: Dallas sweeps Giants: 31-2 in Week 1; 38-20 in Week 14.
1966: Browns actually had the edge in total points, winning 27-7 at home in Week 10 before losing in Week 14, 33-21.