East Champions Dallas Cowboys Champions Green Bay Packers Start date 1967 | West Champions Green Bay Packers Champion Green Bay Packers | |
Duration September 17, 1967 –
December 17, 1967 Similar 1969 NFL season, 1965 NFL season, 1970 NFL season, 1974 NFL season, 1976 NFL season | ||
The 1967 NFL season was the 48th regular season of the National Football League. The league expanded to 16 teams with the addition of the New Orleans Saints.
Contents
The two 8-team conferences were split into two divisions each: the Eastern Conference divisions were Capitol (Dallas, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Washington) and Century (Cleveland, New York, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis), and the Western Conference divisions were Central (Chicago, Detroit, Green Bay, and Minnesota) and Coastal (Atlanta, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and San Francisco). Each division winner advanced to the playoffs, expanded to four teams in this year. The Saints and the New York Giants agreed to switch divisions in 1968 and return to the 1967 alignment in 1969.
The NFL season concluded on December 31, when the Green Bay Packers defeated the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL Championship Game (a game that became known as the "Ice Bowl"). Two weeks later, on January 14 1968, the Packers handily defeated the AFL's Oakland Raiders 33-14 in Super Bowl II at Miami's Orange Bowl. This was Vince Lombardi's final game as the Packers' head coach. At the time, it was officially the "AFL-NFL World Championship Game," though the more succinct "Super Bowl" was commonly used.
The Baltimore Colts had tied for the NFL's best record in 1967 at 11–1–2, but were excluded from the postseason because of new rules introduced for breaking ties within a division. The L.A. Rams won the division title over Baltimore as a result of the Rams' 34–10 win over Baltimore on the last game of the regular season and a 24–24 tie in Baltimore in mid-October. L.A. had a 24-point edge over Baltimore in head-to-head meetings, giving them the tiebreaker and the Coastal division title. The other three division winners had only nine victories each.
Prior to 1975, the playoff sites rotated and were known prior to the start of the season. The hosts in 1967 were the Capitol and Central division winners for the conference championships (first round), and the Western Conference for the championship game. The 1968 playoff hosts were Century, Coastal, and Eastern, respectively, and 1969 was like 1967.
Major rule changes
Division races
The Eastern Conference was split into the Capitol and Century Divisions, and the Western Conference had the Coastal and Central Divisions. (Each of the new division names began with the letter C and contained seven letters.) Under the new system, each team played six division games (a home-and-away series against teams in its division); a game against each of the other four teams in its conference; and a nonconference game against two of the four members of each four-team division in the other conference, for a total of 14 games. In the past, if two teams were tied for the division lead at season's end, a one-game playoff was conducted to break the tie. Starting in 1967, a tiebreaking system was implemented that started with net points in head-to-head competition, followed by the team that had less recently played in a title game. As such, only one team in a division would be the division winner, even if the won-loss record was the same.
Final standings
W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, PCT= Winning Percentage, PF= Points For, PA = Points Against
Note: Prior to 1972, the NFL did not include tie games when calculating a team's winning percentage in the official standings
Tiebreakers
Los Angeles won the Coastal Division based on better point differential in head-to-head games (net 24 points) vs. Baltimore. The Rams and Colts played to a 24–24 tie in Baltimore in October before the Rams won 34–10 on the season's final Sunday at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. NOTE: The result would be the same under the modern tiebreaker, which relies first on head-to-head record (Los Angeles won the head-to-head series, 1–0–1).
Playoffs
* - The Ice Bowl