The Era of Rotating Home NFL Playoff Games (Revised)
1970-1974 NFL Post Season Matchups
One of my favorite questions that people ask is, “Why did the 1972 Dolphins have to play the AFC Championship Game on the road?” The inevitable pat answer is that this happened during the era during which the NFL rotated home playoff position every year, which is technically true but immaterial, as the Dolphins actually were not the road team in the 1972 AFC postseason; the AFC West champ Raiders were. The Dolphins were on the road for the AFC Championship Game because of who they played, and beat in the first round, and that matchup was actually set by a few factors that are not so obvious.
These factors deserve a deep rewind. As Strat-O-Matic football gamers it is not merely enough to understand the rotation system; you have to know how to accurately apply it in each conference and for each situation where the Wild Card might change from the real-life team. I get e-mails on this every so often, and since I’ve already posted on Division and Wild Card tie-breakers I figured I might as well post on how to determine matchups during this odd period in NFL History, 1970-1974.
Excel sheet of all matchups, 1970-1974
First a few details on the NFL in the near post Merger era. Before the Merger, the NFL had sixteen teams and they were organized into two conferences and four divisions, each of which would send one playoff representative. There was no Wild Card. In the first round in the East, the Capitol Division winner (in the Late Sixties, usually Dallas) and the Century Division winner (Cleveland) would play to decide the Eastern Conference’s representative in the NFL Championship; The West had a Coastal Division (Baltimore or LA) and a Central Division (Minnesota) and those teams played for the Western Conference berth.
The merger changed everything – the League now had 26 teams and these were divided into 2 conferences, each of three divisions. The old system generated 3 playoff games in the 1969 AFL and 3 playoff games in the NFL and the Super Bowl; the new system could not have less playoff games, as these generated tremendous revenue for the home teams. So, the League added Wild cards in both the NFL and AFL, which meant that there would be two Divisional round games and a Championship Game in each Conference, the same as in 1969. But there was one more wrinkle- the newer, bigger league wanted to distribute these playoff games to every region of the United States to drum up more interest. This requirement seems quaint now, but you have to remember - it worked. The NFL would add two more teams within half a dozen years and expand from fourteen to sixteen games comprising a season two years after that. Rotating playoff games built the nationwide interest in the NFL we know today.
The Sporting News 1970 Football Edition
The NFL named the Champions of the Eastern Divisions of both Conferences the home teams for the 1970 first round, and the NFC Central Champion and AFC West teams were also set to be hosts.
The actual rules for playoff seedings and matchups seem simple on the surface. Two division champions would be designated as home teams and one division champion would be designated as the road team. Here’s where it gets fun- the Wild Card could not play the division champion from its same division in the first round of the playoffs. If this happened, the matchup would rotate again.
The Sporting News 1970 Football Edition, Redux
Special Thanks to Tommy Nobis, Ace Researcher!
From The Sporting News, for the 1970 NFC Team
A (East Champ) and Team B (Central Champ) would be the home teams, and Team C
(West Champ) and Team D (Wildcard, or second place team with best percentage in
conference) would play on the road, with Team C at Team A, and Team D at Team B
– unless Team D and B were in the same division, which they were. The alternate rotation used in this case would
place Team D (Detroit) at Team A (Dallas) and Team C (San Francisco) would be
at Team B (Minnesota). In the Championship Game round, the NFC Rotation for
1970, 1971, and 1972 is Team C, Team A, Team B, meaning the West Champs (SF) should
host the NFC Championship game if they won in the Divisional Round, which they
did. If SF had lost, the 1970 NFC Championship would move to Team A (Dallas) if
they won in the first round, and the last possibility would be Team B (Minnesota).
This is how San Francisco was the road team
for the Divisional Round but hosted Dallas in the 1970 NFC Championship Game
where the Cowboys broke their hearts, as they always did back then.
Real Life 1970 NFC, using TSN’s Alternate
Rotation to keep Lions from playing Minnesota in first round
In the last post, I entertained the strong
possibility the 1970 Giants should have won their last game and the Eastern
Division. What would happen then? Let’s
also assume the Cowboys win the toss and the Wild Card and Detroit is
eliminated. The primary rotation is Team C (SF) at Team A (NYG), and Team D
(Dallas) at Team B (Minnesota). This is
a legal scenario, so this would have been chosen. Now C is the Home Team for
the NFC Championship game so if SF wins they host the winner of Dallas/
Minnesota. If they lose, the next team in the rotation (Team C, Team A, Team B
in 1970) or Team A would be chosen, and in this scenario it will be either SF
or the Giants.
Alternative 1970 NFC Scenario where Team A and WC are in
same division with rotations A,B,C in the Divisional round and C,A,B in the
Championship round.
What happened to the 1972 Dolphins? The AFC uses the same rotations as the NFC but
the Teams are different –Team A is the East Champion, Team B is the West
Champion, and Team C is the Central Champion.
The Divisional rotations would be Oakland (B) at Pittsburgh (C) (to
their historical regret) and Cleveland (D) at Miami (A). The AFC Championship Rotation goes C, A, and
B, so Team C, Pittsburgh, since they won, hosted Team A, Miami.
1972 AFC Playoff Rotations
Remember the goal was to bring playoff games
to as many new venues as they could to drum up interest.
The 1972 NFC had the Washington Redskins (Team A) and the Cowboys as the Wild Card Team (Team D). Dallas could not play Washington, so Team D could not play Team A, so they went to the alternate rotations. Washington in this setting hosted the Central Team, Team B (Green Bay) and Dallas (Team D) traveled to Team C, San Francisco. This is an example of a situation where both the first (Team B, Green Bay) and second (Team C, San Francisco) seeds for the NFC Championship Game lost, so Washington hosted the NFC Championship Game:
1972 NFC Alternate Rotations for both Divisional and NFC Championship
One thing bothers me…
There’s a note at
the bottom of the second page that states if the Conference Championship game
rotates because the first or second loses then the next Championship Game would
be moved up to the next team in the cycle.
In other words the 1970 NFL Championship Cycle was Team C, Team A, and Team
B, or the West, East and Central Champions, in order. If San Francisco had lost, this would mean
Dallas (Team A and next in line) would host Minnesota (Team B). This would also mean the originally planned 1971
NFC Championship Game cycle of Team A, Team B, Team C would move up to Team B,
Team C, Team A.
This never came up in
the AFC, but in the 1972 NFC the double loss of both Teams B and C should mean
that the 1973 NFC should have a Championship Rotation of B,C,A again. It does not look like this actually happened:
1973 NFC Playoff Rotations,
showing Championship Game adhered to Original (planned) sequence for Home Team.
If the order had been changed to “B First”, Minnesota would have hosted the 1973 NFC Championship Game. They didn’t; instead the Vikings managed to defeat Dallas in Dallas. Dallas had beaten the 1973 Rams in the Divisional Game. I’m not sure why the Championship Game did not rotate as TSN indicated it should have, but in all cases the Divisional Game winner hosted the Championship game in both Conferences from 1970-1974, so I’d go with that.
How well did it work?
This Rotational Playoff Period gets a lot of stink for putting the Dolphins in Three Rivers Stadium for the AFC Championship, a place where the Steelers were already 8-0 in 1972. But the Dolphins did win. One way to judge this method is to see how many times the best team in the NFC or the AFC played the Conference Championship and then made it to the Super Bowl.
· In the NFC, 1970 is the only year of the five where the best team, 12-2 Minnesota failed to even make the NFC Championship Game, but it could be argued that 1973 was actually worse in terms of counter-seeding. Both of the best teams in the 1973 NFC playoffs had to play key games on the road, with the Rams losing in Dallas and then Minnesota winning in Dallas – but Minnesota did make the Super Bowl.
· In the AFC, the 1972 Dolphins obviously played on the road but still won, and 1974 Oakland at 12-2 lost to Pittsburgh in Oakland. But the rest of the time the system played out generally as one would have predicted.
· 1975 was the first year for seeding 1-4 and then setting the second-round matchups after the first-round outcomes were completed, and the results were mixed (as they so often are). In the 1975 NFC Dallas managed to beat the top seeds on their way to Super Bowl X, but the AFC’s top seed, Pittsburgh, held serve and made the Super Bowl.
Fred Bobberts
