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Johnny Grier became the first African-American in NFL history to be promoted to referee. [2] Grier replaced long time referee Bob Frederic, who retired in the offseason. Grier was the field judge in the previous season's Super Bowl XXII, which was the same game that Doug Williams of the Washington Redskins became the first African-American quarterback to win the Super
The National Football League playoffs for the 1988 season began on December 24, 1988. The postseason tournament concluded with the San Francisco 49ers defeating the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl XXIII , 20–16, on January 22, 1989, at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami , Florida .
In 1987, the NFL began regularly scheduling games for Sunday nights to be aired on ESPN during the second half (Weeks 10–18) of the season. The league expanded these games to the entire season in 1990 , though the first half (Weeks 1–9) of the season was televised on TNT , while ESPN continued to carry the second half (Weeks 10–18).
The NFL did not use a fixed-bracket playoff system. The three division winners were seeded 1–3 based on their overall won-lost-tied record, and received a first-round bye while the wild card teams were seeded 4 and 5, and played in the first round, dubbed the wild-card playoffs or wild-card weekend , with the 4 seed hosting.
The 1988 Cleveland Browns season was the team's 39th season with the National Football League. Despite taking the Browns to the playoffs for the fourth consecutive year, head coach Marty Schottenheimer was fired at the end of the 1988 season. He left the Browns having compiled a record of 44–27 (a 62% winning percentage) with the team.
ABC is scheduled to air 13 games, including the preseason Pro Football Hall of Fame game, 9 regular season games with 3 exclusive to the network, one Wild Card playoff game and one Divisional playoff game. [12] On October 11, 2024, ABC announced it was adding 6 additional Monday Night Football simulcasts for the 2024 NFL season. [13]
Beginning with the 1933 season, the NFL featured a championship game, played between the winners of its two divisions.In this era, if there was a tie for first place in the division at the end of the regular season, a one-game playoff was used to determine the team that would represent their division in the NFL Championship Game.
Despite ESPN only reaching 4 million homes at the time, the NFL considered the initial NFL Draft broadcast a success and ESPN has aired the NFL Draft every year since. [3] In 1988 , the NFL moved the draft from weekdays to the weekend and ESPN's ratings of the coverage improved dramatically.