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The NFL, which had played a 12-game schedule since 1947, changed to a 14-game schedule in 1961, a year after the American Football League instituted it. The AFL also introduced the two-point conversion to professional football 34 years before the NFL instituted it in 1994 (college football had adopted the two-point conversion in the late 1950s).
A 14-game regular season schedule, which the NFL adopted in 1961 (increased from 12 games), exactly one year after the AFL's inaugural season. Players' last names on the jersey back. A slightly narrower and longer ball, the Spalding J5V, which was easier to throw than the NFL ball, [14] [15] [16] "The Duke" from Wilson.
Prior to the season, the AFL-NFL Merger was announced, including both leagues agreeing to play an annual AFL-NFL World Championship Game (later known as the Super Bowl) beginning in January, 1967. Also, the Miami Dolphins joined the AFL as an expansion team.
Following an agreement to merge the NFL with AFL, the Super Bowl was first held at the conclusion of the 1966 season to determine a champion between the best teams from the two leagues. The NFL then established a four-team postseason tournament in 1967, and the AFL did the same in 1969. [49]
As a result, the league dropped from 22 to 12 teams, and a majority of the remaining teams were centered around the East Coast instead of the Midwest, where the NFL had started. The New York Yankees were added from the American Football League (AFL I) and the Cleveland Bulldogs returned.
For years, the NFL season simply did not run long enough to reach the holiday. Until the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, the regular season ended in mid-December with the championship game two weeks later.
The post-season schedule was moved back a week, including Super Bowl XXXVI (the NFL temporarily eliminated the bye week before the Super Bowl for the 2001 and 2002 after moving the start of the season back a week, leaving them with no choice but to push the game back a week after the earlier postponements.)
In 1961 and 1962, the AFL played its game during the off-week between the end of the NFL's regular season and its title game (thus resulting in the AFL holding championship games on December 24, 1961, and December 23, 1962, a week before the NFL's games of December 31, 1961, and December 30, 1962).