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All games are listed under the year in which the majority of regular season games were played: especially since the 1960s, many championship games have been played in the January or, since 2002, February of the following year (i.e. the Championship Game of the 2011 NFL season was played in February 2012, but is listed here under 2011).
The rival All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and American Football League (AFL) have since merged with the NFL (the only two AAFC teams that currently exist, the Cleveland Browns and the San Francisco 49ers, joined the NFL in 1950), but AAFC Championship Games and records are not included in the NFL's record books.
The 1920 Akron Pros were named the first APFA (NFL) champions. The National Football League champions, prior to the merger between the National Football League (NFL) and American Football League (AFL) in 1970, were determined by two different systems. The National Football League was established on September 17, 1920, as the American Professional Football Association (APFA). The APFA changed ...
The Packers defeated the Chiefs in the first AFL–NFL World Championship Game (Super Bowl I). The Super Bowl is the annual American football game that determines the champion of the National Football League (NFL). The game culminates a season that begins in the previous calendar year, and is the conclusion of the NFL playoffs.
The rival American Football League (AFL) began play in 1960 with its own Eastern and Western divisions and AFL Championship Game. 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.
NFC Championship Game logo, 2008–2010 (Used with old shield since 2005) The structure of the NFL playoffs has changed several times since 1970. At the end of each regular season, the top teams in the NFC qualify for the postseason, including all division champions (three division winners from the 1970–71 to 2001–02 seasons; four since the 2002–03 season) and a set number of "wild card ...
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).
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.