Colts

Patriots

Bills

Dolphins

Jets

Bengals

Browns

Oilers

Steelers

Broncos

Chiefs

Raiders

Chargers

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AFC teams: West, Central, East

Cowboys

Giants

Eagles

Cardinals

Redskins

Bears

Lions

Packers

Vikings

Falcons

Rams

Saints

49ers

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NFC teams: West, Central, East

The1970 NFL season was the 51stregular season of theNational Football League, and the first after the consummation of theAFL–NFL merger. The merged league realigned into two conferences: all ten of theAmerican Football League (AFL) teams joined theBaltimore Colts,Cleveland Browns, andPittsburgh Steelers to form theAmerican Football Conference (AFC); the other thirteen NFL clubs formed theNational Football Conference (NFC).

The season concluded in 1971 withSuper Bowl V on January 17, as theBaltimore Colts beat theDallas Cowboys16–13 at theOrange Bowl inMiami,Florida. ThePro Bowl was the following Sunday; the NFC beat the AFC27–6 at theLos Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Themerger forced arealignment between the combined league's clubs. During the previous1969 season, there were sixteen NFL teams and tenAFL teams:

Because there were more NFL teams thanAFL teams, three teams needed to be transferred to balance the two new conferences at thirteen teams each. In May 1969, theBaltimore Colts,Cleveland Browns, andPittsburgh Steelers agreed to join the ten AFL teams to form theAmerican Football Conference (AFC); the remaining NFL teams formed theNational Football Conference (NFC).

Replacing the oldEastern and Western conferences (although divisions from those conferences still existed but were renamed to suit the realignment), the new conferences, AFC and NFC, function similar toMajor League Baseball'sAmerican andNational leagues, and each of those two were divided into three divisions: East, Central, and West. The two Eastern divisions had five teams; the other four divisions had four teams each. The realignment discussions for the NFC were so contentious that one final plan, out of five of them, was selected from an envelope in a vase by Commissioner Pete Rozelle's secretary, Thelma Elkjer^[1] on January 16, 1970.

The format agreed on was as follows:

This arrangement would keep most of the pre-merger NFL teams in the NFC and the AFL teams in the AFC. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Baltimore were placed in the AFC in order to balance the conferences, while the NFC equalized the competitive strength of its East and West divisions rather than sorting out teams purely geographically.

Division alignment in 1970 largely kept traditional rivals in the same division. Plans were also made to add two expansion teams, but this would not take place until 1976, seven years after the merger, when theTampa Bay Buccaneers andSeattle Seahawks joined the league.

The 26-team league also began to use an eight-teamplayoff format, four from each conference, that included the three division winners and awild card team, the second-place team with the best record.

The1970 NFL draft was held from January 27 to 28, 1970, atNew York City's Belmont Plaza Hotel. With the first pick, thePittsburgh Steelers selected quarterbackTerry Bradshaw fromLouisiana Tech University.

The NFL rules became the standardized rules for the merged league, with two exceptions that were both carried over from the AFL:

• The stadium's scoreboard clock became the official game clock. An official (the line judge beginning in 1965) kept the official time on the field in the NFL; however, the scoreboard clock was the official timepiece for the fourSuper Bowls contested prior to the merger.
• The practice of having the players' last names added to the backs of their jerseys became universal. The old NFL teams did not have names on the back prior to this season, whereas the AFL teams did.

After experimenting with compromise rules regarding thetwo-point conversion (then exclusive to the AFL) during the late 1960s preseasons, the NFL decided not to use that feature and use its previous rule only allowing one point for any conversion. The two-point conversion would later be added to the NFL rules in 1994.

• March 2 -Paul Christman, age 51. Played quarterback for theChicago Cardinals andGreen Bay Packers. Led the Cardinals to the 1947 NFL Championship.
• March 17 -Clark Shaughnessy, age 78. Head coach for theLos Angeles Rams from 1947-1948, and Defensive Coordinator for theChicago Bears from 1951-1962.
• July 21 -Bob Kalsu, age 25. Offensive guard for the Buffalo Bills. Killed while on active duty during theVietnam War.
• July 31 -Jimmy Conzelman, age 72. Played Wing Back for theDetroit Lions,Milwaukee Badgers, andProvidence Steam Roller. Elected to the Pro Football Hall Of Fame in 1964.
• September 3 -Vince Lombardi, age 57. Led theGreen Bay Packers to five NFL Championships and two Super Bowl Championships, later was the head coach for theWashington Redskins.

Starting in 1970, there were three divisions (Eastern, Central and Western) in each conference. The winners of each division, and a fourth "wild card" team based on the best non-division winner, qualified for the playoffs. The tiebreaker rules were changed to start with head-to-head competition, followed by intra-conference records and finally acoin flip. This became problematic during the final week of the regular season when potential victories by the Cowboys, Lions and Giants (all of whom were playing at home and favored to win) would have resulted in all three teams having similar records, New York winning the NFC East championship and a coin toss between Dallas and Detroit to decide the wild card.^[2] That possibility was averted when the Giants were upset by the Los Angeles Rams.^[3] Because of this close call regarding possible use of coin toss, future tie-breakers would be expanded to have more competitive aspects.

National Football Conference

American Football Conference

• Green Bay finished ahead of Chicago in the NFC Central based on better division record (2–4 to Bears' 1–5).

Note: Although the home teams in these playoffs were decided based on a yearly rotation, the home club coincidentally happened to be the one with the better record in every game. Had the playoffs been seeded, the only difference would have been that the #4 wild card Lions, ineligible to play the Vikings, would have played at the #2 49ers and the #3 Cowboys would have played at the #1 Vikings in the NFC divisional playoffs.

On November 8,New Orleans Saints placekickerTom Dempsey kicked a record 63-yard field goal as time expired to win 19–17 over the visitingDetroit Lions. It bettered the previous record by seven yards (setseventeen years earlier byBert Rechichar),^[4][5] and stood for 43 years (tied in1998,2011, and2012) until it was broken in2013 byDenver Broncos'Matt Prater.^[6] His record 64-yard field goal was atelevation in Denver on December 8, at the end of the first half. That record would stand until September 26, 2021, whenBaltimore Ravens'Justin Tucker kicked a 66 yard field goal as time expired to win 19-17 over theDetroit Lions^[7]

TheDenver Broncos, Detroit Lions, andLos Angeles Rams all started 3–0 but lost in Week Four. Only the Lions advanced to the postseason after the 3–0 start.

• Baltimore Colts:Don McCafferty replacedDon Shula, who left the team to coach the Miami Dolphins.
• Miami Dolphins:Don Shula left the Baltimore Colts to replace the firedGeorge Wilson as Miami's head coach.
• San Diego Chargers:Charlie Waller began his first full season as head coach. He replacedSid Gillman to serve for five games in 1969 due to Gillman's poor health.
• Washington Redskins:Vince Lombardi was diagnosed with terminal cancer in late June and died on September 3. Offensive line coachBill Austin served as Washington's head coach for the 1970 season.

• Boston Patriots:Clive Rush resigned after seven games into the season for medical reasons.John Mazur served as interim for the rest of the season and was hired as the full-time coach for 1971.
• New Orleans Saints:Tom Fears was fired after a 1–5–1 start.J. D. Roberts was named as his replacement and was hired as the full-time coach for 1971.

Before the season, the league had demanded that theChicago Bears find a new home field:Wrigley Field was too small, as it did not meet the new stadium requirement to seat at least 50,000, and it did not have lights (installed in 1988), meaning it was unavailable for late afternoon and night games. TheChicago Cubs baseball team, which owned the stadium it shared with the Bears, did not want to convert it to a football configuration while the Cubs were still in playoff contention.

As a result, the Bears' first home game of the season against thePhiladelphia Eagles was played atNorthwestern University'sDyche Stadium; Chicago also treated this game as a trial run for possibly moving their home games toEvanston. Dyche Stadium (since renamed Ryan Field), did not have lights (nor did it install permanent standards prior to its demolition in early 2024), was planned as the Bears' new home, but a deal fell through due to strong opposition from several athletic directors in theBig Ten Conference and residents of Evanston. After negotiations with the Cubs' ownership for continued use of Wrigley Field collapsed, the Bears moved toSoldier Field in1971 where they remain to the present day, save for a temporary relocation in2002 to theUniversity of Illinois'Memorial Stadium while Soldier Field was completely renovated.

TheBoston Patriots played in their fourth facility in eleven seasons, leavingAlumni Stadium atBoston College forHarvard Stadium, the only facility inMassachusetts at that time which met the NFL's 50,000-seat minimum. The struggles to find a home led the Patriots to hastily constructSchaeffer Stadium inFoxborough, which opened in1971. Renamed from "Boston" to "New England" when they moved, the Patriots continue to play in Foxborough inGillette Stadium, which opened in2002.

Twomulti-purpose stadiums made their debut this season:Riverfront Stadium andThree Rivers Stadium, replacingNippert Stadium andPitt Stadium as the homes of theCincinnati Bengals andPittsburgh Steelers, respectively. This was also the last season in whichFranklin Field was the home of thePhiladelphia Eagles; they moved toVeterans Stadium, another multi-purpose stadium, in1971.

Seven teams played their home games on artificial turf in 1970. This was up from 2 teams in both the NFL and AFL in 1969. The teams were: Cincinnati, Dallas, Miami, Pittsburgh and St. Louis, who joined Houston and Philadelphia, the two teams which played on turf in 1969.Super Bowl V was held at theOrange Bowl inMiami, and was the first Super Bowl played onartificial turf (specifically,Poly-Turf).

• TheDallas Cowboys moved the TV numbers on their jerseys from the shoulders to the sleeves. They remained on the sleeves of the white jersey through 1973 and the blue jersey through 1978.
• TheDetroit Lions added trim to their helmet logo beginning in week five.
• TheMinnesota Vikings added an alternate purple jersey with no sleeve striping, worn for warm-weather games.
• TheOakland Raiders used silver numbers instead of black on their white jerseys for the first time since 1963
• ThePittsburgh Steelers wore white pants with their white jerseys, the first time they wore white pants since wearing them for all games in 1965.
• ThePhiladelphia Eagles wore white helmets at all their games, discontinuing their practice of using green helmets with their white jerseys and white helmets with their green jerseys (the Eagles would switch back to wearing green helmets in 1974).
• TheWashington Redskins switched from burgundy to gold helmets, and from the arrow helmet logo to a new logo featuring an "R" inside a circle with Native American feathers hanging down from the side

To televise their games, the combined league retained the services ofCBS andNBC, who were previously the primary broadcasters of the NFL and the AFL, respectively. It was then decided that CBS would televise all NFC teams (including playoff games) while NBC all AFC teams. For interconference games, CBS would broadcast them if thevisiting team was from the NFC and NBC would carry them when the visitors were from the AFC. At the time, all NFL games were blacked out in the home team's market, so this arrangement meant that fans in each team's home market would see all of their team's televised Sunday afternoon games on the same network (CBS for NFC teams and NBC for AFC teams). The two networks also divided up the Super Bowl on a yearly rotation, with the network of the designated visiting conference (NBC for odd-numbered games, CBS for even-numbered game) televising each game throughSuper Bowl XVIII. From 1970–73, whichever network did not televise the Super Bowl televised thePro Bowl the next week.

Meanwhile, with the debut ofMonday Night Football onABC on September 21, 1970, the league became the firstprofessional sports league in the United States to have a regular series of nationally televised games in prime-time, and the only league ever to have its games televised on all of the then-three major broadcast networks at the same time. Both teams that advanced to the Super Bowl, theBaltimore Colts (44-24 to theChiefs) and theDallas Cowboys (38-0 to theCardinals), had suffered humiliating defeats at home on Monday Night Football during the season.

All three networks initially signed four-year television contracts through the 1973 season. The firstMNF team consisted of veteran play-by-play announcerKeith Jackson, sportscasterHoward Cosell, and former Dallas Cowboys quarterbackDon Meredith.Ray Scott remained as lead play-by-play announcer for CBS, butPat Summerall replacedPaul Christman as that network's lead color commentator after Christman died from a heart attack on March 2, 1970.Curt Gowdy andKyle Rote remained as NBC's lead broadcast team.^[8]

• NFL Record and Fact Book (ISBN 1-932994-36-X)
• Total Football: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League (ISBN 0-06-270174-6)

• 1970 in American football
• NFL seasons
• 1970 NFL season

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