Talk:1960 NFL Championship Game

Explanation of July 12 2017 Edit RE Baltimore Colts and Meaning of NFL Division and Conference in the 1960s
EDIT DATE: July 12th 2017 by FGF2007

EDIT LOCATION -- In the "Background" portion of the main article.

SPECIFIC POINT -- The sentence "Baltimore did not win another division/conference title until 1964", with 1964 having a wiki-link to the 1964 Baltimore Colts season. This refers to the fact that the Colts were 1964 NFL Western Conference Champions who were beaten in the 1964 NFL Championship game by that year's NFL Eastern Conference winners, the Cleveland Browns.

Prior to the current edit, the sentence had read "Baltimore did not win another division/conference title until 1968", with 1968 having a wiki-link to the 1968 Baltimore Colts season. This was assumed by FGF2007 to be a reference to the Colts 1968 NFL Championship win (34-0 over Cleveland) that put them in Super Bowl III vs the AFL's New York Jets, who upset Baltimore 16-7.

The definition of "Conference" before and after the 1970 NFL-AFL merger may not be clear to those unfamiliar with certain aspects of NFL history, so here is a brief explanation --

Beginning 1933, the NFL was re-structured into two divisions, the East and West, with the champion of each division meeting in the NFL Championship Game. In 1950, three teams from the rival All-American Football Conference (San Fran 49ers, Cleveland Browns and an early edition of the Baltimore Colts) were absorbed into the NFL. The word "division" was replaced with the word "conference". For three years (1950-51-52), the Western Conference was referred to as the National Conference, and the Eastern Conference as the American Conference. In 1953, the original names of Western and Eastern were respectively restored and the two conferences would be known by those names thru the end of 1969.

In 1966, the NFL and AFL agreed to officially merge for the 1970 season, as well as to stage the NFL-AFL World Championship Game (Super Bowls I-II-III-IV) between the NFL and AFL title winners. After the 1970 merger, the Super Bowl (beginning with Game V) became the NFL Championship Game, hosting the winners of the NFC and AFC championships. During its 10 years of operation (1960 to 1969), the AFL was always divided into two divisions, the West and the East, and never at any time did the newer league use "Conference" as an identification term.

By 1967, the NFL had grown to 16 teams, so the 8-team Western Conference was split into two 4-team divisions, the Central and the Coastal. The 8-team Eastern Conference was also split into two 4-team divisions, the Century and the Capital. The division winners within the Western and Eastern Conferences would meet for the Conference Title, and then the Conference winners would play for the NFL Championship, with that game's winner going on to the Super Bowl to battle an AFL opponent.

Baltimore in the 1968 season was in succession NFL Coastal Division Champion, then Western Conference Champion and finally NFL Champion. They lost the AFL-NFL World Championship (Super Bowl III) to the AFL's New York Jets.

The 1970 NFL-AFL merger created what was then a 26-team league. Two conferences of 13 teams each -- the National (NFC) and American (AFC) -- were created, with each conference further divided into three divisions. The Super Bowl became the NFL Championship, while the NFC and AFC Championships took over from the older NFL and AFL Championships.

Hopefully the above explanation will be of use to editors, who are also well encouraged to browse thru Wikipedia's many NFL and AFL articles on league seasons, AFL or NFL Championship games and individual team histories.

Thanx-A-Lot Fgf2007 (talk) 02:44, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

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Move discussion in progress
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