Excerpts

Excerpt 1:

“I grew up in York, Nebraska, a small town with a population a little over 5,000 people. My first football memory is getting a Tudor Electric Football game on Christmas Day 1970. The game, from Sears, was based on the January 1970 Super Bowl and featured figures painted in the colors of the Kansas City Chiefs and the Minnesota Vikings. My brother Paul and I played this game for hours, watching the little men spin around in aimless circles and hoping against hope that they would somehow magically straighten-out and head into the end zone with the felt football in tow. A week later I watched the Nebraska Cornhuskers beat LSU in the 1971 Orange Bowl when No. 14 Jerry Tagge lunged over the Tiger line, holding the ball out with two hands, to score the winning touchdown late in the fourth quarter. The win gave Nebraska a share of the 1970 National Title and an eight-year old boy from York, Nebraska was hooked on football.”


 

Excerpt 2:

“Due to the post-war popularity of football and the NFL’s refusal to expand, a new league was set up to compete with the NFL. The All American Football Conference had eight teams and played a 14 game regular season schedule. The AAFC competed directly with the NFL in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Like the NFL, the winners of each division played each other in the championship game. Like the NFL, the location of the championship game rotated between the divisions regardless of which team had the better record. The Brooklyn Tigers franchise moved from the NFL to the AAFC after sitting out the 1945 NFL season. The team was renamed the New York Yankees. The Yankees took back the players they had merged into the NFL Boston Yanks franchise for the 1945 season. The AAFC began play with a new team in Brooklyn, named (of course) the Brooklyn Dodgers.”


 

Excerpt 3:

“There were major alignment changes in the NFL to begin the 2002 season. The Houston Texans were added as the 32nd franchise and the league realigned each conference into four divisions of four teams each. The Seattle Seahawks moved from the AFC West to the NFC West. The Seahawks played their inaugural season in the NFC before moving to the AFC and now moved back to the NFC. The AFC Central and NFC Central divisions were renamed the “North”, leaving four geographically based divisions in each conference: East, North, South, and West, with teams placed in their natural geographic region. The playoffs were modified to four division winners and two wild cards from each league (though the number of teams in the playoffs remained the same). Based on record, the division winners were seeded 1-4 and the Wild Card winners were seeded 5-6. The top two seeds received a bye and the remaining four teams play 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3 with the higher seeds hosting the playoff game. Changes in the NFC: In addition to the Seattle Seahawks move from the AFC West to the NFC West. The Arizona Cardinals moved from the NFC East to the NFC West. The Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers moved to the newly formed NFC South. Changes in the AFC: The Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars, Tennessee Titans moved to the newly formed AFC South. The Houston Texans expansion team was placed in the AFC South as well.”