Super Bowl championship

Date: 1966 [unknown]
Location: United States
Surname/tag: NFL

1966–1969: NFL vs. AFL—The beginning of the Super Bowl era

In 1966, the success of the rival AFL, the spectre of the NFL's losing more stars to the AFL, and concern over a costly "bidding war" for players precipitated by the NFL's Giants' signing of Pete Gogolak, who was under contract to the AFL's Buffalo Bills, led the two leagues to discuss a merger. Pivotal to this was approval by Congress of a law (PL 89-800) that would waive jeopardy to anti-trust statutes for the merged leagues. The major point of the testimony given by the leagues to obtain the law was that if the merger were permitted, "Professional football operations will be preserved in the 23 cities and 25 stadiums where such operations are presently being conducted." The merger was announced on June 8, 1966, and became fully effective in 1970.

After expanding to enfranchise the New Orleans Saints in 1967, the NFL split its 16 teams into two conferences with two divisions each: the Capitol and Century Divisions in the Eastern Conference, and the Coastal and Central Divisions in the Western Conference. The playoff format was expanded from a single championship game to a four-team tournament, with the four divisional champions participating. The two division winners in each conference met in the "Conference Championships", with the winners advancing to the NFL Championship Game. Again, the home team for each playoff game was determined by a yearly divisional or conference rotation.

The AFL, on the other hand, raised its total franchise number to ten with the Miami Dolphins joining the Eastern Division in 1966 and the Cincinnati Bengals joining the Western Division in 1968. The league until 1969 kept using the one-game-playoff format except when division tie-breakers were needed. In its final season, 1969, the AFL adopted a four-team playoff to determine its champion.

Following the NFL and AFL Championship Games for the 1966 through 1969 seasons, the NFL champion played the AFL champion in Super Bowls I through IV, the only true inter-league championship games in the history of professional football. The first two of these games were known as the AFL-NFL Championship Game, as the title Super Bowl was not chosen until 1968. Thus the third AFL-NFL matchup was dubbed "Super Bowl III" and the first two matches were retronamed as Super Bowls I and II. The first two games were convincingly won by the NFL's Packers, the last two by the AFL's New York Jets and Kansas City Chiefs, leaving the leagues even at 2–2 in "Championship" competition when they subsequently merged.

All participants in those four AFL-NFL championship games were either AFL champions or NFL champions in the record books, no matter the outcome of the Super Bowl. Three of the four league champions who lost one of the first four Super Bowls would eventually win at least one. The exception is the Minnesota Vikings which went to three others and lost all of them. ^[1]

Season	League	Game	Winning team	Score	Losing team	Venue	Attendance
1966	NFL/ AFL	I	Green Bay Packers (1) (10)	35–10	Kansas City Chiefs	Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum	61,946
1967	NFL/ AFL	II	Green Bay Packers (2) (11)	33–14	Oakland Raiders	Miami Orange Bowl	75,546
1968	NFL/ AFL	III	New York Jets (1) (1)	16–7	Baltimore Colts	Miami Orange Bowl	75,389
1969	NFL/ AFL	IV	Kansas City Chiefs (1) (1)	23–7	Minnesota Vikings	Tulane Stadium	80,562
1970	NFL	V	Baltimore Colts (1) (3)	16–13	Dallas Cowboys	Miami Orange Bowl	79,204
1971	NFL	VI	Dallas Cowboys (1) (1)	24–3	Miami Dolphins	Tulane Stadium	81,023
1972	NFL	VII	Miami Dolphins (1) (1)	14–7	Washington Redskins	Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum	90,182
1973	NFL	VIII	Miami Dolphins (2) (2)	24–7	Minnesota Vikings	Rice Stadium	71,882
1974	NFL	IX	Pittsburgh Steelers (1) (1)	16–6	Minnesota Vikings	Tulane Stadium	80,997
1975	NFL	X	Pittsburgh Steelers (2) (2)	21–17	Dallas Cowboys	Miami Orange Bowl	80,187
1976	NFL	XI	Oakland Raiders (1) (1)	32–14	Minnesota Vikings	Rose Bowl	103,438
1977	NFL	XII	Dallas Cowboys (2) (2)	27–10	Denver Broncos	Louisiana Superdome	76,400
1978	NFL	XIII	Pittsburgh Steelers (3) (3)	35–31	Dallas Cowboys	Miami Orange Bowl	79,484
1979	NFL	XIV	Pittsburgh Steelers (4) (4)	31–19	Los Angeles Rams	Rose Bowl	103,985
1980	NFL	XV	Oakland Raiders (2) (2)	27–10	Philadelphia Eagles	Louisiana Superdome	76,135
1981	NFL	XVI	San Francisco 49ers (1) (1)	26–21	Cincinnati Bengals	Pontiac Silverdome	81,270
1982	NFL	XVII	Washington Redskins (1) (3)	27–17	Miami Dolphins	Rose Bowl	103,667
1983	NFL	XVIII	Los Angeles Raiders (3) (3)	38–9	Washington Redskins	Tampa Stadium	72,920
1984	NFL	XIX	San Francisco 49ers (2) (2)	38–16	Miami Dolphins	Stanford Stadium	84,059
1985	NFL	XX	Chicago Bears (1) (9)	46–10	New England Patriots	Louisiana Superdome	73,818
1986	NFL	XXI	New York Giants (1) (5)	39–20	Denver Broncos	Rose Bowl	101,063
1987	NFL	XXII	Washington Redskins (2) (4)	42–10	Denver Broncos	Jack Murphy Stadium	73,302
1988	NFL	XXIII	San Francisco 49ers (3) (3)	20–16	Cincinnati Bengals	Joe Robbie Stadium	75,129
1989	NFL	XXIV	San Francisco 49ers (4) (4)	55–10	Denver Broncos	Louisiana Superdome	72,919
1990	NFL	XXV	New York Giants (2) (6)	20–19	Buffalo Bills	Tampa Stadium	73,813
1991	NFL	XXVI	Washington Redskins (3) (5)	37–24	Buffalo Bills	Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome	63,130
1992	NFL	XXVII	Dallas Cowboys (3) (3)	52–17	Buffalo Bills	Rose Bowl	98,374
1993	NFL	XXVIII	Dallas Cowboys (4) (4)	30–13	Buffalo Bills	Georgia Dome	72,817
1994	NFL	XXIX	San Francisco 49ers (5) (5)	49–26	San Diego Chargers	Joe Robbie Stadium	74,107
1995	NFL	XXX	Dallas Cowboys (5) (5)	27–17	Pittsburgh Steelers	Sun Devil Stadium	76,347
1996	NFL	XXXI	Green Bay Packers (3) (12)	35–21	New England Patriots	Louisiana Superdome	72,301
1997	NFL	XXXII	Denver Broncos (1) (1)	31–24	Green Bay Packers	Qualcomm Stadium	68,912
1998	NFL	XXXIII	Denver Broncos (2) (2)	34–19	Atlanta Falcons	Pro Player Stadium	74,803
1999	NFL	XXXIV	St. Louis Rams (1) (3)	23–16	Tennessee Titans	Georgia Dome	72,625
2000	NFL	XXXV	Baltimore Ravens (1) (1)	34–7	New York Giants	Raymond James Stadium	71,921
2001	NFL	XXXVI	New England Patriots (1) (1)	20–17	St. Louis Rams	Louisiana Superdome	72,922
2002	NFL	XXXVII	Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1) (1)	48–21	Oakland Raiders	Qualcomm Stadium	67,603
2003	NFL	XXXVIII	New England Patriots (2) (2)	32–29	Carolina Panthers	Reliant Stadium	71,525
2004	NFL	XXXIX	New England Patriots (3) (3)	24–21	Philadelphia Eagles	Alltel Stadium	78,125
2005	NFL	XL	Pittsburgh Steelers (5) (5)	21–10	Seattle Seahawks	Ford Field	68,206
2006	NFL	XLI	Indianapolis Colts (2) (4)	29–17	Chicago Bears	Dolphin Stadium	74,512
2007	NFL	XLII	New York Giants (3) (7)	17–14	New England Patriots	University of Phoenix Stadium	71,101
2008	NFL	XLIII	Pittsburgh Steelers (6) (6)	27–23	Arizona Cardinals	Raymond James Stadium	70,774
2009	NFL	XLIV	New Orleans Saints (1) (1)	31–17	Indianapolis Colts	Sun Life Stadium	74,059
2010	NFL	XLV	Green Bay Packers (4) (13)	31–25	Pittsburgh Steelers	Cowboys Stadium	103,219
2011	NFL	XLVI	New York Giants (4) (8)	21–17	New England Patriots	Lucas Oil Stadium	68,658
2012	NFL	XLVII	Baltimore Ravens (2) (2)	34–31	San Francisco 49ers	Mercedes-Benz Superdome	71,024
2013	NFL	XLVIII	Seattle Seahawks (1) (1)	43–8	Denver Broncos	MetLife Stadium	82,529
2014	NFL	XLIX	New England Patriots (4) (4)	28–24	Seattle Seahawks	University of Phoenix Stadium	70,288
2015	NFL	50	Denver Broncos (3) (3)	24–10	Carolina Panthers	Levi's Stadium	71,088
2016	NFL	LI	New England Patriots (5) (5)	34–28 (OT)	Atlanta Falcons	NRG Stadium	70,807
2017	NFL	LII	Philadelphia Eagles (1) (4)	41–33	New England Patriots	U.S. Bank Stadium	67,612
2018	NFL	LIII	New England Patriots (6) (6)	13–3	Los Angeles Rams	Mercedes-Benz Stadium	73,019
2019	NFL	LIV	Kansas City Chiefs (2) (2)	31–20	San Francisco 49ers	Hard Rock Stadium	62,417
2020	NFL	LV	Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2) (2)	31–9	Kansas City Chiefs	Raymond James Stadium	25,000
2021	NFL	LVI	Los Angeles Rams (2) (4)	23–20	Cincinnati Bengals	SoFi Stadium	70,048
2022	NFL	LVII	Kansas City Chiefs (3) (3)	38–35	Philadelphia Eagles	State Farm Stadium	67,827

Sources

1. ↑ Wikipedia History of the NFL championship