Same Calendar NFL Notes

Today’s virtual full NFL “card” (on Thursday past, in a likely virtually meaningless game, Dallas won at Tennessee while tomorrow night, in a game certainly with seedings meaning and maybe mucho more, (12-3) Buffalo (Bills) visits (11-4) Cincinnati (Bengals)– of 14 games is the fourth such occurrence on New Year’s Day in NFL annals. (’05 final week while ’11, ’16 and now the ’22 “reg” play penultimate week tilts.)

There have been 12 previous “same calendar” NFL seasons with a championship game, be it an NFL Title Game (’38, ’49,’55,’60,and ’66 which was also the season (The Supe, then the NFL/AFL Championship Game was played on January 15, 1967, 2 weeks after Green Bay survived at Dallas in the 1966 season NFL Title/Pro Football “semis” game) or a Super Bowl (’77,’83,’88,’94,’05,’11 and ’16).

Either all twelve or 11 of the champions in those seasons (I know the NFL gave the records of the great, old Cleveland Browns, who sadly did move and become the Baltimore Ravens, to the “still never having achieved”/1999 season expansion, Cleveland Browns, however I at least note the ’55 title winning Browns are the direct “ancestors” of the Ravens) are still alive or have already qualified for the 14 team NFL “tournament,” which will commence in less than two weeks.

The “same calendar” title winners were the Giants (’38 and 2011), Eagles (’49 and ’60) and 49ers (’88 and ’94) twice each, with the Packers (’66), Cowboys (’77), Raiders(’83) Steelers (’05) and Patriots (’16) having “same calendar titled” once and are still in contention, albeit in some cases as monumental long shots, in 2022-2023. (By the way, Happy New Year).

Referenced above, I note the same calendar 1955 NFL champion Cleveland Browns, who were led by Otto Graham’s brilliant play in that game and so many others, with that ’55 title tilt being Otto’s last, became the already in the 2022 season ‘offs-Baltimore Ravens.

The great Jerry Rice, pictured above, was a tremendous contributor to Niners’ title winning teams in both “same calendar” 1988 and 1994.