Could someone explain the championship structure, i.e. how the teams came to be at he Superbowl? Thanks.?

Question

I'm from New Zealand and haven't followed football before. I get the game rules, but leagues, conferences etc., and how the Giants got the the Superbowl confuse me. If you can help me out, I appreciate it. :-)

Answer 1

One team for each conference with the best record. Four in the NFC, And four for AFC. Then two wild cards from each. Wild cards have the next best records. They play within their division, AFC or NFC until there only two teams left. One from each. That is who plays for the Super Bowl Championship. Giants got there by beating the Bucs, Dallas & Packers from the NFC. When a team loses they are eliminated. Giants are they only team left in the NFC.

Answer 2

Thank you for that question. Welcome to American football. The Europeans are extremely ignorant of the game of football. They pretend that the padding means that the players are soft, are not hardy and do not exercise much. Not so with our British counterparts in NZ. When you watch, you will see that the game is very rough and padding sometimes helps, but far from always. You still have to stay in the tub for an entire day, or even soak some the following day.





National Football League PLAYOFF FORMAT FROM 1970-1973 AND FOR '69 American Football league - AFL { If you are going to know American football, you have to talk with "old timers". They will remember the AFL. So you ask for clarification. AFL to many fans means "Arena Football League" or "American Federation of Labor"}. One wild card then ##. Wild card always played on the road. In the NFL {and the NFC and AFC from 1970-'73, they alternated divisions each year as to where the championship game would be played. There were 4 teams from EACH conference participating.



PLAYOFF FORMAT FROM 1974 - '77 WAS SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT: Team with better record "hosted" the game. That means that they played at home. There were 4 teams from EACH conference still in the postseason {I think they call it "playoffs" in Australia and NZ. They do here oftentimes, also.



PLAYOFF FORMAT FROM 1978-'89: A second wild card was added. Wild cards would play the first week. The subsequent week, division winners would play and the division winner with the least best record and the wild card winner would play.



PLAYOFF FORMAT FROM 1990 TO 2001: The NFL expands the playoffs to 12 teams by adding a third wild card team (a sixth seed) from each conference. This time, the restrictions on intra-division

playoff games during the Divisional Playoffs were removed. However, only the top two division winners in each conference (the 1 and 2 seeds) automatically

advanced to the Divisional Playoffs {had a week off. Slightly different meaning than "bye week"; long story}.



PLAYOFF FORMAT FROM 2002 - PRESENT

Have to draw it. It become more confusing the more you think about it. I couldn't copy and paste. The diagram is the last Link that I copied and pasted below.

Winner of WC playoff plays #1 seed? Yes and no. Yes, if you're the #6 seed and you win. So it depends upon whether a #6 seed wins. Really confusing.

Wild cards don't play each other any more. They play a division winner that was not one of the two best records in the conference. Really have to study it.

In 2006, the Giants finished 3rd with an 8-8- record and qualified for the playoffs. The Packers, Panthers and Rams finished 2nd in their divisions but did not qualify for the playoffs. They all had the same 8-8- finish.



2006: AFC NFC

first seed San Diego Chicago

second seed Baltimore New Orleans

third seed Indianapolis Philadelphia

fourth seed New England Seattle

fifth seed New York Jets Dallas

sixth seed Kansas City New York Giants



5th and 6th seeds lost. If KC had defeated Indy, would they have gone to SD? Yes. If the sixth seed wins, does it face the first seed or the second seed in the playoff format? First seed.

3rd seed played @ 2nd seed.



Let's go to 2005, where Pittsburgh {AFC} was the first #6 seed to win the S.B, I believe. They defeated a #1 seed twice as Seattle was the #1 seed of the NFC.



2005:

first seed: Indianapolis 14-2 Seattle

second seed Denver 13-3 Chicago

third: Cincinnati 11-5 Tampa Bay 11-5

fourth seed NE 10-6 NY Giants 11-5

fifth seed J'ville 12-4 Carolina 11-5 Carolina advanced and beat Chicago 29-21. #5 @ #1. Wash advanced, then lost to #1 Seattle. Seattle beat Carolina 34-14 for NFC title.

sixth: Pittsburgh Washington 10-6



Pittsburg faced the #3 seed Cincinnati. It's an odd set-up. They should base it on head-to-head. Steelers had to face 11-5 Cincy, whom they had already played twice as they are within their division. They faced 11-5 Cincinnati instead of 10-6 NE. Another instance in the same season is that 12-4 Jacksonville had to play away vs. 10-6 NE, even though they had a better record. New England won the division in a mediocre division. Furthermore, if the number 6 seed wins, if you're the #4 or 5 seed, you may get "new life" if you win your matchup because you do not have to face the #1 seed. You face the #2 seed.



Cincinnati finished ahead of Pittsburgh in the AFC North based on better division record (5-1 to 4-2).

Tampa Bay finished ahead of Carolina in the NFC South based on better division record (5-1 to 4-2).

Chicago clinched the NFC's #2 seed instead of Tampa Bay or the N.Y. Giants based on better conference record (10-2 to Buccaneers' 9-3 and Giants' 8-4).

Tampa Bay clinched the NFC's #3 seed instead of the N.Y. Giants based on better conference record (9-3 to 8-4).



Tampa Bay won the division. Some sports pages, web pages, encyclopedias list it alphabetically and it causes confusion. Washington, the #6 seed had to face #1 seed Seattle.

#5 seed won and had to face #2 Chicago. #4 seed won in the AFC and had to face #2 Denver. If Cincinnati had beaten Pittsburgh, would have faced Denver instead of NE. NE would've faced Indianapolis in yet another postseason meeting. If had defeated Indy, would've faced Denver or Cincy. Winner of #4 - #5 seed has to face the #2 seed unless the #6 seeds are eliminated. Hence, both NE and Seattle had to face the #1 seeds in 2006...

#4 seed winner New England had to face #2 seed Denver. Interesting. The #4 seeds were winners in the first round in 2006. They had to face the #1 seed. The #6 seeds had been eliminated.



## Two wild cards in the 1969 AFL but they didn't label them wild cards. The AFL labeled them "divisional playoffs".

Answer 3

Back in the Pleistocene era, when the NFL had the professional football world to itself, from 1950 to 1960, (after it had incorporated several teams from the old American Football League started after World War II, which included the Cleveland Browns, the Baltimore Colts, and a few other teams). There were just two divisions; the Western Conference, consisting of seven teams, and the Eastern Conference, consisting of seven teams. Many of these teams were among those who founded professional football in 1919-1920, the Green Bay Packers, (founded in 1919), the Canton Bull Dogs, (soon to become the Chicago Bears), the New York Giants (in 1925, won in a poker game by Wellington Mara, a gambler, with a minor criminal record).



Then a man, Lamar Hunt was his name, started another league in 1960, to to chagrin of Peter (Pete) Rozelle, the oily, smooth, NFL Commisioner.



Hunt's upstart American Football League competed with the older NFL, and won a television contract with NBC, putting the AFL on the map. Rozelle countered by expanding the NFL to include eight teams in each conference, (the Dallas Cowboy in the East, and the Minnesota Vikings in the West). A bidding war commenced, with the NY Jets buying a QB out of the University of Alabama, Joe Namath for 400,00 dollars in 1964, beating out the Detroit Lions in the older league. Where upon all hell broke loose.



Rozelle, seeing the hand writing on the wall, and anticipting the prohibitive cost of a bidding war for players, (who, as a rule, made between 8,000 and 15,000 dollars those days), reached out to Hunt to find a solution. A merger was agreed upon. In three years from 1966, the leagues would be one, the NFL/AFL. As a preview for the fans of the impeding merger the leagues promoted a "World" Champonship Game. For two years the Green Bay Packer under Vince Lombardi trounced the AFL champions, first the Kansas City Chiefs, then the Oakland Raiders.



Then in 1969, that upstart QB from the University of Alabama, with gimpy knees faced the awesome Baltimore Colts, a 17.5 point favorite in the third championship game, now called, with the usual hyperbole, the Superbowl. To make matters worst, the upstart guaranteed a win over the Colts two days before the game.



The rest is NFL history, or such I say folklore. Namath and the NY Jets soundly defeated the Baltimore Colts 16-7. Going into the locker room after the game just ended Namath, in a moment of ecstacy, raised his index finger to indicate, that the Jets were "number one." Got to love him.



Television realizing the enormous potential in adversiting time as the "Superbowl" caught on around the country, pushed the newly merged league to have many more teams, and a system that took the playoffs into February.



Once there was a league. The winners of each conference played a championship game. The team that won that game was the NFL Champion. The league had one televison channel that showed its games on Sunday afternoons; CBS. Gilette razor blades, and Ballitine beer (and Ale) were major advertising products. Now we have "wild" cards. Does three or four playoff games enhance the game of football? You decide.

Answer 4

They had enough wins to make the playoffs through a wild card spot. The top teams in each division make the playoffs, and then 1 team from all the divisions who has the best record make it.

Answer 5

how the giants got to the superbowl is something no one can understand. because they certainly don't deserve it.