History of the NFL Playoffs (Part I: The NFL Championship - 1920-1959)

Ever since I finished writing about the history of the MLB postseason, I had been wanting to do the same regarding the NFL playoffs, because I find the NFL's postseason so fascinating. For one, unlike the other three main leagues, the NFL doesn't do the whole "playoff series" thing--it's one game and done, though it feels like you're watching a playoff series all in a three hour span. Another thing I can't help but love is how similar the MLB and NFL playoff formats are, even back in the earliest of days.

Of course, the modern National Football League began in 1920 back when it was known as the American Professional Football Association (APFA). There were 14 teams back then, and at the end of the season, it was the Akron Pros who ended up finishing with the league's best record at 8-0-3. Back then, this was considered a perfect season, as ties didn't count towards a team's win percentage until the 1972 season. As a result, the Pros were named the first ever APFA/NFL Champions, and from that point on, the standings would determine the league's champion, with the best record getting the trophy.

The first 13 seasons operated under this format, but in 1932, there was an interesting development. That year, the Chicago Bears finished with a record of 6-1-6, while the Portsmouth Spartans finished at 6-1-4. Again, ties didn't count in the standings, meaning that the teams finished tied for the top record in the now eight team league, while the Green Bay Packers were third at 10-3-1. As a result of this tie, the league decided that the Bears and Spartans would face each other to break the tie and crown that year's NFL Champions, with the game being the league's first-ever playoff game. The playoff took place at Chicago Stadium on December 18, 1932, with the Bears winning, 9-0, to win the NFL Championship.

As it turned out, fans actually liked seeing the championship actually decided on the field, so with that, the league decided to do this every year, and thus, the NFL Championship Game was born. The first official game took place in 1933, which debuted a new format, as the league was divided into two divisions, West and East. The two division winners played in the NFL Championship (similar to how MLB determined who would play in the World Series for the first 66 seasons), and in 1933, it was the Chicago Bears and the New York Giants who ran away with their respective divisions. The Bears had home field due to having a better record, though home field would alternate between the divisions starting in 1934. Regarding 1933's game, the Bears won a nailbiter over the Giants, 23-21.

The NFL Championship Game continued to serve as the lone postseason game, and there were some memorable ones as the years passed. The infamous 1940 game saw the Bears completely obliterate Washington by an iconic score of 73-0, with the Bears' tally still standing as the highest in a single game--the very number that the Miami Dolphins nearly touched earlier this season. The Packers won three championships before the inception of the game and won three more between 1933 and 1959, doing so in 1936, 1939, and 1944. The Detroit Lions won four NFL Championships, with their last one being in 1957--a 59-14 blowout over the Cleveland Browns.

And then, there's what happened a year later:

1958 was a wild season. For starters, there was a tie atop the NFL's renamed Eastern Conference between the New York Giants and the Cleveland Browns, with both teams finishing with 9-3 records. The Western Conference Champion Baltimore Colts awaited the winner of the East, which was determined in a playoff game--a commonplace, yet rare, rule at that time. The Giants defeated the Browns, 10-0, to capture the conference crown and face the Colts in the NFL Championship.

The 1958 NFL Championship has been dubbed "The Greatest Game Ever Played," mainly because of how nailbiting it was. The game took place at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx, and it saw Baltimore up 14-3 at the half. The Giants took the lead with a pair of TDs--one in the 3rd quarter, the other in the 4th quarter, but the Colts would tie it with a field goal, forcing sudden death overtime. In the extra frame, Alan Ameche's one yard TD (his second score of the game) won it for the Colts--23-17 was the final score. This was the first NFL Championship Game to ever go to overtime, and it would be nearly six decades until we would see overtime in a league championship game.

1959 saw the same two teams face off for the NFL Championship, and though the site was different, the same team ended up winning--no overtime this time. Now, any and all NFL historians would see my title and ask why I'm stopping at 1959. The reason is simple. While I will be writing about this in the same fashion as I did for the MLB postseason, I wanted to divide this properly. The 1959 NFL Championship was the last game before a new decade would start to change professional football in an epic manner, so that year marked the end of the NFL as the sole league, as another league would debut in the following year and change the game.

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