Regular season | |
---|---|
Duration | September 23 – December 18, 1960 |
East Champions | Philadelphia Eagles |
West Champions | Green Bay Packers |
Championship Game | |
Champions | Philadelphia Eagles |
The 1960 NFL season was the 41st regular season of the National Football League.
Before the season, on January 26th, 33-year-old Pete Rozelle, the general manager of the Los Angeles Rams, was elected NFL commissioner as a compromise choice on the twenty-third ballot.[1][2] Meanwhile, the league expanded to 13 teams on January 28th with the addition of the Dallas Cowboys, with a fourteenth team, the Minnesota Vikings, to start in 1961.[3][4][5][6] Also, on March 13th, the Cardinals relocated from Chicago to St. Louis and became the St. Louis Cardinals,[7][8][9] the same moniker as the National League baseball club.
In the championship game, the host Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Green Bay Packers by four points at Franklin Field.[10][11][12][13] Two years earlier in 1958, both teams had finished in last place in their respective conferences, combining for only three wins. This loss was Vince Lombardi's only post-season defeat as an NFL head coach. Following this loss in 1960, Lombardi's Packers won five NFL championship games in seven years, and easily won the first two Super Bowls.
The NFL introduced the Playoff Bowl, a game for third place between the runners-up from each division. Played at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, after the NFL Championship game, it benefitted the players' pension fund. The Detroit Lions played the Cleveland Browns in the inaugural game and the Lions won by a point,[14] the first of three straight wins by Detroit in the series.
The two-time defending league champion Baltimore Colts led the Western Division after their bye in week 9 but lost the last four games to finish at .500 and fourth in the West. The New York Giants, winners of the Eastern Division the previous two seasons, won only one of their final five games and finished third in the East.
During this season, the American Football League (AFL) was launched as a competitor to the NFL. The two leagues co-existed for the entire 1960s, agreed to a merger in 1966, and became one combined league in 1970.
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