1970 NFL season

The 1970 NFL season was the 51st regular season of the National Football League, and the first one after the AFL-NFL Merger.

The merger forced a realignment between the combined league's clubs. Because there were 16 NFL teams and 10 AFL teams, three teams needed to transfer to balance the two new conferences at 13 teams each. The Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, and the Pittsburgh Steelers agreed to join all ten AFL teams to form the American Football Conference (AFC). The remaining NFL teams formed the National Football Conference (NFC). The conferences are similar to the American and National leagues from Major League Baseball but in the football sense and were divided into three divisions: East, Central, and West. The two Eastern divisions had five teams; the other four divisions had four teams each. The realignment discussions were so contentious that at one point team names were pulled out of a glass jar.

The format agreed on was as follows:

NFC East: Eagles, Redskins, Cowboys, Giants, Cardinals

NFC Central: Packers, Bears, Vikings, Lions

NFC West: Rams, 49ers, Saints, Falcons

AFC East: Patriots, Jets, Colts, Bills, Dolphins

AFC Central: Steelers, Browns, Bengals, Oilers

AFC West: Broncos, Raiders, Chargers, Chiefs

This arrangement would keep most of the pre-merger NFL teams in the NFC conference and the AFL teams in the AFC. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Baltimore were placed in the AFC in order to balance it out, while the NFC equalizes the team strengths of its East and West divisions rather than sorting out teams just geographically. The NFL had originally consisted of an Eastern Conference (consisted of Philadelphia, Washington, New York, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Dallas, and Cleveland) and a Western Conference (Green Bay, Minnesota, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore, and San Francisco). In 1967, this was changed to Capitol (Philadelphia, Washington, Dallas, and newly-added New Orleans), Central (Green Bay, Minnesota, Detroit, and Chicago), Century (Cleveland, New York Giants, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis), and Coastal (San Francisco, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Baltimore) divisions. Meanwhile, the AFL for its 10-year existence had an Eastern Division (New York Jets, Boston, Buffalo, Houston and later Miami) and a Western Division (Kansas City, Oakland, Denver, San Diego, and later Cincinnati). Division alignment in 1970 was largely intended to preserve the pre-merger setups, keeping traditional rivals in the same division. Plans were also made to add two expansion teams, but this would not take place until 1976, seven years after the merger.

The 26-team league began to use an eight-team playoff format, four from each conference, that included the three division winners and a wild card team, the second-place team with the best record. The season concluded with the Colts defeating the Dallas Cowboys 16–13 in Super Bowl V, the first Super Bowl played for the NFL Championship. The game was held at the Orange Bowl in Miami, and was the first Super Bowl played on artificial turf.

To televise their games, the combined league retained the services of CBS and NBC, who were previously the primary broadcasters of the NFL and the AFL, respectively. It was then decided that CBS would televise all NFC teams (including playoff games) while NBC all AFC teams. For interconference games, CBS would broadcast them if the visiting team was from the NFC and NBC would carry them when the visitors were from the AFC. The two networks also divided up the Super Bowl on a yearly rotation.

Meanwhile, with the debut of Monday Night Football on ABC September 21, 1970, the league became the first professional sports league in the United States to have a regular series of nationally-televised games in prime-time.

The Chicago Bears' first home game of the season against the Philadelphia Eagles was played at Northwestern University's Dyche Stadium as part of an experiment. Before the season, the league demanded that the Bears find a new home field because the seating capacity of their then-current home, Wrigley Field, was too small (after the merger, all stadiums were required to seat at least 50,000). Ultimately, a deal to make Dyche Stadium as the Bears' new home fell through and the team moved to Soldier Field in 1971 where they remain to the present day.

On November 8, New Orleans Saints placekicker Tom Dempsey kicked a 63-yard field goal (still the NFL record as of the 2009 NFL Season) as the Saints beat the Detroit Lions 19-17.

The Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, and Los Angeles Rams all started 3-0 but lost in Week Four. Only the Lions would go on to the playoffs after the 3-0 start.

Major rule changes

 * The NFL rules become the standardized rules for the merged league, which included dropping the AFL's two-point conversion. This would not be reinstated until 1994.
 * The official game clock is the stadium's scoreboard clock, an AFL innovation.
 * Rules are added to place last names on the back of players' jerseys. The AFL had had names on jerseys, the pre-merger NFL teams did not.

Division races
Starting in 1970, and until 2002, there were three divisions (Eastern, Central and Western) in each conference. The winners of each division, and a fourth "wild card" team based on the best non-division winner, qualified for the playoffs. The tiebreaker rules were changed to start with head-to-head competition, followed by division records, common opponents records, and conference play.

The New York Giants lost their last regular-season game. Had they won that game, they would have tied for first place in the NFC East division and taken the division championship on a tie-breaker; then, the tie-breakers would have led to a coin toss between Dallas and Detroit for the NFC wild card.

National Football Conference

American Football Conference

Final standings
W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, PCT= Winning Percentage, PF= Points For, PA = Points Against

 - clinched wild card berth, - clinched division title

Note: Prior to 1972, the NFL did not include tie games when calculating a team's winning percentage in the official standings

Tiebreakers

 * Green Bay finished ahead of Chicago in the NFC Central based on better division record (2–4 to Bears' 1–5).

Playoffs

 * Note: Prior to the 1975 season, the home teams in the playoffs were decided based on a yearly rotation.