FOOTBALL
"The Foolish Club"
Sport Magazine Remembers Lamar Hunt and the AFL
In 1958, Lamar Hunt (son and heir of Texas oilman H. L. Hunt) attempted to bring an NFL
franchise to his hometown of Dallas but was rejected by the league. A second attempt in 1959
also was unsuccessful. Hunt was advised by league officials to contact the owners of the
Chicago Cardinals, who offered to sell Hunt a 20 percent stake in the team. Hunt rejected the
offer and began to envision not just a new team in the NFL but an entirely new league.
Hunt began his quest for a new league by contacting others who had shown interest in the
Cardinals and assessing their interest in starting a new league. These included K.S. (Bud)
Adams of Houston, Bob Howsam of Denver and Max Winter and Bill Boyer of Minneapolis. This
brought to four the number of potential teams in the new league.
Next, Hunt sought franchises in Los Angeles and New York City. But at the same time, he sought
the blessings of the NFL for his nascent league, as he did not seek a rivalry with the older and
more established league. "I told myself I didn’t want to go into this if it meant some kind of battle,"
Hunt recalled later. "Of course, this was one of the more naive thoughts in the history of pro
sports." [1]
Soon after, Hunt received commitments from Barron Hilton (Los Angeles) and Harry Wismer (New
York). On August 14, 1959, the first league meeting was held in Chicago, and charter teams
were given to Dallas, New York, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles and Minneapolis. On August 22
the league officially was named the American Football League.
Two more cities were awarded franchises later in the year - Buffalo (Ralph Wilson) on October
28 and Boston (William H. (Billy) Sullivan) on November 22 in a meeting held in Minneapolis. The
AFL's first draft took place the same day Boston was awarded its franchise. The draft lasted 33
rounds.
The first crisis
In November 1959, Minneapolis owner Max Winter announced his intent to leave the AFL in
order to accept a franchise offer from the NFL. In 1961, his team began play in the NFL, where it
took the name Minnesota Vikings.
The NFL now offered Hunt what he had originally wanted - an expansion franchise in Dallas.
Hunt turned the NFL down, as he felt it would not be right to abandon his fellow AFL owners. Had
Hunt left the AFL, it would likely have never played its first game.
The AFL begins (1959-61)
With the first major crisis passed, the AFL got back to the business of preparing for its first
season. On November 30, 1959 Joe Foss, a World War II Marine fighter ace and former
governor of South Dakota, was named the AFL's first Commissioner. Foss commissioned a
friend of Harry Wismer's to develop the AFL's eagle-on-football logo. The league held a second
draft on December 2, which lasted for 20 rounds. Hunt was elected President of the AFL on
January 26, 1960. On January 28, the NFL awarded an expansion franchise to Dallas, which
would offer direct competition to Hunt's team. The Minneapolis franchise formally withdrew from
the AFL on January 27, the same day the Winter's group was awarded an NFL expansion team,
and was replaced on January 30 by one in Oakland, California, owned by a group of local
investors headed by Chet Soda.
The first success
The new league's first major success came when the Houston Oilers signed Billy Cannon, the All-
American and 1959 Heisman Trophy winner from LSU. His signing followed a fierce bidding war
that began when Oilers owner Bud Adams met Cannon in the end zone following LSU's Sugar
Bowl victory, and ended in court with the AFL winning against the NFL. That put the fledgling
league on the football map. Cannon was one of the American Football League's most celebrated
players. As halfback, he scored an 88-yard touchdown on a pass from George Blanda in the first
AFL Championship game. Cannon became the only player ever selected to an All-star team as a
halfback in one year (1961) and as a tight end in another (1969).
On June 9, 1960, the league signed a five-year television contract with ABC, which brought in
revenues of roughly $2,125,000 per year for the entire league. On June 17, the AFL filed an
antitrust lawsuit against the NFL. The suit was dismissed in 1962 after a two-month trial.
The AFL began regular-season play (a night game on Friday, September 9, 1960) with eight
teams in the league - the Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Dallas Texans, Denver Broncos, Houston
Oilers, Los Angeles Chargers, New York Titans and Oakland Raiders. The Oilers became the
first-ever league champions, defeating the Chargers 24-16 in the AFL Championship Game on
January 1, 1961.
Attendance for the 1960 season was respectable for a new league, but not nearly that of the
NFL. Whereas the more popular NFL teams in 1960 regularly saw attendance figures of 50,000
+, AFL attendance generally hovered between 10-20,000 [2]. With the low attendance came
financial losses. The Raiders, for instance, lost $500,000 in their first year. In an early sign of
stability, however, the AFL did not lose any teams after its first year of operation. In fact, the only
major change was the relocation of the Chargers from Los Angeles to San Diego.
"NFL Rejects"
Prompted by the NFL's disdain for the new league, newspaper, radio and TV reporters from NFL
cities took to calling former NFL players who went to the AFL "NFL Rejects", implying that if a
player had spent time in the NFL and then played with an AFL team, he was "washed up" and
not good enough to play in the "superior" NFL. [1]
That assessment was contradicted by the play of the following "NFL Rejects": Jack Kemp, Babe
Parilli, Ron McDole, Art Powell, John Tracey, George Blanda, Don Maynard, Len Dawson, and
Lionel Taylor. They all started their careers in the NFL. In the American Football League, they all
set standards at their respective positions.
Black Players
The eight new teams of the American Football League essentially made 280 additional positions
available for American professional football players. One source of talent that had been
traditionally ignored by the NFL was small, historically black colleges. Black players who did
manage to make NFL rosters were subject to unwritten but stringent "quotas" for the number of
black players on a team and the positions that could be filled by blacks. At that time, there were
no black quarterbacks, centers, or middle linebackers in the NFL.
The American Football League, in contrast, actively recruited from the black colleges, and used
black players at positions not permitted to them in the NFL. For example, in 1963, the AFL's
Kansas City Chiefs became the first team in pro football history to use the first overall pick of a
draft on a player from a small black college – defensive tackle Buck Buchanan of Grambling
State, while the NFL's New York Giants relegated Buchanan to their 19th round pick that year
(Buchanan was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990). The effect was cumulative,
and more and more outstanding black players opted for the AFL, recognizing their chances to
play were greater there. Willie Lanier (also destined for the Hall of Fame), for example, became
pro football's first black middle linebacker with the Chiefs; Marlin Briscoe became the first modern
starting black quarterback with the Denver Broncos, etc.
Movement and instability (1962-63)
While some teams (such as the Oilers) found instant success in the AFL, others were not as
fortunate. The Oakland Raiders and New York Titans struggled on and off the field during their
first few seasons in the league. Oakland's eight-man ownership group was reduced to just three
in 1961, after heavy financial losses their first season. Attendance for home games was poor,
partly due to the fact that the team was playing in the San Francisco Bay Area, which already
had an established NFL team (the San Francisco 49ers). The product on the field was also to
blame. After winning six games their debut season, the Raiders won just three times combined in
the 1962 and 1963 seasons. Oakland took part in a 1962 supplemental draft meant to boost the
weaker teams in the league, but it did little good. They participated in another such draft in 1963.
The Titans fared a little better on the field but had their own financial troubles. Attendance was
so low for home games that fans were moved to seats closer to the field to give the illusion of a
fuller stadium on television. Things got so bad that owner Harry Wisner was unable to meet his
payroll, and on November 8, 1962 the AFL took over operations of the team. The Titans were
sold to a five-person ownership group headed by Sonny Werblin on March 28, 1963. Werblin
changed the team's name to the New York Jets.
In the December 23, 1962 AFL Championship game, the Dallas Texans dethroned the two-time
defending champion Oilers 20-17 in double overtime in what at that time was professional
football's longest game.
In 1963, the Texans became the second AFL team to relocate. Lamar Hunt felt that despite
winning the league championship in 1962, the Texans could not succeed financially in the same
market as the Dallas Cowboys. After meetings with New Orleans, Atlanta and Miami, Hunt
decided on Kansas City as the new home for his team. On May 22 Hunt announced the move,
and the team was christened the Kansas City Chiefs on May 26.
Also in 1963 was a meeting that foreshadowed the shape of things to come for the AFL. San
Diego Chargers coach Sid Gillman approached then-NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle that year
proposing that the champions of the AFL and the NFL play a single final game. However,
Gillman's idea was not implemented until the Super Bowl game was played in 1967.
Watershed years (1964-65)
1964 started off very well for the AFL. On January 29 the league signed a lucrative $36 million
television contract with NBC, to start in the 1965 season. This gave the league money it
desperately needed to compete with the NFL for talent.
A new single-game attendance record was set on November 8, 1964 when 61,929 fans packed
Shea Stadium to watch the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills [3].
The bidding war between the AFL and NFL for players escalated in 1965. The Chiefs drafted
Gale Sayers in the first round of the AFL's 1965 draft, while the Chicago Bears did the same in
the NFL draft. Sayers signed with the Bears in a victory for the older league.
A similar situation occurred when the St. Louis Cardinals (NFL) and New York Jets (AFL) both
drafted University of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath. But this time the AFL emerged the victor.
On January 2, Namath signed a $427,000 contract with the Jets [4]. It was the highest amount of
money ever paid to a collegiate football player. The signing was important not just for the Jets
(one of the worst teams in the league) but for the AFL as well.
The AFL expanded to nine teams in 1965 when Minneapolis attorney Joseph Robbie and
television star Danny Thomas were awarded a franchise on August 16 for a fee of $7.5 million.
Their team, the Miami Dolphins, started play in the AFL's Eastern Division in 1966.
On the field, the quality of play continued to improve and bona fide stars began to emerge, such
as Lance Alworth, George Blanda, Willie Brown, Nick Buoniconti, Ron Mix, and Jim Otto.
Escalation and merger (1966-67)
For more details on this topic, see AFL-NFL Merger.
1966 saw the rivalry between the AFL and NFL reach an all-time peak. On April 7 Joe Foss, the
only commissioner the AFL had ever known, resigned. His chosen successor was Oakland
Raiders head coach and general manager Al Davis, who had been instrumental in turning
around the fortunes of the franchise. No longer content with trying to outbid the NFL for talent,
the AFL under Davis actively started to recruit players already on NFL squads. NFL players such
as Mike Ditka, Roman Gabriel and John Brodie were offered and/or signed to lucrative AFL
contracts.
The same month Davis was named commissioner, Lamar Hunt and Dallas Cowboys owner Tex
Schramm held a series of secret meetings in Dallas to discuss their concerns over rapidly
increasing player salaries, as well as the practice of player poaching. Hunt and Schramm
completed the basic groundwork for a merger by the end of May. On June 8, 1966 the merger
was officially announced. Under the terms of the agreement, the two leagues would hold a
common player draft. The agreement also called for a title game to be played between the
champions of the respective leagues. The two leagues would be fully merged by 1970, and NFL
commissioner Pete Rozelle would remain as commissioner of the merged league. The AFL also
agreed to pay indemnities of $18 million to the NFL over 20 years. In protest, Davis resigned as
AFL commissioner on July 25 rather than remain until the completion of the merger.
On January 15, 1967, the first-ever World Championship Game between the champions of the
two separate professional football leagues, the AFL-NFL Championship Game (retroactively
referred to as Super Bowl I), was played in Los Angeles. The NFL champion Green Bay Packers
overwhelmed the AFL champion Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10.
The Cincinnati Bengals became the second AFL expansion franchise on May 24, 1967. The
Bengals were the tenth and final team to begin play as an AFL franchise. In a clear indication of
the success of the AFL, Paul Brown paid $10,000,000 for the Bengals franchise–four hundred
times more than the original AFL franchise value of $25,000 only eight years earlier.
Legitimacy and the end of an era (1968-70)
During the first two Super Bowl matchups, the Green Bay Packers won games against the
Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders by comfortable margins, leading some NFL executives
to doubt the wisdom in merging with the upstart league. That perception changed on January 12,
1969, when the AFL Champion New York Jets shocked the heavily favored NFL Champion
Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
The Colts, who entered the contest as an 18-point favorite, had completed the 1968 NFL season
with a 13-1 record, then won two playoff games, the latter a 34-0 dismantling of the Cleveland
Browns in the NFL championship game. Baltimore's defense was considered one of the finest of
its era, having allowed just 144 points in 1968. In contrast, the Jets had allowed 280 points, the
highest total for any division winner in the two leagues.
But, Jets quarterback Joe Namath seemed unimpressed. Three days before the game, Namath
spoke to a group at the Touchdown Club in Miami and declared, "We're going to win Sunday, I'll
guarantee you." [5]
Namath and the Jets made good on his guarantee as they held the Colts scoreless until late in
the fourth quarter. The Jets won, 16-7, in what is considered by many to be one of the greatest
upsets in American sports history. [6] [7] [8]
While no doubt shocked by the result, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle nonetheless saw the Jets'
victory as a watershed moment that would give a legitimacy to the merger. That feeling was
reinforced one year later in Super Bowl IV, when the AFL champion Kansas City Chiefs defeated
the NFL champion Minnesota Vikings, 23-7 in the last championship game to be played between
the two leagues.
The last contest in AFL history was the AFL All-Star Game on January 17, 1970. The Western
All-Stars, led by Chargers quarterback John Hadl, defeated the Eastern All-Stars, 26-3.
Prior to the start of the 1970 NFL season, the merged league was split into two conferences of
three divisions each. All ten AFL teams made up the bulk of the new American Football
Conference. The old NFL's Baltimore Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns were also
placed in the AFC. All the other existing NFL squads moved to the National Football Conference.
Some AFL fans had wanted the AFL and the NFL to set up a joint organizational structure like
Major League Baseball where one entity operates two different sports leagues. Instead, the AFL
gave up its name and logo to join the older league. The AFC logo used today has some
elements of the old AFL logo. However the "A" in the AFL logo was blue; for unknown reasons,
the "A" in the AFC logo is red.
Legacy
Of all the leagues that have attempted to challenge the dominance of the National Football
League, the AFL was the only one to have all its teams integrated into the fabric of the NFL. This
was in sharp contrast to such entities as the All-America Football Conference, baseball's Federal
League, the American Basketball Association and the World Hockey Association, all of which
either folded, or only had a handful of teams join the respective post-merger entities.
The NFL adopted many ideas introduced by the AFL, including names on player jerseys and
revenue sharing of gate and television receipts. The older league also adopted the practice of
using the stadium scoreboard clocks to keep track of the official game time, instead of just
having a stop watch used by the referee. The AFL also introduced the two-point conversion to
professional football thirty-four years before the NFL instituted it in 1994 (college football had
adopted the two point conversion in the late 1950s). The AFL's challenge to the NFL also laid
the groundwork for the Super Bowl, which has become the standard for championship contests
in the US.
Hunt's vision not only brought a new professional football league to California and New York, but
introduced the sport to Colorado, restored it to Texas and later to fast-growing Florida, as well as
bringing it to New England for the first time in 12 years. In addition, the AFL also adopted the first-
ever cooperative television plan for professional football, in which the league office negotiated
an ABC-TV contract, the proceeds of which were divided equally among member clubs.
Four NFL franchises were awarded as a direct result of the AFL's competition with the older
league: the Cowboys, created to drive the AFL team out of Dallas, the Vikings, who were
awarded to Max Winter in exchange for dropping his bid to join the AFL; the Falcons, whose
franchise went to Rankin Smith to dissuade him from purchasing the AFL's Miami Dolphins; and
the Saints, because of successful anti-trust legislation supported by several Louisiana
politicians, which let the two leagues merge.
Perhaps the greatest social legacy of the AFL was the domino effect of its policy of opportunity
for black players, which not only led to the explosion of black talent on the field, but the eventual
entry of blacks into scouting, coordinator, and ultimately head coaching positions, long after the
league ceased to exist. [2][3]
The AFL's free agents came from several sources. Some were players who could not find
success playing in the NFL, while another source was the Canadian Football League. In the late
1950s, many players released by the NFL, or un-drafted and unsigned out of college by the
NFL, went North to try their luck with the CFL, and later returned to the states to play in the AFL.
In the league's first years, men like the Oilers' George Blanda, the Chargers/Bills' Jack Kemp, the
Texans' Len Dawson, the Titans' Don Maynard, the Raiders/Patriots/Jets' Babe Parilli, the Pats'
Bob Dee proved to be AFL standouts. Other players such as the Broncos' Frank Tripucka, the
Pats' Gino Cappelletti, the Bills' Cookie Gilchrist and the Chargers' Tobin Rote, Sam Deluca and
Dave Kocourek also made their mark to give the fledgling league badly-needed credibility.
Rounding out this mix of potential talent were the true "free agents", the walk-ons and the
"wanna-be's", who tried out in droves for the chance to play professional football.
The American Football League took advantage of the burgeoning popularity of football by
locating teams in major cities that lacked NFL franchises, and by using the growing power of
televised football games (bolstered with the help of major network contracts, first with ABC and
later with NBC). It featured many outstanding games, such as the classic 1962 double-overtime
American Football League championship game between the Dallas Texans and the defending
champion Houston Oilers. At the time it was the longest professional football championship game
ever played.
The AFL appealed to fans by offering a flashier style of play compare to more conservative play
style in the NFL. Long passes ("bombs") were commonplace in AFL offenses, led by such
talented quarterbacks as John Hadl, Daryle Lamonica and Len Dawson.
Another feature of the American Football League was its competitive balance. In the original
eight-team league, in a fourteen game schedule, each team played every other team twice.
Every team had the same "strength of schedule", so the division champions were clearly the best
teams in each division. However a team that finished second in one division could have a better
record than the team with the best record in the other division, while playing the same schedule.
An example of this occurred in 1963, when the Raiders finished second in the West with a 10-4
record, while Boston won the East (after playing a playoff game) with a record of 7-6-1. Further,
the league championships were evenly divided: five were won by Western Division teams, five by
the Eastern Division; and of the original eight teams, all but two (Denver and Boston) won at
least one AFL title, and only one (Denver) did not make the playoffs at some time during the
league's ten-year existence.
Players who chose the AFL to develop their talent included Lance Alworth and Ron Mix of the
Chargers, who had also been drafted by the NFL's San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Colts
respectively. Both eventually were elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame after earning
recognition during their careers as being among the best at their positions. Among specific
teams, the 1964 Buffalo Bills stood out by holding their opponents to a pro football record 913
yards rushing on 300 attempts, while also recording fifty quarterback sacks in a fourteen-game
schedule.
Despite having a national television contract, the AFL often found itself trying to gain a foothold,
only to come up against roadblocks. For example, CBS-TV, which broadcast NFL games,
ignored and did not report scores from the other league.
The bidding war, which was financially draining both leagues, and the rapidly rising popularity of
the AFL were factors that eventually led to the merger, leaving a merged league named the NFL.
Sport Magazine Remembers Lamar Hunt and the AFL
In 1958, Lamar Hunt (son and heir of Texas oilman H. L. Hunt) attempted to bring an NFL
franchise to his hometown of Dallas but was rejected by the league. A second attempt in 1959
also was unsuccessful. Hunt was advised by league officials to contact the owners of the
Chicago Cardinals, who offered to sell Hunt a 20 percent stake in the team. Hunt rejected the
offer and began to envision not just a new team in the NFL but an entirely new league.
Hunt began his quest for a new league by contacting others who had shown interest in the
Cardinals and assessing their interest in starting a new league. These included K.S. (Bud)
Adams of Houston, Bob Howsam of Denver and Max Winter and Bill Boyer of Minneapolis. This
brought to four the number of potential teams in the new league.
Next, Hunt sought franchises in Los Angeles and New York City. But at the same time, he sought
the blessings of the NFL for his nascent league, as he did not seek a rivalry with the older and
more established league. "I told myself I didn’t want to go into this if it meant some kind of battle,"
Hunt recalled later. "Of course, this was one of the more naive thoughts in the history of pro
sports." [1]
Soon after, Hunt received commitments from Barron Hilton (Los Angeles) and Harry Wismer (New
York). On August 14, 1959, the first league meeting was held in Chicago, and charter teams
were given to Dallas, New York, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles and Minneapolis. On August 22
the league officially was named the American Football League.
Two more cities were awarded franchises later in the year - Buffalo (Ralph Wilson) on October
28 and Boston (William H. (Billy) Sullivan) on November 22 in a meeting held in Minneapolis. The
AFL's first draft took place the same day Boston was awarded its franchise. The draft lasted 33
rounds.
The first crisis
In November 1959, Minneapolis owner Max Winter announced his intent to leave the AFL in
order to accept a franchise offer from the NFL. In 1961, his team began play in the NFL, where it
took the name Minnesota Vikings.
The NFL now offered Hunt what he had originally wanted - an expansion franchise in Dallas.
Hunt turned the NFL down, as he felt it would not be right to abandon his fellow AFL owners. Had
Hunt left the AFL, it would likely have never played its first game.
The AFL begins (1959-61)
With the first major crisis passed, the AFL got back to the business of preparing for its first
season. On November 30, 1959 Joe Foss, a World War II Marine fighter ace and former
governor of South Dakota, was named the AFL's first Commissioner. Foss commissioned a
friend of Harry Wismer's to develop the AFL's eagle-on-football logo. The league held a second
draft on December 2, which lasted for 20 rounds. Hunt was elected President of the AFL on
January 26, 1960. On January 28, the NFL awarded an expansion franchise to Dallas, which
would offer direct competition to Hunt's team. The Minneapolis franchise formally withdrew from
the AFL on January 27, the same day the Winter's group was awarded an NFL expansion team,
and was replaced on January 30 by one in Oakland, California, owned by a group of local
investors headed by Chet Soda.
The first success
The new league's first major success came when the Houston Oilers signed Billy Cannon, the All-
American and 1959 Heisman Trophy winner from LSU. His signing followed a fierce bidding war
that began when Oilers owner Bud Adams met Cannon in the end zone following LSU's Sugar
Bowl victory, and ended in court with the AFL winning against the NFL. That put the fledgling
league on the football map. Cannon was one of the American Football League's most celebrated
players. As halfback, he scored an 88-yard touchdown on a pass from George Blanda in the first
AFL Championship game. Cannon became the only player ever selected to an All-star team as a
halfback in one year (1961) and as a tight end in another (1969).
On June 9, 1960, the league signed a five-year television contract with ABC, which brought in
revenues of roughly $2,125,000 per year for the entire league. On June 17, the AFL filed an
antitrust lawsuit against the NFL. The suit was dismissed in 1962 after a two-month trial.
The AFL began regular-season play (a night game on Friday, September 9, 1960) with eight
teams in the league - the Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Dallas Texans, Denver Broncos, Houston
Oilers, Los Angeles Chargers, New York Titans and Oakland Raiders. The Oilers became the
first-ever league champions, defeating the Chargers 24-16 in the AFL Championship Game on
January 1, 1961.
Attendance for the 1960 season was respectable for a new league, but not nearly that of the
NFL. Whereas the more popular NFL teams in 1960 regularly saw attendance figures of 50,000
+, AFL attendance generally hovered between 10-20,000 [2]. With the low attendance came
financial losses. The Raiders, for instance, lost $500,000 in their first year. In an early sign of
stability, however, the AFL did not lose any teams after its first year of operation. In fact, the only
major change was the relocation of the Chargers from Los Angeles to San Diego.
"NFL Rejects"
Prompted by the NFL's disdain for the new league, newspaper, radio and TV reporters from NFL
cities took to calling former NFL players who went to the AFL "NFL Rejects", implying that if a
player had spent time in the NFL and then played with an AFL team, he was "washed up" and
not good enough to play in the "superior" NFL. [1]
That assessment was contradicted by the play of the following "NFL Rejects": Jack Kemp, Babe
Parilli, Ron McDole, Art Powell, John Tracey, George Blanda, Don Maynard, Len Dawson, and
Lionel Taylor. They all started their careers in the NFL. In the American Football League, they all
set standards at their respective positions.
Black Players
The eight new teams of the American Football League essentially made 280 additional positions
available for American professional football players. One source of talent that had been
traditionally ignored by the NFL was small, historically black colleges. Black players who did
manage to make NFL rosters were subject to unwritten but stringent "quotas" for the number of
black players on a team and the positions that could be filled by blacks. At that time, there were
no black quarterbacks, centers, or middle linebackers in the NFL.
The American Football League, in contrast, actively recruited from the black colleges, and used
black players at positions not permitted to them in the NFL. For example, in 1963, the AFL's
Kansas City Chiefs became the first team in pro football history to use the first overall pick of a
draft on a player from a small black college – defensive tackle Buck Buchanan of Grambling
State, while the NFL's New York Giants relegated Buchanan to their 19th round pick that year
(Buchanan was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990). The effect was cumulative,
and more and more outstanding black players opted for the AFL, recognizing their chances to
play were greater there. Willie Lanier (also destined for the Hall of Fame), for example, became
pro football's first black middle linebacker with the Chiefs; Marlin Briscoe became the first modern
starting black quarterback with the Denver Broncos, etc.
Movement and instability (1962-63)
While some teams (such as the Oilers) found instant success in the AFL, others were not as
fortunate. The Oakland Raiders and New York Titans struggled on and off the field during their
first few seasons in the league. Oakland's eight-man ownership group was reduced to just three
in 1961, after heavy financial losses their first season. Attendance for home games was poor,
partly due to the fact that the team was playing in the San Francisco Bay Area, which already
had an established NFL team (the San Francisco 49ers). The product on the field was also to
blame. After winning six games their debut season, the Raiders won just three times combined in
the 1962 and 1963 seasons. Oakland took part in a 1962 supplemental draft meant to boost the
weaker teams in the league, but it did little good. They participated in another such draft in 1963.
The Titans fared a little better on the field but had their own financial troubles. Attendance was
so low for home games that fans were moved to seats closer to the field to give the illusion of a
fuller stadium on television. Things got so bad that owner Harry Wisner was unable to meet his
payroll, and on November 8, 1962 the AFL took over operations of the team. The Titans were
sold to a five-person ownership group headed by Sonny Werblin on March 28, 1963. Werblin
changed the team's name to the New York Jets.
In the December 23, 1962 AFL Championship game, the Dallas Texans dethroned the two-time
defending champion Oilers 20-17 in double overtime in what at that time was professional
football's longest game.
In 1963, the Texans became the second AFL team to relocate. Lamar Hunt felt that despite
winning the league championship in 1962, the Texans could not succeed financially in the same
market as the Dallas Cowboys. After meetings with New Orleans, Atlanta and Miami, Hunt
decided on Kansas City as the new home for his team. On May 22 Hunt announced the move,
and the team was christened the Kansas City Chiefs on May 26.
Also in 1963 was a meeting that foreshadowed the shape of things to come for the AFL. San
Diego Chargers coach Sid Gillman approached then-NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle that year
proposing that the champions of the AFL and the NFL play a single final game. However,
Gillman's idea was not implemented until the Super Bowl game was played in 1967.
Watershed years (1964-65)
1964 started off very well for the AFL. On January 29 the league signed a lucrative $36 million
television contract with NBC, to start in the 1965 season. This gave the league money it
desperately needed to compete with the NFL for talent.
A new single-game attendance record was set on November 8, 1964 when 61,929 fans packed
Shea Stadium to watch the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills [3].
The bidding war between the AFL and NFL for players escalated in 1965. The Chiefs drafted
Gale Sayers in the first round of the AFL's 1965 draft, while the Chicago Bears did the same in
the NFL draft. Sayers signed with the Bears in a victory for the older league.
A similar situation occurred when the St. Louis Cardinals (NFL) and New York Jets (AFL) both
drafted University of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath. But this time the AFL emerged the victor.
On January 2, Namath signed a $427,000 contract with the Jets [4]. It was the highest amount of
money ever paid to a collegiate football player. The signing was important not just for the Jets
(one of the worst teams in the league) but for the AFL as well.
The AFL expanded to nine teams in 1965 when Minneapolis attorney Joseph Robbie and
television star Danny Thomas were awarded a franchise on August 16 for a fee of $7.5 million.
Their team, the Miami Dolphins, started play in the AFL's Eastern Division in 1966.
On the field, the quality of play continued to improve and bona fide stars began to emerge, such
as Lance Alworth, George Blanda, Willie Brown, Nick Buoniconti, Ron Mix, and Jim Otto.
Escalation and merger (1966-67)
For more details on this topic, see AFL-NFL Merger.
1966 saw the rivalry between the AFL and NFL reach an all-time peak. On April 7 Joe Foss, the
only commissioner the AFL had ever known, resigned. His chosen successor was Oakland
Raiders head coach and general manager Al Davis, who had been instrumental in turning
around the fortunes of the franchise. No longer content with trying to outbid the NFL for talent,
the AFL under Davis actively started to recruit players already on NFL squads. NFL players such
as Mike Ditka, Roman Gabriel and John Brodie were offered and/or signed to lucrative AFL
contracts.
The same month Davis was named commissioner, Lamar Hunt and Dallas Cowboys owner Tex
Schramm held a series of secret meetings in Dallas to discuss their concerns over rapidly
increasing player salaries, as well as the practice of player poaching. Hunt and Schramm
completed the basic groundwork for a merger by the end of May. On June 8, 1966 the merger
was officially announced. Under the terms of the agreement, the two leagues would hold a
common player draft. The agreement also called for a title game to be played between the
champions of the respective leagues. The two leagues would be fully merged by 1970, and NFL
commissioner Pete Rozelle would remain as commissioner of the merged league. The AFL also
agreed to pay indemnities of $18 million to the NFL over 20 years. In protest, Davis resigned as
AFL commissioner on July 25 rather than remain until the completion of the merger.
On January 15, 1967, the first-ever World Championship Game between the champions of the
two separate professional football leagues, the AFL-NFL Championship Game (retroactively
referred to as Super Bowl I), was played in Los Angeles. The NFL champion Green Bay Packers
overwhelmed the AFL champion Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10.
The Cincinnati Bengals became the second AFL expansion franchise on May 24, 1967. The
Bengals were the tenth and final team to begin play as an AFL franchise. In a clear indication of
the success of the AFL, Paul Brown paid $10,000,000 for the Bengals franchise–four hundred
times more than the original AFL franchise value of $25,000 only eight years earlier.
Legitimacy and the end of an era (1968-70)
During the first two Super Bowl matchups, the Green Bay Packers won games against the
Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders by comfortable margins, leading some NFL executives
to doubt the wisdom in merging with the upstart league. That perception changed on January 12,
1969, when the AFL Champion New York Jets shocked the heavily favored NFL Champion
Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
The Colts, who entered the contest as an 18-point favorite, had completed the 1968 NFL season
with a 13-1 record, then won two playoff games, the latter a 34-0 dismantling of the Cleveland
Browns in the NFL championship game. Baltimore's defense was considered one of the finest of
its era, having allowed just 144 points in 1968. In contrast, the Jets had allowed 280 points, the
highest total for any division winner in the two leagues.
But, Jets quarterback Joe Namath seemed unimpressed. Three days before the game, Namath
spoke to a group at the Touchdown Club in Miami and declared, "We're going to win Sunday, I'll
guarantee you." [5]
Namath and the Jets made good on his guarantee as they held the Colts scoreless until late in
the fourth quarter. The Jets won, 16-7, in what is considered by many to be one of the greatest
upsets in American sports history. [6] [7] [8]
While no doubt shocked by the result, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle nonetheless saw the Jets'
victory as a watershed moment that would give a legitimacy to the merger. That feeling was
reinforced one year later in Super Bowl IV, when the AFL champion Kansas City Chiefs defeated
the NFL champion Minnesota Vikings, 23-7 in the last championship game to be played between
the two leagues.
The last contest in AFL history was the AFL All-Star Game on January 17, 1970. The Western
All-Stars, led by Chargers quarterback John Hadl, defeated the Eastern All-Stars, 26-3.
Prior to the start of the 1970 NFL season, the merged league was split into two conferences of
three divisions each. All ten AFL teams made up the bulk of the new American Football
Conference. The old NFL's Baltimore Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns were also
placed in the AFC. All the other existing NFL squads moved to the National Football Conference.
Some AFL fans had wanted the AFL and the NFL to set up a joint organizational structure like
Major League Baseball where one entity operates two different sports leagues. Instead, the AFL
gave up its name and logo to join the older league. The AFC logo used today has some
elements of the old AFL logo. However the "A" in the AFL logo was blue; for unknown reasons,
the "A" in the AFC logo is red.
Legacy
Of all the leagues that have attempted to challenge the dominance of the National Football
League, the AFL was the only one to have all its teams integrated into the fabric of the NFL. This
was in sharp contrast to such entities as the All-America Football Conference, baseball's Federal
League, the American Basketball Association and the World Hockey Association, all of which
either folded, or only had a handful of teams join the respective post-merger entities.
The NFL adopted many ideas introduced by the AFL, including names on player jerseys and
revenue sharing of gate and television receipts. The older league also adopted the practice of
using the stadium scoreboard clocks to keep track of the official game time, instead of just
having a stop watch used by the referee. The AFL also introduced the two-point conversion to
professional football thirty-four years before the NFL instituted it in 1994 (college football had
adopted the two point conversion in the late 1950s). The AFL's challenge to the NFL also laid
the groundwork for the Super Bowl, which has become the standard for championship contests
in the US.
Hunt's vision not only brought a new professional football league to California and New York, but
introduced the sport to Colorado, restored it to Texas and later to fast-growing Florida, as well as
bringing it to New England for the first time in 12 years. In addition, the AFL also adopted the first-
ever cooperative television plan for professional football, in which the league office negotiated
an ABC-TV contract, the proceeds of which were divided equally among member clubs.
Four NFL franchises were awarded as a direct result of the AFL's competition with the older
league: the Cowboys, created to drive the AFL team out of Dallas, the Vikings, who were
awarded to Max Winter in exchange for dropping his bid to join the AFL; the Falcons, whose
franchise went to Rankin Smith to dissuade him from purchasing the AFL's Miami Dolphins; and
the Saints, because of successful anti-trust legislation supported by several Louisiana
politicians, which let the two leagues merge.
Perhaps the greatest social legacy of the AFL was the domino effect of its policy of opportunity
for black players, which not only led to the explosion of black talent on the field, but the eventual
entry of blacks into scouting, coordinator, and ultimately head coaching positions, long after the
league ceased to exist. [2][3]
The AFL's free agents came from several sources. Some were players who could not find
success playing in the NFL, while another source was the Canadian Football League. In the late
1950s, many players released by the NFL, or un-drafted and unsigned out of college by the
NFL, went North to try their luck with the CFL, and later returned to the states to play in the AFL.
In the league's first years, men like the Oilers' George Blanda, the Chargers/Bills' Jack Kemp, the
Texans' Len Dawson, the Titans' Don Maynard, the Raiders/Patriots/Jets' Babe Parilli, the Pats'
Bob Dee proved to be AFL standouts. Other players such as the Broncos' Frank Tripucka, the
Pats' Gino Cappelletti, the Bills' Cookie Gilchrist and the Chargers' Tobin Rote, Sam Deluca and
Dave Kocourek also made their mark to give the fledgling league badly-needed credibility.
Rounding out this mix of potential talent were the true "free agents", the walk-ons and the
"wanna-be's", who tried out in droves for the chance to play professional football.
The American Football League took advantage of the burgeoning popularity of football by
locating teams in major cities that lacked NFL franchises, and by using the growing power of
televised football games (bolstered with the help of major network contracts, first with ABC and
later with NBC). It featured many outstanding games, such as the classic 1962 double-overtime
American Football League championship game between the Dallas Texans and the defending
champion Houston Oilers. At the time it was the longest professional football championship game
ever played.
The AFL appealed to fans by offering a flashier style of play compare to more conservative play
style in the NFL. Long passes ("bombs") were commonplace in AFL offenses, led by such
talented quarterbacks as John Hadl, Daryle Lamonica and Len Dawson.
Another feature of the American Football League was its competitive balance. In the original
eight-team league, in a fourteen game schedule, each team played every other team twice.
Every team had the same "strength of schedule", so the division champions were clearly the best
teams in each division. However a team that finished second in one division could have a better
record than the team with the best record in the other division, while playing the same schedule.
An example of this occurred in 1963, when the Raiders finished second in the West with a 10-4
record, while Boston won the East (after playing a playoff game) with a record of 7-6-1. Further,
the league championships were evenly divided: five were won by Western Division teams, five by
the Eastern Division; and of the original eight teams, all but two (Denver and Boston) won at
least one AFL title, and only one (Denver) did not make the playoffs at some time during the
league's ten-year existence.
Players who chose the AFL to develop their talent included Lance Alworth and Ron Mix of the
Chargers, who had also been drafted by the NFL's San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Colts
respectively. Both eventually were elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame after earning
recognition during their careers as being among the best at their positions. Among specific
teams, the 1964 Buffalo Bills stood out by holding their opponents to a pro football record 913
yards rushing on 300 attempts, while also recording fifty quarterback sacks in a fourteen-game
schedule.
Despite having a national television contract, the AFL often found itself trying to gain a foothold,
only to come up against roadblocks. For example, CBS-TV, which broadcast NFL games,
ignored and did not report scores from the other league.
The bidding war, which was financially draining both leagues, and the rapidly rising popularity of
the AFL were factors that eventually led to the merger, leaving a merged league named the NFL.
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