NFL Has Broken Line Of Champions
American Football Fans Only Recognize Super Bowl Winners
Jul 9, 2009
The National Football League has some explaining to do.
And it’s a question that league Commissioner Roger Goodell will probably want to avoid.
But consider this.
How come his league is the only professional sports league on the planet that has a broken line of championship teams?
In baseball, the World Series winner goes back to 1903. The same goes for the NHL and the Stanley Cup and the NBA and its Finals.
There is no argument on what teams were champions in any other sport, except for the NFL in America.
And today’s younger fans are not aware of it.
That’s because the NFL’s championship game, the Super Bowl, was started in 1967. That was 42 years ago.
NFL Was Established in 1920
But the NFL was established in 1920, long before anybody thought of the name Super Bowl.
There are only a handful of teams that are still around from that era. The Green Bay Packers, New York Giants, and the Chicago Bears come to mind.
Yet when an American football fans asks who won the most NFL championships, the answer will come back as the Pittsburgh Steelers, who have won six Super Bowls.
But that is the wrong answer.
The Green Bay Packers have the most NFL championships with 12. The Chicago Bears are second with nine.
Each of these teams has Super Bowls.
But in today’s football world, they are second to the Steelers.
Why is that?
NFL/AFL Merger Starts Super Bowl
The NFL has always outlasted rival leagues during its existence. One threat came in the 1940’s with the advent of the All-American Football Conference. The Cleveland Browns won all four of that league’s championships before the NFL took in three teams, including the Browns from that league.
The AAFC folded after the 1949 season and none of that league’s records are recognized by the NFL.
But 10 years later, the American Football League stared in 1960; The NFL had a harder time fending off that threat, so the league’s owners decided to have a “world championship game” between the leagues in 1967, which is the first Super Bowl.
The two leagues eventually merged in 1970, but the National Football League retained its sovereignty over the game.
Only now, fans can be confused about past NFL championships before the Super Bowl era.
That’s sad because there was so much history of professional football before that.
The Green Bay Packers won the first two Super Bowls as representatives of the National Football League.
