Our starting point in the preservation of NFL history is, at least for now, set at 1970. That’s the year of the AFL-NFL merger that shaped the structure of the league into what it still more or less looks like today. I use the caveat “at least for now” because the first four Super Bowls were played under the old order, with a separate AFL and NFL, from 1966-69. It’s my hope to have those four seasons added here in reasonably short order.
But for now, 1970 is the starting point. If you use the dropdown menu, you can be taken to the season of your choice for a top-line summation. Within that page, we’re putting together seasonal articles for all the relevant teams in each year—defined as those who made the playoffs and anyone else that had a unique importance.
As of this writing, we have complete coverage of each season from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. The early 1970s themselves are reasonably full, with the major contenders of those years—Steelers, Raiders, Cowboys, Dolphins, Vikings, Rams, and Redskins—all having complete coverage and a free download available.
The 1970s is when the NFL’s popularity began to really escalate. It gave way to a 1980s decade that was headlined by the San Francisco 49ers of Bill Walsh and Joe Montana and included the muscular Hogs of the Washington Redskins and Joe Gibbs. There were all-time great defenses in places like Chicago and New York, as the Bears and Giants won titles. Denver and Cleveland played some of the greatest playoff games the league has seen.
By the early 1990s, a new era was unfolding. Free agency was becoming a thing in the NFL. The transition period was marked by complete dominance from Dallas and San Francisco. More so from the Cowboys, who won three Super Bowls in four years, but the 49ers won another one themselves and the playoff game between these two was generally seen as the de facto Super Bowl.
Brett Favre was an emerging star. His rise, along with the final years of the great John Elway in Denver marked the second half of the decade. And by 1999 and 2000, guys with the names of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady were working their way into an NFL jersey.
The New England Patriots of Brady and Bill Belichick defined, really, the first twenty years of the 21st century. They opened the decade by winning three Super Bowls in four years. They came oh-so-close to winning two more in subsequent years, one of which would have capped off a historic perfect season. And in 2014, they basically finished as they had begun—winning three titles in five years.
Those years were also marked by the greatness of Manning, who won several MVP awards and a pair of Super Bowls. Pittsburgh, with its best teams since the Steel Curtain era of the 1970s, won two championships and played for a third, led by Big Ben Roethlisberger and an aggressive, blitzing defense. Green Bay transitioned from one Hall of Fame great in Favre to another surefire Hall of Famer in Aaron Rodgers, capturing a title along the way. Drew Brees rewrote record books in New Orleans.
This era essentially came to an end in 2019. For the time being, that’s also where our historical coverage will end. This is a general stopping point for OUAT as a whole, with the strange COVID year of 2020 seeming as good time as any to use as a cutoff point. But for the NFL, ’19 is particularly relevant—it was Brady’s last year in New England. And the Super Bowl trophy landed in Kansas City, with Patrick Mahomes, who has taken over the new era that is unfolding.
Perhaps in future years, we’ll expand the timeline forward, as the Mahomes Era continues to take shape. For now, the focus will be on filling up with more detail the years we’ve already discussed here.