Talk:American Football League

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Contents 1 schedule 2 The 1939 AFL 3 AFL dot com spaming 4 Dallas Cowboys rivalry 5 Style of play vesus the NFL

[edit] schedule

I'm not sure I agree with this statement: "The eight-team format led to ideal scheduling. In a fourteen-week schedule, each team played every other team exactly twice. Thus, every team had an identical schedule, and the Division Championships were well-deserved".

The problem with giving every team the same identical schedule is that it makes the divisions meaningless. A second place team in one division might have a better record than the first place team in the other one, and since both teams had an identical schedule, why should the first place team with the inferior record go into the playoffs instead of the second place team with the better record? There is no real justification for it. On the other hand, if a team tends to play teams within its own division more frequently than those outside their division, then even if a first place team has a worse record than a second-place team in another division, you can at least argue that it deserves to go into the playoffs as a divisonal representative because intradivisional play figured prominantly into its record as a first place team. So, given that, I don't actually think that it makes sense to say that the divisional championships were necessarily meaningful if every team had an identical schedule. soulpatch

Dear Soulpatch: I guess to an extent, it's a matter of background. First, regardless of whether a runner-up in one division had a better record than the leader in the other division; within each division, the AFL set-up made it strongly likely that the best team finished first. That's what I meant by "the Division Championships were well-deserved".

I'm from a time before "wild-cards", when division titles meant something in almost all sports. There was a rivalry between the East and West, the American Football League and the National Football League, etc. It was an honor to win the Eastern Division Title in football, the Campbell Conference Title in hockey, the "National League Pennant" in baseball, etc. Now only baseball's World Series retains a semblance of those rivalries. The NFL has something called "Wildcard Weekend", in which two wildcards and/or a wildcard and division champion play; and "Divisional Playoff Weekend", in which the combatants can actually be from two different divisions, or wildcards, or from the same division.

If I had my "druthers", there would be no interconference (football) or interleague (baseball) play; schedules would be heavily weighted within divisions; in the playoffs, wildcards would play the leaders of their own divisions and the winner would be the Division Champions. Division Champions would play for the League title, and League Champions would play for the World Championship. I realize that this could mean that divisional runner-ups might have better records than Champions of other divisions, but so what? Should the World Series be played between the two teams with the best records even if they're from the same league, or between the Champions of the two Leagues? RemembertheAFL

I was just going add the same point that soulpatch had already writen about here are two examples

1948 AAFC San Francisco finishes 12 and 2 behind Cleveland's 14-0 both teams are in the west. meanwhile Balt and Brooklyn finished tied 7-7 and have to play a playoff game to determine who will "lose to " I mean play Cleveland. SF played the same schedule as both Baltimore an Brooklyn and finished 5 games of ahead of each

1963 AFL San Diego wins west 11-3, Oakland finishes second in west 10-4 meanwhile in the East Boston and Buffalo finish 7-6-1 each have play a playoff game to see who will represent the east against the Chargers. Again the Raiders played the same schedule as did both Boston and Buffalo and fished 3.5 games ahead of both yet no playoffs for them.

My point is : I don't see what is necessarly so great about the balance schedule that leads to the statement "The eight-team format led to ideal scheduling." In reality a league tha is comprise of 8 teams and plays 14 games (2 times against each oppent) really does not need divisions a single division format would do.

Smith03 23:04, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. "Ideal" scheduling is clearly dependant upon what one thinks is ideal. Speaking from the standpoint of schedule creation, great arguments can be made for many different numbers of teams, divisions, and conference structures. The current NFL configuration of 8 divisions of 4 teams each is "ideal" in that every team in a division can play a divisional rival on the same weekend. Having an even number of teams is "ideal" in that every team can play on a given weekend. However, there are scheduling work arounds for all of these "ideal" situations.

The bottom line is that there is little concensus on what really is ideal because it's in the eye of the beholder on what ideal he wants to strive to achieve. Therefore I recommend to not include such a POV idea in the article. --Don Sowell 00:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and have removed that paragraph. Further, it seems much more plausible that the AFL had a balanced schedule simply due to logic. Eight teams fit nicely into 2 divisions. Unless someone can produce hard evidence that it really was part of some overall plan on the part of the league, it's nothing more than happenstance. --cholmes75 ^{(chit chat)} 19:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The 1939 AFL

A point of minor correction: the 1940-1941 AFL also played in 1939. Given time, I will post its standings and team roster. -- Mark, 8 September 2006

[edit] AFL dot com spaming

http://www.conigliofamily.com/AFLdotcom.htm

I think people who are associatied this website are using Wikipedia to promote their group. I just removed a para from the NFL which seems to be continously put back into the article. That para appears on this group website as a quote of what others are saying about the AFL. Basically implying that some neutral 3rd party thinks the AFL was so much better than the NFL.

Now I realize we are only talking about a couple of football leagues and not some hugely more important issue but spam is spam Smith03 13:56, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I made the above link into a text only link. The VP does not need to advertise them, either -- Chris 73 | Talk 15:20, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

• The paragraph in question seems to be:

The official scoreboard clock, two-point conversion, player names on jerseys, network-televised games, gate and television revenue sharing, and imaginative offenses were all elements of pro football that the NFL adopted from the American Football League. Even its first modern expansion, into Minnesota and Dallas, would likely have taken years longer if it had not been precipitated by the emergence of the AFL as a serious competitor to the NFL.

The first sentence would appear to be an assertion of fact. Is it true, or not? It's a little tendentious but it seems to me to be OK if factual. The second sentence is a little iffier.

The website in question, AFLdotcom, looks like a reasonably rich and interesting resource, clearly an AFL fan site and clearly "pro-AFL." The site's counter contains only 10,000 hits, not an awful lot. However, the site doesn't seem to be selling anything, and the generally amateurish presentation (e.g. they haven't bothered to shell out $9 to one of the GoDaddies of the world for a real domain name) looks to me a like an authentic labor-of-love production.

It doesn't appear to me that anything at all is being sold on the AFLdotcom site. Spam is usually defined as unsolicited commercial email. To me, this is not an issue of spam, it's an issue of whether this is a vanity site and whether it is notable. Personally, I'd leave the link in, because the site looks as if it could be moderately enjoyable for an AFL fan.

As for the paragraph it looks to me like a case for editing, rather than removal. When faced with POV material, one of the best ways to avoid edit wars is to try to edit it so that it still presents the factual point that the contributor was trying to make, while toning down the interpretation. I don't know enough about the AFL or NFL to do this myself. What is the paragraph really trying to say? Something like this?

Fans of the AFL credit the league with pioneering important elements of American football, and complain that the NFL has done little more than copy what the AFL has done. For example, the official official scoreboard clock, two-point conversion, player names on jerseys, network-televised games, gate and television revenue sharing, and imaginative offenses were all elements of pro football that the NFL adopted from the AFL.

Just my $0.02. Dpbsmith 15:23, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the link and site are information filled but if you check all additions that these users add not only to the NFL page but other football related articles, they have an agenda that sadly I believe because it is related to a sport is not being challenged by wikipedias. this comes from there website: It gives the appearence that some other source has come up with this conculsion instead they just wrote, regardless if they are selling something or not they are using wikipedia to further their cause.

Below are excerpts from several sources on the influence that the American Football League has had on modern professional football.

From Wikipedia, on-line encyclopedia:

Some innovative rules changes were also put into place, such as the two-point conversion (later adopted by the NFL in the 1990s); the use of the scoreboard clock as the official game clock (adopted by the NFL when the leagues merged--prior to this time, the official game clock was maintained by an official on the sidelines, and often did not match the scoreboard clock very closely); the use of player names on jerseys, (also adopted by the NFL); and the sharing of gate and television revenues between home and visiting teams (also adopted by the NFL). In short, the NFL adopted virtually every pioneering aspect of the American Football League, except its name.

By the way college football had adopted the two point conversion in the late 1950s, so the AFL "borrowed" that idea from them. One could argue that the talent level in the early years of the AFL was so poor that it lead to point a minute offensives because the defenses was so poor, Someone could write on the AFL page that they borrowed from the NFL the idea of divisions and a championship game, the idea of a college draft, a post season all star game, hash marks, and seperate offensive and defense units, but that would be silly and pointless. I do believe that these users have provided a great deal of information but they have also slip in their agenda that gee the NFL really stoled everything from the AFL. I agree the AFL added a lot to modern day football but don't overstate it. Smith03 18:00, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Dallas Cowboys rivalry

I am making the following changes to this paragraph in the "Legacy" section:

Four Three NFL franchises were awarded as a direct result of the AFL's competition with the older league: the Cowboys, who were established solely to drive the AFL Texans 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.

The assertion doesn't make any sense. First of all, there's the unsupportable "solely," which is absurd on its face. The NFL had successfully fought off challenges from other leagues before, and at the dawn of the AFL there was no reason for them to believe that this new league would be any more of a threat than the others. Second of all, the Cowboys were awarded an NFL franchise in January, 1960. The franchise was in the works for at least some time before that, since the owner of the Redskins had tried to prevent it. That Hunt was not able to secure a franchise in Dallas and another group was does not mean that the NFL was so threatened by this new league before it even started playing that they wanted to "drive" a club out of anywhere. --Chancemichaels 17:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)Chancemichaels

The line was put back in by anonymous user 67.20.25.45 without comment. I have deleted it again, if anyone can support its inclusion please cite it here before changing the original article again. --Chancemichaels 17:18, 22 February 2007 (UTC)Chancemichaels

[edit] Style of play vesus the NFL

I was always told that the AFL was a pass happy league with wild scores (35-28, for example) while the NFL was a conservative, run the ball, play good defense type a league. There is no mention of this in this article. It would be interesting if someone would expound on this in the article