billsportsmaps.com

December 23, 2021

American Football League: 1964 AFL season, map with helmets/jerseys & final standings + offensive stats leaders + attendances. Champions: Buffalo Bills.

Filed under: AFL (gridiron football),AFL, 1964 map/season,Retro maps — admin @ 8:12 am

afl_1964_5th-season_map_w-final-standings_o-stats-leaders_champions-buffalo-bills_post_c_.gif
American Football League: 1964 AFL season, map with helmets/jerseys & final standings + offensive stats leaders + attendances. Champions: Buffalo Bills



By Bill Turianski on the 23rd of December 2021; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Links…
-1964 AFL season
-1964 AFL Championship Game (en.wikipedia.org).
-1964 AFL season (pro-football-reference.com).

The map… The map shows the primary helmets and jerseys worn by the 8 teams in the 1964 AFL, the fifth season of the American Football League. Also shown on the map page are the final standings of the 1964 AFL season, the Offensive leaders of the 1964 AFL season, the home jerseys of the 8 AFL teams that season, and the average attendances of the 8 teams 1964 AFL season (compared to the previous season).

AFL attendances in 1964
http://billsportsmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/afl_1963-1964_average-attendance_b_.gif
Source for attendance figures: pdf at ProFootballResearchers.org [Coffin Corner newsletter, Sept 1991, by Bob Carroll], profootballresearchers.org/archives/Website_Files/Coffin_Corner/13-04-430.pdf. Helmet illustrations from gridiron-uniforms.com.


Average Attendance, NFL vs. AFL (the 10 years they were in competition: 1960-69); plus NFL/AFL/Super Bowl title-winners in the 1960s…
afl_vs_nfl_attendance_1960-69_title-winners_super-bowl_i-iv_winners_chart_h_.gif
Source for attendance figures: pdf at ProFootballResearchers.org [Coffin Corner newsletter, Sept 1991, by Bob Carroll], profootballresearchers.org/archives/Website_Files/Coffin_Corner/13-04-430.pdf. Helmet illustrations from gridiron-uniforms.com.



    1964 AFL Championship Game: Buffalo Bills 20, San Diego Chargers 7.

AFL West winners…The 1964 San Diego Chargers were coached by Sid Gillman. The Chargers had gone 8-5-1 in the regular season. The Chargers were reigning champions, but they limped into the 1964 title game, losing 3 of their last 4 games. The Chargers’ offense was powered by WR Lance Alworth (with an AFL-best 15 TD), and the rushing tandem of Keith Lincoln and Paul Lowe (who combined for 1,128 yards), but Alworth was injured for the title game. Three Chargers made the 1964 AFL All-Star Team: T Ron Mix, DE Earl Faison, and DT Ernie Ladd.

AFL East winners…The 1964 Buffalo Bills were coached by Lou Saban. The Bills went 12-2, and had the AFL’s best defense (the only defense in the AFL that yielded less than 1,000 yards rushing). And the Bills’ ground-based offense scored a league-best 400 points, and featured FB Cookie Gilchrist (with an AFL-best 981 yards rushing). Six Bills made the 1964 AFL All-Star Team: RB Cookie Gilchrist, G Billy Shaw, T Stew Barber, DT Tom Sestak, LB Mike Stratton, and S George Saimes.

December 26, 1964…Buffalo hosted the game, at their War Memorial Stadium (aka the Rockpile). ABC broadcast the game. Game time temperature was a warm and unseasonable 47°F (8°C). Rain earlier that day had made the field damp, muddy, and slippery, especially along the sidelines and in the endzones. Sand was spread on the worst spots {see image below}. The game was a sell-out, with 40,242 in attendance in the 37,500-cappacity stadium. (Around 2,700 standing-room-only were tickets sold, thus making the capacity that day an impressive 107%.)

1st Quarter…The Chargers raced out to a quick 7-0 lead, with an 80-yard drive in 4 plays. On the first play of the game, FB Keith Lincoln burst up the middle for a 38-yard gain {see photo below}. Three plays later, QB Tobin Rote connected with TE Dave Kocourek for a 26-yard TD pass. The Chargers took a 7-0 lead after just 2:11.

But on San Diego’s next possession, the Bills’ defense changed the game. On a Chargers pass-play, Bills LB Mike Stratton hit Keith Lincoln just as the Chargers FB was about to catch a swing pass from Rote. Lincoln broke a rib, and had to be helped off the field, and was out for the rest of the game. The Chargers went scoreless after that. Late in the 1st quarter, the Bills scored on a 12-yard FG by Pete Gogolak.
Score at end of 1st Quarter: Chargers 7, Bills 3.

2nd Quarter…Midway through the 2nd quarter, the Bills took the lead on a 52-yard TD drive. The Bills started with an 18-yard pass from QB Jack Kemp to WR Elbert Dubenion. After 3 running plays, a 15-yard pass from Kemp to FB Cookie Gilchrist put the Bills 1st-and-goal at the 4. That set up a 4-yard TD run by HB Wray Carlton {see photo below}. Late in the 2nd quarter, the Bills scored on a 17-yard FG by Pete Gogolak.
Score at Halftime: Bills 13, Chargers 7.

3rd Quarter…no scoring.

4th Quarter… At the start of the 4th Quarter, the Bills got the ball on their own 48. QB Jack Kemp connected with WR Glenn Bass on a slant-pattern, and Bass went 51 yards to the San Diego 1. Two plays later, Kemp scored on a QB sneak {see photo below}. Then the Bills defense held the Chargers scoreless for the rest of the game. With 26 seconds left, Bills fans got through police barricades, and stormed the field, and began tearing down the goalposts.
Final Score: Bills 20, Chargers 7. The Buffalo Bills would repeat as AFL champions the next season (1965).
buffalo-bills_1964-afl-champions_war-memorial-stadium_bills-20_chargers-7_lou-saban_mike-stratton_jack-kemp_cookie-gilchrist_wray-carlton_c_.gif
Photo and Image credits above – 3 screenshots: shot of ABC television broadcast title graphic, and shot of grounds crew spreading sand on muddy War Memorial turf, and shot Chargers HB Keith Lincoln shaking hands with Bill FB Cookie Gilchrist, 3 images from screenshots of video uploaded by Classic Sports at youtube.com. Keith Lincoln, photo by Walter Iooss Jr. via pinterest.com. Colorized photo of Mike Stratton’s hit on Keith Lincoln, photo unattributed at remembertheafl.com/1964AFLChampions. Wray Carlton scores in 1964 AFL title game; and referee signals touchdown: 2 photos unattributed at pinterest.com. Jack Kemp, photo by Neil Leifer/Sports Illustrated via si.com. Celebratory Bills fans carry QB Jack Kemp off the field, screenshot of video uploaded by Classic Sports at youtube.com.



Credits
Buffalo Bills on map page
1964 Bills uniforms, illustrations by Gridiron Uniforms database at gridiron-uniforms.com/[1964-AFL]. Jack Kemp [photo from 1964 AFL title game], photo by Neil Leifer via gettyimages.com. Jack Kemp & Cookie Gilchrist [photo circa 1964],photo unattributed from ebay.com. Cookie Gilchrist [photo circa 1964], photo unattributed at pinterest.com. Elbert Dubenion [1965 Fleer card], from espnrochester.radio.com. Daryle Lamonica [photo from 1964], photo unattributed at buffalorumblings.com. Buffalo Bills game-worn 1963 helmet, from helmet hut.com. Billy Shaw [1962 Fleer card], from amazon.com. Stew Barber [1964 Topps card], from amazon.com. Tom Sestack [photo circa 1963], photo unattributed via remembertheafl.com. Mike Stratton [photo circa 1965], photo unattributed at twitter.com/[@HelmetAddict]. Butch Byrd [1964 Fleer card], from remembertheafl.com/[Bills]. George Saimes [photo circa 1965], photo unattributed from amazon.com.

Offensive stats leaders on map page
Len Dawson [photo circa 1965], photo unattributed at fs64sports.blogspot.com.
Babe Parilli [photo circa 1965], photo unattributed at pinterest.com.
Cookie Gilchrist [photo circa 1964], photo unattributed at basnnewsroom.com.
Charley Hennigan [1965 team-issue card], from talesfromtheamericanfootballleague.com.
Lance Alworth [photo circa 1964], photo unattributed at pinterest.com.

Thanks to
-Blank map by anonymous US federal government employee, at File:StatesU.svg (commons.wikimedia.org).
-Thanks to Sportslogos.net for 1960-era AFL team logos.
-Thanks to the contributors at pro-football-reference.com.
-Thanks to the contributors at AFL 1964 season (en.wikipedia.org).
-Thanks to the Coffin Corner newsletter, for this pdf, profootballresearchers.org/archives/Website_Files/Coffin_Corner/13-04-430.pdf [AFL attendance by team 1960-69] .
Special thanks to Tim Brulia, Bill Schaefer and Rob Holecko of The Gridiron Uniform Database, for giving billsportsmaps.com the permission to use football uniforms illustrations from Gridiron Uniform Database {GUD}.

January 31, 2021

American Football League: 1963 AFL season, map with helmets/jerseys & final standings + offensive stats leaders + attendances. Champions: San Diego Chargers.

Filed under: AFL (gridiron football),AFL, 1963 map/season,Retro maps — admin @ 7:06 pm

afl_1963_4th-season_map_w-final-standings_o-stats-leaders_champions-san-diego-chargers_post_i_.gif
American Football League: 1963 AFL season, map with helmets/jerseys & final standings + offensive stats leaders; champions: San Diego Chargers



By Bill Turianski on the 31st of January 2021; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.

Links…
-1963 AFL season;
-1963 AFL Championship Game (en.wikipedia.org).
-1963 AFL season (pro-football-reference.com).
-1963 AFL uniforms (gridiron-uniforms.com).

The map… The map shows the primary helmets and jerseys worn by the 8 teams in the 1963 AFL, the fourth season of the American Football League. Also shown on the map page are the final standings of the 1963 AFL season, the Offensive leaders of the 1963 AFL season, and the average attendances of the 1963 AFL season (compared to the previous season).

    Changes in AFL franchises in 1963. One team moved to new city and changed their name (Kansas City Chiefs); one team changed their name (New York Jets). Both these revamped franchises became instrumental in the ultimate success of the AFL, in its battle with the NFL…

-Kansas City Chiefs, est. 1963…Right after winning the 1962 AFL title, the Dallas Texans (AFL, 1960-62) moved 453 miles (731 km) north, to Kansas City, Missouri. The franchise did this to avoid the situation in Dallas, Texas, where the team was competing with the much-stronger NFL in the form of the Dallas Cowboys. It was becoming obvious to owner-and-AFL-cofounder Lamar Hunt that the Dallas Texans were going to lose the battle for fans and ticket-support, there in Dallas, Texas. So the team moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and became the Kansas City Chiefs. Three years later, in the 1966 AFL season, the Kansas City Chiefs would play in the first Super Bowl (losing heavily to the NFL’s Green Bay Packers). Six years later, in the 1969 AFL season, the Kansas City Chiefs would upset the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings to win the fourth and final meeting between the AFL and NFL champions, in Super Bowl IV [4]. The 10-team AFL and the 16-team NFL would then merge for the 1970 season to form a 26-team NFL.
kansas-city-chiefs_afl-1963-move_from_dallas-texas_to_kansas-city-missouri_map-with-helmets-and-logos_-_b_.gif
Image credits above – Blank map by anonymous US federal government employee, at File:StatesU.svg (commons.wikimedia.org). Helmet illustrations by The Gridiron Uniforms Database at gridiron-uniforms.com.




-New York Jets, est. 1963…The hapless and broke and bankrupt New York Titans AFL franchise was bought by a much deeper-pocketed consortium, headed by entertainment executive Sonny Werblin. The team changed its name to the New York Jets. The team also changed their colors – from navy-blue & yellow-gold, to green & white. Werblin’s first order of business was to sign as head coach and GM the former Baltimore Colts title-winning head coach Weeb Ewbank, who said “I don’t see why we can’t build a winner here in five years.” The franchise finally was able to set in motion their plans to move out of the decrepit and soon-to-be-demolished Polo Grounds (on the tip of northern Manhattan, NYC), and into the new multi-purpose stadium being built by the government of New York City, in Queens, NYC. The move to the new venue would happen the following season of 1964, and attendance would skyrocket. The Jets’ improved on-field record coincided with their huge attendance increase at Shea Stadium, there in Queens, with QB Joe Namath at the helm. Five years after the name-change from the Titans to the Jets, in the 1968 season, the Jets were AFL champions. And so the AFL’s New York Jets then faced the NFL’s Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III [3]. The hugely-favored Colts were beaten by the Jets, in one of the biggest upsets in pro football history, thereby signifying to the American public that the AFL had arrived, and was the equal of the NFL. Two seasons later (in 1970), the two leagues would merge.

new-york-jets_afl-1963_changed-name_from_ny-titans_to_ny-jets_b_.gif
Image credits above – Helmet illustrations by The Gridiron Uniforms Database at gridiron-uniforms.com.

AFL attendances in 1963

afl-1963_attendance-chart_d_.gif
Source for attendance figures: pdf at ProFootballResearchers.org [Coffin Corner newsletter, Sept 1991, by Bob Carroll], profootballresearchers.org/archives/Website_Files/Coffin_Corner/13-04-430.pdf. Helmet illustrations from gridiron-uniforms.com.

Average Attendance, NFL vs. AFL (the 10 years they were in competition: 1960-69); plus NFL/AFL/Super Bowl title-winners in the 1960s…
afl_vs_nfl_attendance_1960-69_title-winners_super-bowl_i-iv_winners_chart_h_.gif
Source for attendance figures: pdf at ProFootballResearchers.org [Coffin Corner newsletter, Sept 1991, by Bob Carroll], profootballresearchers.org/archives/Website_Files/Coffin_Corner/13-04-430.pdf. Helmet illustrations from gridiron-uniforms.com.



    1963 AFL champions – the San Diego Chargers

The San Diego Chargers were one of the strongest teams in the ten seasons of the AFL (1960-69). Yet although they made it to 5 AFL title games, the Chargers won only one of them – in 1963, when they blew out the Boston Patriots by 41 points.

It all came together for head coach Sid Gillman’s San Diego Chargers in 1963. 1962 had been a bust for the Chargers (who went an abysmal 4-10). But the team regrouped, after a boot-camp type atmosphere at their ’63 training camp, out in the high desert east of San Diego. Then the Chargers cruised through the 1963 regular season with the AFL’s best record (11-3), beating out the surprise Al Davis-led Oakland Raiders, by one game to win the Western Division. Led by the AFL’s 1963 MVP Tobin Rote (at QB), and future Hall-of-Famer WR Lance Alworth, the Chargers averaged 28.5 points per game, and were the highest-scoring offense in the league. And the tough Chargers defense allowed the least amount of points that year {1963 AFL standings}.

Then the Chargers caught a break. Because the Eastern Division had no clear dominant team, and the East was deadlocked at the top with two 7-6-1 teams. And so that meant that the East had to be decided by an extra playoff game (the AFL had no tiebreakers). And when the Boston Patriots beat the Buffalo Bills in that extra game, to advance to the 1963 AFL title game, the Patriots were depleted by the effort. So the Chargers entered the ’63 title game well rested, while the Patriots were anything but that.

Sid Gillman, renowned for his forward-thinking and pass-oriented “vertical offense”, decided to change things up for the 1963 title match. The Chargers had been beaten by a strong defense in the 1960 and 1961 AFL title games (both times losing to the Houston Oilers). With that in mind, Gillman drastically changed their plan of attack for the ’63 title game. Instead of deep routes to WR Lance Alworth, the Chargers would go with swing passes to FB Keith Lincoln. And instead of runs behind their future Hall of Fame OT Ron Mix, the Chargers would go with draws (to Lincoln and to HB Paul Lowe), and misdirection plays. In other words, Gillman was going with the opposite of what the Chargers had become known for.

By the time the Boston Patriots caught on to the Chargers’ game plan, the damage was done. Powered by long TD-runs by Keith Lincoln (for 67 yards) and Paul Lowe (for 58 yards), the Chargers shot out to a 21-7 lead after the 1st quarter. And the Chargers led by 31-10 at halftime. By the start of the 4th quarter, San Diego led by 28 points, and backup-QB John Hadl replaced Tobin Rote. 13 points later, the score was 51-10, and the Chargers were the new AFL champions.

MVP honors went to Keith Lincoln. Keith Lincoln was a QB out of Washington State, who had been drafted in the 5th round of the 1961 NFL draft by the Chicago Bears. But Lincoln, who grew up in southern California, decided to sign with the AFL’s San Diego Chargers instead. There he was converted to a running back. Lincoln had the game of a lifetime in the 1963 AFL title game, racking up an astounding 329 yards from scrimmage (206 yards rushing and 123 yards receiving). Plus he threw one pass for a 20-yard gain. The 329 yards from scrimmage that Keith Lincoln produced that day in San Diego has never been bested in a pro football title game, and is tied for 3rd-best all-time [NFL, 1920-2020; AFL, 1960-69]. {All-time best yards-from-scrimmage in a game (pro-football-reference.com/leaders).}

As of 2020, the Chargers have not won another title.

san-diego-chargers_1963-afl-champions_tobin-rote_ron-mix_keith-lincoln_paul-lowe_lance-alworth_john-hadl_sid-gillman_n_.gif
Photo and Image credits above – Tobin Rote & Ron Mix in the 1963 AFL Championship Game, unattributed at pinterest.com. Keith Lincoln runs for a 67-yard TD in the 1963 AFL Championship Game, photo unattributed at profootballtalk.nbcsports.com. Paul Lowe runs for a 58-yard TD in the 1963 AFL Championship Game, photo by Charles Aqua Viva/Getty Images via boltsfromtheblue.com. Lance Alworth catching long pass in the 1963 AFL Championship Game, photo unattributed at goldenrankings.com/AFLchampionship1963. Keith Lincoln taking hand-off from backup-QB John Hadl, late in the 1963 AFL Championship Game, unattributed at pinterest.com. Keith Lincoln on sidelines [circa 1964], photo unattributed at alchetron.com. San Diego Chargers 1963 helmet, from helmet hut.com. Head coach Sid Gilman and the Chargers players and staff celebrate the teams first (and only) championship title, with a champagne toast, photo unattributed at goldenrankings.com/AFLchampionship1963.



San Diego Chargers on map page… 1963 Chargers’ offense in the huddle listening to QB Tobin Rote (#18), unattributed at pinterest.com. 1963 Chargers uniforms, illustrations by Gridiron Uniforms database at gridiron-uniforms.com/[1963-AFL]. Tobin Rote & Paul Lowe [photo from 1963 Sports Illustrated cover], photo by Walter Iooss, Jr./Getty Images via pinterest.com. Tobin Rote & Ron Mix [photo from 1963 AFL Championship Game], unattributed at pinterest.com. Keith Lincoln [photo from 1963 AFL Championship Game], unattributed at pinterest.com. Lance Alworth [photo from 1963], photo by Focus On Sport/Getty Images via gettyimages.ca. San Diego Chargers 1963 helmet, from helmet hut.com. Ernie Ladd [photo from 1963], unattributed at bleacherreport.com. Earl Faison [1962 Fleer card], from psacard.com. Dick Harris [1962 Fleer card], from amazon.com. John Hadl [photo from 1965], photo by Neil Leifer/Getty Images via gettyimages.com. Chargers patch circa 1960s from ebay.com.

Offensive stats leaders on map page… Tobin Rote (Chargers) [photo from 1964], unattributed at talesfromtheamericanfootballleague.com. George Blanda (Oilers) [photo circa 1964], unattributed at pinterest.com. Len Dawson (Chiefs) [1964 Topps card], from cardboardconnection.com. Clem Daniels (Raiders) [photo circa 1964], photo from raiders.com. Cookie Gilchrist (Bills) [photo from 1964], unattributed at pinterest.ie. Art Powell (Raiders) [photo circa 1965], unattributed at fs64sports.blogspot.com.

Thanks to all at the following links
-Blank map by anonymous US federal government employee, at File:StatesU.svg (commons.wikimedia.org).
-Thanks to Sportslogos.net for 1960-era AFL team logos.
-Thanks to the contributors at pro-football-reference.com.
-Thanks to the contributors at AFL 1963 season (en.wikipedia.org).
-Thanks to the Coffin Corner newsletter, for this pdf, profootballresearchers.org/archives/Website_Files/Coffin_Corner/13-04-430.pdf [AFL attendance by team 1960-69] .
Special thanks to Tim Brulia, Bill Schaefer and Rob Holecko of The Gridiron Uniform Database, for giving billsportsmaps.com the permission to use football uniforms illustrations from Gridiron Uniform Database {GUD}.

January 28, 2020

American Football League: 1962 AFL season, map with helmets/jerseys & final standings + offensive stats leaders; champions: Dallas Texans [future Kansas City Chiefs]. /+ article: History of the Kansas City Chiefs (including origins of nickname, venues played in, helmet history).

Filed under: AFL (gridiron football),AFL, 1962 map/season,Retro maps — admin @ 11:57 am

afl_1962_3rd-season_map_w-final-standings_o-stats-leaders_champions-dallas-texans_post_c_.gif
American Football League: 1962 AFL season, map with helmets/jerseys & final standings



By Bill Turianski on 28 January 2020; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Links…
-1962 AFL season
-1962 AFL Championship Game (en.wikipedia.org).
-1962 AFL season (pro-football-reference.com).
-Illustrated History of Kansas City Chiefs’ uniforms (1960 to 2018)…from Gridiron Uniforms Database (gridiron-uniforms.com).

The map (click on image at the top of the post)…
The map shows the primary helmets and jerseys worn by the 8 AFL teams of 1962, the third season of the American Football League (IV) (1960-69). At the lower-right of the map-page are the final standings of the 1962 AFL, along with home jerseys and helmets of the 8 AFL teams of 1962. At the bottom-right corner are the attendance figures for the 1962 AFL season. At the upper-right of the map-page are standout players for the champions, the 1962 Dallas Texans (the franchise that became the Kansas City Chiefs in the following season of 1963). Below the Dallas Texans of 1962 section of the map page, is a section for 1962 AFL Offensive Leaders, in the following categories: QB Rating & TD Passes: Len Dawson, Dallas Texans. Passing Yardage: Frank Tripucka, Denver Broncos. Rushing Yardage: Cookie Gilchrist, Buffalo Bills. Yards from Scrimmage & Total TDs: Abner Haynes, Dallas Texans. Receiving Yards: Art Powell: New York Titans.

In the 1962 AFL Championship Game, played at Jeppesen Stadium in Houston, Texas, on December 23 1962, the Dallas Texans defeated the Houston Oilers 20-17 in double-overtime. The Texans, coached by Hank Stram and led by QB Len Dawson, had two TDs by RB Abner Haynes. But it took 17:54 of overtime play (2:54 into the 6th quarter), for the Texans to get a 25-yard FG to beat the Oilers (who were the two-time-reigning AFL champions). It was, at the time, the longest pro gridiron football game ever played, and to this day it remains the longest championship game played in the sport. {See photos in illustration further below.}

    The AFL (of 1960-69) had a 10-year battle with the established pro football league, the NFL.

In 1970, the AFL essentially won the battle, by virtue of the fact that the NFL allowed all 10 of the AFL franchises to join the NFL, in a full dual-league merger. Plus, the AFL won the last two match-ups with the NFL…Super Bowl III (1968 season) saw the AFL’s New York Jets beat the NFL’s Baltimore Colts, and Super Bowl IV (1969 season) saw the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs beat the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings {see the next few paragraphs for more on that}.

After the 1962 AFL season, there were two AFL franchises that would soon change their identities dramatically. These two teams in 1962/63 were the very competitive Dallas Texans (soon to become the Kansas City Chiefs), and the hapless and broke New York Titans (soon to become the New York Jets). These two franchise-changes following the 1962 season considerably helped the AFL in its battle for legitimacy.

The Dallas Texans, who went on to win the 1962 AFL Championship Game, were saddled with a taxing local rivalry with the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys. The AFL team could not compete with the drawing-power of the NFL, despite the fact that the AFL team in Dallas (the Texans) were championship-caliber, while the NFL team in Dallas (the Cowboys) were, at this point in time, a basement-dwelling expansion team. The NFL was just too powerful for even a title-winning AFL team to compete with. {More on this can be seen in the Texans/Chiefs’ Stadiums section, 8 and 9 paragraphs further below.}

In May 1963, 5 months after winning the 1962 title, the AFL’s Texans would leave Dallas, moving 450 miles north to Kansas City, Missouri, to become the Kansas City Chiefs. (The Texans/Chiefs franchise would not change ownership, or color-scheme, with the move). And the New York Titans, under new and more well-funded ownership, would change their name to the New York Jets, changing from dark-blue/yellow-gold colors to green-&-white. And a year after that, in 1964, the re-branded NY Jets would move from the decrepit Polo Grounds in northern Manhattan, NYC to the brand-new Shea Stadium in Queens, NYC…and soon started drawing 50 thousand per game. The Chiefs would not go on to draw quite as well as the Jets would, but they ably filled their new home in KC, the MLB ballpark known as Municipal Stadium. By 1966, the Chiefs were drawing 37-K-per-game, and by 1969 they were drawing 49-K-per-game. {You can see a color photo of their home venue back then (Municipal Stadium in gridiron-football-configuration), and Texans/Chiefs attendance figures, in the illustration below).

And the Kansas City Chiefs kept on with the winning ways they had had in Dallas. The Texans/Chiefs franchise would go on to win two more AFL titles (in 1966 and 1969), as well as winning Super Bowl IV (#4) in January of 1970 (the last of four head-to-head match-ups between the AFL and the NFL) {also see in illustration below}. The Chiefs’ Super Bowl upset-win (over the Vikings) came one year after the AFL pulled off its greatest feat in its 10-year history, when the New York Jets shocked the gridiron football world by beating the heavily-favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III (#3) in January of 1969.

So, the roots of the AFL’s eventual triumph over the NFL, in Super Bowls III and IV, can be found in the time between the 1962 and 1963 AFL seasons, when the Kansas City Chiefs and the New York Jets came into existence.

Note: the article below first appeared in this post from 2014, on the NFL’s AFC West Division…
NFL, AFC West – Logo and helmet history of the 4 teams (Broncos, Chiefs, Raiders, Chargers)./ Origins of nicknames./ Stadiums./ Title-winning teams.

    The Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs: 3 AFL titles & 1 Super Bowl title in a 10-year-span…

dallas-texans_hank-stram_abner-haynes_kansas-city-chiefs_kc-municipal-stadium_super-bowl-iv_len-dawson_buck-buchanan_curley-culp_k_.gif
Photo and Image credits above -
1960-62 Dallas Texans helmet, illustration from gridiron-uniforms.com/chiefs. Albert Haynes, photo unattributed at sportsnola.com. Photo of 1962 Dallas Texans AFL Champions team photo, unattributed at media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com. Hank Stram with AFL championship trophy, photo unattributed at media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com. Abner Haynes in 1962 AFL title game, photo unattributed at ntmeangreenfootball.com. USA blank map by Zntrip at Blank map of the United States. Aerial photo of Kansas City Chiefs playing at Municipal Stadium, photo by Kansas City Chiefs at kcchiefs.com/municipal-stadium-tribute. Hank Stram being carried off the field by Chiefs players after their 1966 AFL Championship Game win over Buffalo, photo unattributed at mmbolding.com/AFL1966. AFL 10 years patch worn by Chiefs in Super Bowl IV, photo unattributed/ uploaded by remembertheafl.com at Super Bowl IV (en.wikipedia.org). Len Dawson taking the snap in Super Bowl IV vs. Vikings, photo unattributed at arrowheadaddict.com/2013/06/16/chiefs-history-and-an-anniversary. Buck Buchanan and Curley Culp tackling Dave Osborn in Super Bowl IV, photo from USA Today via spokeo.com.

    Kansas City Chiefs – logos and helmet history (1960-2019), click on image below…

kansas-city-chiefs_helmet-history_logos_1960-2014_segment_.gif
Kansas City Chiefs – logos and helmet history (1960-2014)
Texans/Chiefs helmet illustrations above from gridiron-uniforms.com/chiefs. Chiefs uniforms.png by fma12, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chiefs_uniforms.png. Photo of Chiefs 2012-13 Riddell helmet from thumbs3.picclick.com/d/w225/pict/251241604074_/KANSAS-CITY-CHIEFS-Riddell-Revolution-NFL-Football-Helmet.jpg. Dallas Texans’ 1960-62 wordmark logo from sportsecyclopedia.com/nfl/kcdal/daltexans. Photo of Chiefs’ circa 1970s wordmark logo from fleersticker.blogspot.com.

Origin of Chiefs nickname…
Upon moving his AFL franchise the Dallas Texans to Kansas City, Missouri in 1963, oil-fortune-heir Lamar Hunt was faced with the quandary of having to re-name his franchise. But actually, as hard as it is to believe, Hunt (at first) wanted to keep the nickname and call the team the Kansas City Texans. It took his right-hand-man, Jack Steadman (who was the Texans/Chiefs GM and vice president of operations), to convince Hunt otherwise. The mayor of Kansas City then, H. Roe Bartle, who was very instrumental in the city being able to lure the AFL franchise away from Dallas, was nicknamed “the Chief” (from his days as a Scout Executive of the St. Joseph and Kansas City Boy Scout Councils 35 years previously when he formed a Native Tribes honor society within the Boy Scouts called The Tribe of Mic-O-Say).

The Chiefs became the winning entry (but not the most popular entry by far) into the local name-the-new-team contest that Hunt had organized. The most popular of the 4,866 entries (with 1,020 different names being suggested) were for the nicknames the “Mules” and the “Royals.” “Chiefs”, suggested by 42 entries, was third-most-selected in the naming contest; nevertheless Hunt selected Chiefs as the football team’s new nickname. At other sources (like here) it is said Hunt re-named the team the Chiefs in honor of the large number of Native Americans who (past and present) had called the region of western Missouri and the Great Plains their home. At that is technically true. And that notion is re-enforced by the first primary logo of the new Chiefs franchise {see it by clicking on the on the image above or here}.

But the Chiefs are also named after the nickname of that former Kansas City mayor, H. Roe Bartle who helped get the team to KC and who made good on his promise to Lamar Hunt that Kansas City would have a vast season-ticket paying fan-base there even before the team’s arrival. And this was swiftly accomplished, as in a short span of time (8 weeks) in early 1963, over 20,000 season season tickets were sold to pro-football starved fans in and around Kansas City – before the franchise had even moved out of Dallas, and before the folks who forked over cash for the season tickets even knew exactly which pro team the city was getting. As it said in the timeline/1963 section of the official Kansas City Chiefs website, “the team was officially christened the Chiefs on May 26th, in part to honor the efforts of Bartle.” {excerpt from http://www.kcchiefs.com/history/60s/ [dead link/ now available via Wayback Machine at http://web.archive.org/web/20080609053609/http://www.kcchiefs.com/history/60s/ }.

For more on this, see the following article at SBnation, How the Kansas City Chiefs Got Their Name (article by oldchiefsfan from May 18 2009). In the comments section there, 2 commenters who were proud childhood members of the Boy Scouts' Tribe of Mic-O-Say weigh in: jbj8609 says ..."My father and I are both members of MOS (in St. Joseph, MO, not the KC one), and I can confirm this to be 100% accurate. My dad has been “Tribal Historian” here for several years now and used to tell me this story many times. Always thought it was very cool"; bankmeister says..."I’m also a Mic-O-Say member with five consecutive years at Bartle, plus my mom has lived off of Roe Avenue for 25 years. H. Roe and the Chiefs mean a lot to me." {end of excerpts.} The Kansas City Chiefs is a great name that honors Native Americans. Unlike the racist name of another NFL team.

    Stadiums the Dallas Texans (II)/Kansas City Chiefs franchise have played in...

Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas (home of the Dallas Texans (II) from 1960-62)...
The Cotton Bowl began as Fair Park, a stadium built on the site of the Texas State Fair grounds, in 1930. Cut-and-fill construction was employed to build up berms for the stands, and this lowered the playing surface twenty-four feet below the original ground level. The stadium initially held 45,000 spectators; in 1936, the name was officially changed to the Cotton Bowl. The following year, 1937, the Cotton Bowl Classic college football Bowl game began being played there. But it wasn't a popularly-attended Bowl game until a partnership was created with the Southwest Conference starting in 1941 (and the Texas A&M versus Fordham game in '41 was the first Cotton Bowl Classic that was played to a sell-out crowd). By 1950 and through the 1960s, the Cotton Bowl could hold 75,000 (it has a 90,000-capacity now). The primary tenant, in its early days through to the mid-1970s, was the SMU Mustangs college football team; the failed NFL franchise the Dallas Texans (I) of 1952 played 4 of their scheduled 6 games there to sparse crowds, before the NFL front office took over the team and folded it at the end of the 1952 NFL season. In 1960, it would be the home of 3 football teams: the SMU Mustangs, the expansion NFL team the Dallas Cowboys, and the Dallas Texans (II), a charter member of the new rival-league, the AFL.

AFL founder Lamar Hunt, though Arkansas-born, was raised in Dallas, Texas (where his father's oil business was centered). His efforts to get an NFL team for Dallas circa 1958-59 had been unsuccessful. When he got the AFL off the ground and running in 1959-to-early-1960, there was never any doubt that he would have one of the 8 franchises in the new league and that it would be located in Dallas. This despite the fact that in the interim - in early 1960 - the NFL had awarded a Dallas franchise to someone else. So Hunt's Dallas Texans were instantly consigned to being the second-team-in-Dallas, simply by virtue of the fact that the NFL was more established. The red-and-yellow/gold Dallas Texans struggled to get media attention in their 3 seasons in Dallas, but in fact, in the team's first year in Dallas (1960), the AFL's Texans drew best in the debut-season of the AFL and outdrew the NFL's Cowboys (24,500 per game for the AFL Texans versus 21,417 per game for the Cowboys). Of course the first-year Cowboys were horrible (they went 0-11-1), while Hunt's Texans were competitive and fun to watch with a prolific-scoring offense (they went 8-6). But the next season, 1961, Texans' attendance plummeted almost 7K per game to 17,571, while the slightly-improved Cowboys (at 4-9-1) saw their attendance shoot up 33% to 24,521 per game. The writing was on the wall for Hunt. As football-crazy and as dynamic and growing as the city of Dallas was in the early 1960s, it still was not big enough to support two pro football teams. In the next season, 1962, even as an 11-3 team en route to the 1962 AFL title (see illustration below), the Texans were still unable to draw as well as they did their first year - they averaged 22,201 (the 5-8-1 Cowboys averaged only slightly less, at 21,778 in '63).

Hunt knew that once the Dallas Cowboys (inevitably) got competitive, they would totally overshadow the Dallas Texans and start claiming a much greater share of the ticket-paying public in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. So Hunt threw in the towel and began looking for a new home for his team. New Orleans, Atlanta and Miami and Seattle were also considered, but thanks to that huge season-ticket-drive in KC, Hunt moved his team 450 miles north to Kansas City.

Municipal Stadium (Kansas City), home of the Chiefs from 1963-71...
Opened in 1923 and originally called Muehlebach Field, the venue was built as a ballpark for the Kansas City Blues (V) (1902-54) of the American Association. The Kansas City Monarchs Negro leagues team also played there (from 1923-34; 1937-54). For that reason the ballpark was situated at the edge of Kansas City's inner-city neighborhood. Capacity was originally 17,000, with the main feature of the ballpark being a single, roofed stand that ran the whole of the first-base foul-line to the right-field-foul-pole, but on the other side the roof only stretched to third base (making the roof a rounded L-shape). In 1955, prior to the arrival of the Philadelphia Athletics MLB franchise, the city decided to almost completely demolish the stadium and rebuild from scratch. The city ran three shifts - the new stadium was built in 90 days, in time for the April 1955 MLB opening of the Kansas City Athletics (1955-67). The not-quite-V-shaped-roof remained, now in a double-deck form, and capacity for baseball was then 30,000. It was re-named Municipal Stadium.

When Lamar Hunt decided to move his Dallas Texans to Kansas City in early 1963, the stadium was renovated again, but in more of a jury-rigged way - temporary stands were erected in left field to expand the stadium's capacity each fall, but had to be torn down before the start of the baseball season the following year.

Kansas City mayor H. Roe Bartle had helped get the team to KC, and had made good on his promise to Lamar Hunt that Kansas City would have a vast season-ticket paying fan-base there even before the team's arrival. Some sources say that Bartle promised to triple the crowds the team had drawn in Dallas (ie, 21.4 K times 3 equals 64 K) - but even if he did promise that, it would have been impossible because Municipal Stadium in Kansas City only held around 30,000 then, and even after expansion for football, it never had more than a 49,000-capacity {see this, stadiumsofprofootball.com/past/KCMunicipal}. The 1963 Kansas City Chiefs actually drew about 650 per game worse than they did the year before as the 1962 Dallas Texans (at 21,510 per game in 1963 versus 22,201 in '62) (note: 10-year AFL attendance figures for the Dallas Texans (II)/Kansas City Chiefs can be seen in the illustration above, and the source for those figures was at THE AMERICAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE - ATTENDANCE, 1960-69 By Bob Carroll at profootballresearchers.org.)

The Kansas City Chiefs upon arrival in KC in 1963 were reigning champions of the AFL, but the Chiefs then suffered a downturn in form and went 5-7-2 in '63; 7-7 in '64; and 7-5-2 in '65. Cumulative gate figures for those first 3 years in KC were 20,376 per game. So the fact that the Chiefs turned mediocre right when they arrived in KC certainly hurt attendances, and the crowds the Chiefs drew only got respectable after the Chiefs got good again - in 1966, when they tore up the AFL, going 11-2-1, winning the AFL Championship game (over the Bills, 31–7), and appearing in the first AFL-NFL Championship Game [aka Super Bowl I] (losing to the Packers, 35-10). In that great season of 1966, the Chiefs drew 37,010 (an increase of around 15.5 K over their ’65 attendance). Attendance-wise, the Chiefs have never looked back: they drew 45 K in ’67 (going 9-5); 48 K in ’68 (going 12-2); and 49 K in ’69 when they went all the way with an 11-3 record, beating the Raiders 13-6 in the last AFL Championship game and then winning Super Bowl IV [4] by upsetting the heavily-favored Minnesota Vikings by a score of 23-7 in the last game ever played by the AFL (see illustration above).

Following the Jets’ upset of the NFL’s Colts in Super Bowl III, the Chiefs’ similar upset of the Vikings in Super Bowl IV made it plain for all to see that the AFL was the deserved equal of the NFL. Actually, the AFL beat the NFL soundly in the last two match-ups between the two leagues, so it basically looked like the once-derided upstarts had actually surpassed their hide-bound rivals…in ten years flat. The Chiefs played their first two seasons in the NFL at Municipal Stadium (1970-71), then moved into their purpose-built Arrowhead Stadium in September 1972.

Below: the Truman Sports Complex -the first major league sports stadium complex in the USA which rejected the misguided multi-purpose stadium model.
truman-sports-complex_arrowhead-stadium_with-kaufman-stadium_jackson-county-missouri_b_.gif
Photo and Image credits above -
Chiefs 2012-14 Pro Revolution helmet, illustration by gridiron-uniforms.com/teams/2012_KansasCity.
Kauffman Stadium and Arrowhead Stadium as seen from the nearby interstate highway, photo unattributed/ uploaded by KingmanIII at skyscrapercity.com/ [thread: Closest stadiums]. Arrowhead Stadium aerial photo, by Ichabod at en.wikipedia.org/ [Arrowhead Stadium page].

Arrowhead Stadium – home of the Chiefs since 1972…
To see how the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium came to be, we need to backtrack about 5 years, back to early 1967. Although having just lost in a convincing fashion to the Green Bay Packers in what we now call Super Bowl I, the Chiefs were nevertheless a solid and growing franchise circa early 1967. They had won 2 AFL titles in six seasons, and were now drawing in the 37,000-per-game range. Half a year later in the autumn of 1967, Chiefs were drawing around 45,000 per game [this after their first 3 years in KC when they had lackluster attendance, failing to draw above 22 K per game (1963-65/see attendance figures in illustration above]). All signs pointed to further attendance increases for the Chiefs. They were playing to nearly-full capacity at this point, and the aging Municipal Stadium, located in its inner-city neighborhood, was becoming inadequate for the them and their fans. Locations for a new stadium for the Chiefs and the Athletics were scouted by the city of Kansas City starting in early 1967, but a suitable location was never found, and so just across the county-line in Jackson County, Missouri, at the far eastern edge of Greater Kansas City, a location adjacent to an interstate highway interchange was designated. Hunt had operations-chief Jack Steadman work on the stadium design. Denver architect Charles Deaton was brought in by Steadman and it was Deaton who suggested that the two teams, playing as they were in sports that had such radically different configurations, would be better served if each team had its own stadium. Its own stadium that was configured to its own sport’s configuration (a rectangular-shaped stadium for the football team, and a half-circle-atop-a-triangle-shaped stadium for the baseball team). The 2 venues could share a parking lot complex which would reduce costs by sharing parking and highway expenses. This was the exact opposite of conventional wisdom of the time. The late 1960s was the heyday of the now-derided multi-purpose stadium era (an era that lasted up to the late 1980s), or as I like to call it, the Robert Moses Disease. Circa 1960 to 1988 or so, the urban planners running metropolitan areas ignored the basic fact of the fundamental incompatibility of putting the two very different sports into the same stadium, and forced ugly, astro-turf laden cookie-cutter, multi-purpose concrete stadiums on the public. The whole idea was “we can put our baseball team and our NFL football team in the same stadium, and who cares if the dimensions of the two sports fields are totally incompatible”.

I am not exaggerating in saying that Mr. Deaton’s visionary idea (which is the norm today), has helped to elevate the fan experience in both the NFL and in Major League Baseball. Once there were over a dozen multi-use stadiums in MLB and in the NFL, and they all sucked, because they were designed to host two very incompatible configurations. They were giant soul-less concrete doughnuts that gave the fan – for either sport – vast yawning empty spaces where there should have been seats, and sight-lines looking upon totalitarian-architecture backdrops of brutal concrete. [By 2010, following the Minnesota Twins opening of their Target Field, there was only one multi-purpose stadium still in use in both the NFL and MLB - Oakland's stadium, and its days are numbered.]

Here is an excerpt from the Kauffman Stadium page at en.wikipedia.org,…”In 1967, voters in Jackson County, Missouri approved the bonds for Truman Sports Complex, which featured a football stadium for the Kansas City Chiefs and a baseball stadium for the Kansas City Athletics, whose owner, Charles O. Finley, had just signed a new lease to remain in Kansas City. This was a very unusual proposal; conventional wisdom at the time held that separate football and baseball stadiums were not commercially viable.”…{end of excerpt from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kauffman_Stadium#History. The two stadium sports complex, what became known as the Truman Sports Complex, would prove to be twenty years ahead of its time.

But then a wrench was thrown into the works when, in October, 1967, MLB gave A’s owner Charlie Finley permission to move his Kansas City Athletics MLB franchise west to Oakland, CA (in 1968). The folks in and around Kansas City were so enraged about losing their pro ball club they pressured their elected officials to act. Partly thanks to the threat to introduce legislation in the US Senate to remove MLB’s antitrust exemption (put forth by Missouri Senator Stuart Symington), MLB hastily began plans for another round of expansion at the winter meetings in 1967, so both Kansas City and Seattle got MLB AL expansion franchises; and both San Diego and Montreal, Quebec, Canada got MLB NL expansion franchises, all 4 teams set to begin play in 1969.

At about the same time, the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority was created, and construction began in 1968 for the two-stadium Truman Sports Complex (named in honor of western-Missouri-born-and-bred President Harry S. Truman). The second-year Kansas City Royals began playing at the new 37,000-capacity Royals Stadium in April, 1972 (the venue is now called Kauffman Stadium in honor of the Royals’ first owner, Ewing Kauffman). The Chiefs began playing at the new 78,000-capacity Arrowhead Stadium in September, 1972 (after several renovations, Arrowhead, since 2010, now has a capacity of 76,416). The original two-stadium concept, initially designed by Denver architect Charles Deaton and Jack Steadman, was implemented in its final design by the Kansas City architectural firm of Kivett & Myers. The template for what was to be called Arrowhead Stadium is said to have influenced the design of several NFL stadiums. Both stadiums were very well designed and have had very good upkeep – both stadiums are still in excellent shape. And both teams have no plans of moving elsewhere (either out of town or into another costly new stadium), as opposed to the case with EIGHT now-demolished multi-purpose stadiums that were built in the USA in the same era or later. Specifically, in Minneapolis (Metrodome demolished in 2014), in Queens, New York (Shea Stadium demolished in 2007), in St. Louis (Busch Memorial Stadium demolished in 2005), in Philadelphia (Veterans Stadium demolished in 2004), in Cincinnati (Riverfront Stadium demolished in 2002), in Pittsburgh (Three Rivers Stadium demolished in 2001), in Seattle (Kingdome demolished in 2000) and in Atlanta (Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium demolished in 1997) [note: soon Candlestick Park in San Francisco can be added to this list of demolished multi-purpose stadiums, as with the vacating of the 49ers after the 2013 season, the dreary Candlestick Park has no primary tenant].

Below: Lamar Hunt and Bud Adams (photo circa 1960)…
lamar-hunt_bud-adams_afl_1960_b_1.gif
Image credit above -youtube.com/watch?v=W1sL0gf_LXI (youtube.com video uploaded by Scott Sillcox).

    Colors and helmet logos of the Texans/Chiefs

The following link is to a 1 minute and 53 seconds-long video (produced by the NFL and Tide detergent), Kansas City Chiefs uniform and uniform color history (video uploaded by Scott Sillcox at youtube.com)}.

-Illustrated History of Kansas City Chiefs’ uniforms (1960 to 2018)…from Gridiron Uniforms Database (gridiron-uniforms.com).

1960-62 – Red and Yellow/Gold (map-of-Texas-with-gold-star-for-Dallas helmet-logo, on a plain red helmet)…
Lamar Hunt actually wanted the Dallas Texans to wear orange-and-sky-blue, but Bud Adams’ Houston Oilers had already chosen powder blue as their primary color, so Hunt had to come up with a different color scheme (thank goodness for that). Hunt chose a simple yet striking red-with-yellow/gold…the franchise has never worn any other colors. The Texans/Chiefs have also only worn a red helmet with no stripe detail (a wise decision because the inherent high-potency of the color red ends up being diluted by the often-at-cross-purposes imposition of a center stripe…especially when that red is paired with a shape in the logo that is slightly more complex than a block letter or a circle). First (1960-62), the red helmet had a logo that was the-state-of-Texas-with-gold-star-for-Dallas {see that nice design here in a game-worn helmet from the 1960-62 era}.

1963-2019 – Red and Yellow/Gold (arrowhead-with-interlocking-K-C helmet-logo, on a plain red helmet)…
When Hunt moved the team to Kansas City, the story goes he himself drew out the new logo in his kitchen on a dinner napkin…sketching out a design influenced by the San Francisco 49ers’ interlocking-S-F, but with an arrowhead framing the letters K-C instead of the football-shaped-oval on the Niners’ helmet. That design debuted in 1963 and, aside from a slight reshaping of the logo in 1974 (the arrowhead was made a bit smaller and the K-C a bit larger), it has remained the Chiefs helmet design for over 50 years. And rightly so. The Chiefs’ bold yet dignified helmet looks as sharp today as it did a half century ago; the same can be said for their uniforms.


Credits
Dallas Texans on map page,
Video of 1962 AFL Championship Game [Len Dawson about to pass to Abner Haynes], screenshot of video uploaded by NFL at youtube.com. Dallas Texans game-worn helmet, photo from milehighcardco.com/1960-62-dallas-texans-afl-game-used-helmet. Jerry Mays [1962 Fleer card], from ebay.com. Mel Branch [photo circa 1962], unattributed at goldenrankings.com/AFLchampionship1962. EJ Holub [photo from 1962 title game], unattributed at goldenrankings.com/AFLchampionship1962. Sherrill Headrick [photo from 1961], unattributed at helmethut.com/Features/Dr.Ken148. Len Dawson [1962 title game] screenshot from video uploaded by Rusty Brewer at youtube.com. [photo from 1962], unattributed at pinterest.co.uk. Chris Burford [1964 Topps card], from peacework.us/su/delt60/Burford_Chris. Abner Haynes [photo from 1962], AP via si.com/nfl. Jim Tyrer [1964 Topps card], from bleacherreport.com.

Offensive stats leaders on map page,
Len Dawson [1963 Fleer card], from myalltimefavorites.com. Frank Tripucka [1963 Fleer card], from comc.com. Cookie Gilchrist [photo from 1963], from buffalobills.com via wkbw.com. Abner Haynes [1962 Fleer card], from ebay.com. Art Powell [1962 Fleer card] from ebay.com.

Thanks to,
-Blank map by anonymous US federal government employee, at File:StatesU.svg (commons.wikimedia.org).
-Thanks to Sportslogos.net for 1960-era AFL team logos.
-Thanks to Buffalo Bills official site for original Bills logo (1960-61).
-Thanks to Infinite Jets blog for hard-to-find full-color NY Titans logo.
Thanks to the Coffin Corner newsletter, for this pdf, [AFL attendance by team 1960-69] (profootballresearchers.org).
-Thanks to the contributors at pro-football-reference.com.
-Thanks to the contributors at AFL 1962 season (en.wikipedia.org).
Special thanks to Tim Brulia, Bill Schaefer and Rob Holecko of The Gridiron Uniform Database, for giving billsportsmaps.com the permission to use football uniforms illustrations from Gridiron Uniform Database {GUD}.

December 6, 2018

American Football League: 1961 AFL season, map with helmets/jerseys & final standings + offensive stats leaders; champions: Houston Oilers.

Filed under: AFL (gridiron football),AFL, 1961 map/season,Retro maps — admin @ 9:32 am

afl_1961_2nd-season_map_w-final-standings_o-stats-leaders_champions-houston-oilers_post_h_.gif
American Football League: 1961 AFL season, map with helmets/jerseys & final standings + offensive stats leaders; champions: Houston Oilers



By Bill Turianski on 6 December 2018; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Links…
-1961 AFL season
-1961 AFL Championship Game (en.wikipedia.org).
-1961 AFL season (pro-football-reference.com).
-1961 AFL teams’ uniforms (illustrations by Gridiron Uniforms Database at gridiron-uniforms.com/[AFL 1961]).

    The AFL (of 1960-69) had a 10-year battle with the established pro football league, the NFL.

In 1970, the AFL essentially won the battle, by virtue of the fact that the NFL allowed all 10 of the AFL franchises to join the NFL, in a full dual-league merger. Plus, the AFL won the last two match-ups with the NFL…Super Bowl III (1968 season) saw the AFL’s New York Jets beat the NFL’s Baltimore Colts, and Super Bowl IV (1969 season) saw the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs beat the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings.

The map (click on image at the top of the post)…
The map shows the primary helmets and jerseys worn by the 8 AFL teams of 1961, the second season of the American Football League (IV) (1960-69). At the lower-right of the map-page are the final standings of the 1961 AFL, along with home jerseys and helmets of the 8 AFL teams of 1961. At the bottom-right corner are the attendance figures for the 1961 AFL, with comparisons to 1960 figures. At the upper-right of the map-page are standout players for the champions, the 1961 Houston Oilers. Below that are 1961 AFL offensive leaders in the following categories: Passing Yardage, QB Rating & TD Passes: George Blanda, Houston Oilers. Rushing Yardage and Yards from Scrimmage: Billy Cannon, Houston Oilers. Receiving Yards: Charlie Hennigan, Houston Oilers. Total TDs: Bill Groman, Houston Oilers.

The AFL survived its first season of 1960 in debt, but relatively unscathed. Although there was one franchise shift in 1961 (the Los Angeles Chargers moved 120 miles south to San Diego), the 8-team AFL stayed afloat, abetted primarily by the league’s five-year television contract with ABC. In 1961, the AFL as a whole averaged 17.9 K per game, which was a slight increase of 7% from their first season (when the new league drew 16.5 K per game). The true explosion in attendance (and popularity) for the AFL was about 4 years further down the road, though. (By 1965, the AFL would have an overall league-attendance of 31 thousand per game, a figure which was led by huge, plus-40-K-size crowds in New York City and Buffalo, NY.) The AFL as a whole lost about $2 million in its second year. But that was less than half the losses of the first season. There was a definite sense that, after two seasons battling the NFL, the AFL was no longer threatened with survival. In fact, in 1961, three teams – the Boston Patriots, the Buffalo Bills, and the Houston Oilers – did not end up in the red.

Below: chart showing 1960 & 1961 AFL attendances (overall-league-average, and all 8 team-averages ([home regular season games])…
afl_1960_1961_avg-attendances_oilers_chargers_bills_texans_patriots_titans_broncos_raiders_b_.gif
Above: Attendance from: profootballresearchers.org/archives/Website_Files/Coffin_Corner/13-04-430.pdf .
Helmet-icons by: gridiron-uniforms.com. Logos via sportslogos.net. Chart by billsportsmaps.com 2018.

    In 1961, the two repeat divisional champions – the Houston Oilers and the San Diego Chargers – were also the best drawing teams.

The Chargers and the Oilers both benefited from the fact that they were from cities which, back then, had no other major-league competition [Major League Baseball would soon place teams in both cities: Houston Astros in 1962, San Diego Padres in 1969]. Both the Oilers and the Chargers drew 27.8 K per game in 1961.

Below are brief profiles of the 8 AFL teams circa 1961…

Houston Oilers.
In 1960, the powder-blue-clad Houston Oilers, drawing a solid 20 K per game, had won the first AFL title (over the Los Angeles Chargers) {1960 AFL map/season, billsportsmaps.com}. And in ’61, in the midst of securing their second-straight title, the Oilers increased their crowds by over 7 thousand per game (at a league-best 27.8 K per game). But after 5 games in the 1961 season, with the Oilers at 1-3-1, owner Bud Adams (AFL co-founder with Lamar Hunt) had fired head coach Lou Rymkus. His replacement was Wally Lemm, who led the Oilers to 9 straight wins to finish the season. And so, on Dec 24 1961, in San Diego, the Oilers faced the Chargers in the AFL title game again. Led by QB/K George Blanda and HB Billy Cannon, and a defense that only gave up 3 points on the day, the Houston Oilers repeated as champions {see illustration further below}.

In 1960, rejected NFL QB George Blanda had came out of retirement to join the Houston Oilers as a 33-year-old. Blanda had been QB/K for the Chicago Bears from 1950-58, but he retired when he learned that George Halas intended to demote him to only placekicking duties. So when the AFL got started up, Blanda realized he could get another shot as a starting QB. In 1960 and ’61, Blanda led the Houston Oilers to the first two AFL titles, setting a TD passing record that stood for 23 years. Blanda threw 36 TD passes in 1961, and was selected as the Associated Press AFL Most Valuable Player. (That 36-TD-passes record was matched by YA Tittle of the NFL’s New York Giants two years later in 1963, and was not beaten until the NFL added 2 games to the season, and was first surpassed by Dan Marino in 1984; and is now held by Tom Brady with 50 TD passes.)

Below: Hall of Fame player who was on the 1961 Houston Oilers: George Blanda (QB/K) [Blanda was 1961 AFL MVP].
houston-oilers-1961_george-blanda_hall-of-fame_d_.gif
Images above – gridiron-uniforms.com/[AFL 1961]; 1962 Fleer card at pinterest.com.

One of Blanda’s main targets as he led the Oilers to those two consecutive AFL titles was Charlie Hennigan. Hennigan was a WR who had played for a small college in Louisiana (Northwestern State), and he had never gotten a chance in the NFL (he wasn’t even drafted by an NFL team). Hennigan was working as a high school football coach and Biology teacher before the AFL came along. In 1961, Hennigan had 12 TD Receptions and had a record-setting 1,746 yards receiving that season. This was a pro football record that stood for 34 years.

Other offensive standouts for Houston in ’61, besides the record-setting Blanda and Hennigan, were…Billy Cannon (HB, with a league-best 948 yards rushing and league-2nd-best 1,534 yards from scrimmage), Charley Tolar (FB, with 796 yards from scrimmage), and Bill Groman (WR, with 1,175 yards receiving and a league-best 18 total TDs). Houston’s offense was so explosive in 1961 that the Oilers ended up scoring 100 points more than any other AFL team that season. The Oilers scored 513 points in 1961 – an average of 36.64 per game. To this day, that is the 4th-best ever in pro football. {See this chart I made from 2013: All-time top 5 pro football offenses…#1: Rams 1950; #2: Broncos 2013; #3: Patriots 2007; #4: Oilers [AFL] 1961; #5: Bears 1941.}

From 1960-64, the Oilers played at the fondly-remembered Jeppesen Stadium, which was basically a glorified high school football stadium (at 36-K-capacity). (The Houston Oilers would go on to play in the Houston Astrodome from 1968 to 1996. The franchise moved to Nashville, TN, as the Tennessee Titans, in the late-1990s.)

San Diego Chargers.
After the 1960 season, the LA Chargers had given up on trying to compete for fans with the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams. So the Chargers moved down the freeway to San Diego, into Balboa Stadium [a former racetrack], where a second deck had just been added, making it a 34-K-capacity venue. In 1961, the dark-pastel-blue-clad and gold-lightning-bolt-bedecked San Diego Chargers drew 12 thousand per game more than they had drawn in LA, in 1960. But the Chargers peaked too soon in ’61, and coasted once they’d clinched the division, and then lost to the Oilers, again, in the 1961 AFL title game. And a worrying sign was that the 1961 title game did not sell out (5 thousand tickets went unsold at Balboa Stadium on December 24th, 1961). (The Chargers, under innovative head coach Sid Gillman, would go on to appear in 3 more AFL title games [5 in total], but would only win one AFL title – in 1963, when they demolished the Patriots 51-10. The Chargers would move into the 50-K-capacity San Diego Stadium in 1967, playing there until 2016. The franchise moved back to Los Angeles in 2017.)

Below: Hall of Fame player who was on the 1961 San Diego Chargers: Ron Mix (OT).
chargers-1961_hall-of-fame_ron-mix_b_.gif
Images above – gridiron-uniforms.com/[AFL 1961]; 1961 Fleer card from amazon.com.

Buffalo Bills.
Third-best drawing AFL team in 1961 was the up-and-coming Buffalo Bills, who drew 19.0 K at the rock-pile known as War Memorial Stadium. Despite their ramshackle venue, the Buffalo Bills would increase their crowd-size significantly in the following years, up to 43 K per game, en route to their 1964 and ’65 AFL titles. Buffalo might have played in a dump, but the franchise, owned by Detroit-based auto-dealership-heir Ralph Wilson Jr, was one of the three most stable franchises in the early AFL. (The other two stable early-AFL franchises being the Dallas Texans, owned by AFL founder Lamar Hunt, and the Houston Oilers, owned by AFL co-founder Bud Adams, both of whom came from big-oil-money.) In 1961, the Bills were still wearing their original colors of dark-blue-and-silver. The following year (1962), the Bills’ introduced their red-standing-buffalo helmet-logo, and their blue-white-red colors. (The Buffalo Bills would play at War Memorial Stadium until 1972, moving into their purpose-built 80-K-capacity stadium in 1973, in suburban Orchard Park, NY, located 11 miles south-east of Buffalo. The Bills are the only NFL team to lose four consecutive Super Bowl games [1990-93 seasons].)

Below: Hall of Fame player who was on the 1961 Buffalo Bills: Billy Shaw (OG).
buffalo-bills-1961_billy-shaw_hall-of-fame_c_.gif
Images above – gridiron-uniforms.com/[AFL 1961]; 1962 Fleer card from amazon.com.

Dallas Texans.
Fourth-best drawing AFL team in 1961 was the Dallas Texans, a franchise that would end up in Kansas City, Missouri a couple years later [as the Chiefs]. The red-and-gold clad Texans had been the top draw in the AFL in the first season, drawing 24.5 K per game. This was a particularly impressive figure, when one considers the fact that the Dallas Texans of 1960 had to compete for fans with the also-brand-new NFL expansion team, the Dallas Cowboys. But by 1961, competition with the Cowboys, for the local fan-dollar, was starting to erode the Texans’ support. Attendance fell 7 K per game, to 17.5 K in 1961. Dallas Texans owner-and-league-founder Lamar Hunt was beginning to see that his upstart AFL team could not compete locally with the long-established NFL, especially if (and when) the then-basement-dwelling Cowboys improved. The Dallas Texans would go on to win the 1962 AFL title, only to up stakes and move to Kansas City in 1963. (The Kansas City Chiefs went on to win 2 AFL titles [1966 & 1969], and the Chiefs won the last game ever played by an AFL team, Super Bowl IV [Jan 1970], over the Minnesota Vikings. The Chiefs have not appeared in a Super Bowl game since then.)

Below: standout player who was on the 1961 Dallas Texans: Abner Haynes (HB) [1960 AFL MVP & 1960 AFL Rookie of the Year].
dallas-texans-1961_abner-haynes_1960-afl-mvp_b_.gif
Images above – gridiron-uniforms.com/[AFL 1961]; 1962 Fleer card from amazon.com.

Boston Patriots.
Fifth-best drawing AFL team in 1961 was the Boston Patriots, who drew almost exactly the same sized crowds in their first two seasons (16.8 K in ’60; 16.5 K in ’61). The red-white-and-blue clad Patriots played at Boston University’s Nickerson Field. In their first season, the Patriots sported a bizarre-looking helmet-logo: a blue 18th-century-style tri-corner hat, floating on a white field atop red uniform-numbers {see it in the attendance chart further above, or here, at helmethut.com}. They wisely scrapped that confusing logo, and in 1961, the Patriots introduced their new helmet logo, a Minuteman-in-a-3-point-stance-hiking-a-football (aka Pat Patriot; that logo remained up to 1992). As mentioned before, the Patriots broke even in 1961, and this was an example of the relative stability that this franchise offered to the AFL in its wild and woolly early years. But the Patriots in their first eleven years had a vagabond-like existence, playing in 4 different venues…at Boston University (1960-62), then at MLB’s Fenway Park (1963-68), then at Boston College’s Alumni Stadium [in Chestnut Hill, MA] (in 1969), and then at Harvard Stadium (in 1970). In 1971, the Patriots finally got a purpose-built stadium, Foxborough, located completely outside of Boston, 23 miles south-west of downtown Boston, and 21 miles north-east of Providence, RI [hence their name-change to a more regional moniker, the New England Patriots]. (The Patriots would not win a title until 2001, but have now won 5 Super Bowl titles [last in the 2016 season].)

Below: standout player who was on the 1961 Boston Patriots: Gino Cappelletti (SE/K) [1964 AFL MVP].
boston-patriots-1961_gino-cappelletti_b_.gif
Images above – gridiron-uniforms.com/[AFL 1961]; 1962 Fleer card from psacard.com/team-sets/1960-1969-decade-patriots.

In 1961, there were two struggling AFL franchises: Oakland and New York, plus another bad-drawing team, in Denver.
The Oakland Raiders.
The Oakland Raiders were the last AFL franchise to organize, and this hurt them considerably, because the Raiders had no time to secure a viable venue. The largest football venue on the East Bay was in Berkeley: the University of California’s 81-K-capacity Memorial Stadium. But the Cal administrators refused to let the Raiders play there. So the Raiders were forced to play in San Francisco for their first two seasons. In 1960, the black-helmeted Raiders played at the home of the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, at Kezar Stadium, and they drew just 9.4 K per game. After their first season the Raiders franchise was half-a million in debt and needed a $400,000 loan from Bills owner Ralph Wilson, Jr. to stay afloat. Then in 1961, the Raiders were forced to play at the windy and cold MLB-venue, Candlestick Park, and the Raiders drew a pathetic 7.6 K per game, and posted the league’s worst record (2-12). All this was because there was no suitable venue yet, across the Bay in Oakland. And the city of Oakland would not finish building the delay-plagued Oakland Coliseum complex for five more years. The Raiders threatened to re-locate, and the city of Oakland responded by slapping together a temporary stadium that was basically scaffolding. That was Frank Youell Field, located in a mixed-industrial area near downtown Oakland. It was supposed to be temporary, but thanks to multiple delays in the building of the Oakland Coliseum, the Raiders ended up playing at the small 22-K-capacity Youell Field for four years (1962-65) {see Raiders in the Youell Field era, in this illustration}. (Al Davis would be hired by the Raiders as head coach/GM, in January 1963, introducing the Raiders’ silver-and-black colors that year.) (The Raiders moved to Los Angeles, CA in 1982. After 13 years in LA, the Raiders moved back to Oakland, CA in 1996. The Raiders will move out of Oakland for the second time in 2019 or 2020, this time to play in Greater Las Vegas, NV. The Raiders won the 1967 AFL title, and have won 3 Super Bowl titles [last in the 1983 season].)

Below: Hall of Fame player who was on the 1961 Oakland Raiders: Jim Otto (C).
raiders-1961_jim-otto_hall-of-fame_d_.gif
Images above – gridiron-uniforms.com/[AFL 1961] ; 1963 Fleer card from marketplace.beckett.com.

New York Titans.
The NY Titans were stuck playing at the decrepit old Polo Grounds on the northern tip of Manhattan, NYC. The Titans were drawing poorly for a big-city team (at 15-K-per-game, which most observers felt was a grossly inflated figure). And the Titans ownership group was so cash-strapped that the following year, in order to meet payroll, the franchise would need big cash infusions from Dallas Texans owner-and-league-founder Lamar Hunt. (In 1963, the dark-blue-and-gold clad New York Titans franchise changed ownership, and became the green-and-white clad New York Jets. Then in 1964, the NY Jets would move out of the soon-to-be-demolished Polo Grounds, and into the big new municipal venue built by the City of New York, Shea Stadium in Queens, NYC. And in the ensuing years (1964-on), the Jets’ league-leading attendance would go on to skyrocket past 50 K per game, then past 60-K per game [and to full-capacity at Shea] by ’67. The New York Jets went on to win the 1968 AFL title, then the plucky Jets upset the NFL’s Baltimore Colts to win Super Bowl III [Jan. 1969]. The Jets have not appeared in any title game since then. The NY Jets have played in the state of New Jersey since 1984 [sharing a venue with the NY Giants].)

Below: Hall of Fame player who was on the 1961 New York Titans: Don Maynard (E).
new-york-titans-1961_hall-of-fame_don-maynard_b_.gif
Images above – gridiron-uniforms.com/[AFL 1961]. 1962 Fleer card, unattributed at pinterest.com.

Denver Broncos.
In 1961, the brown-and-mustard-yellow clad Denver Broncos were also drawing poorly, pulling in just 10.6 K per game. But time would later show that the Broncos’ sparse crowds in their first few seasons was mainly a result of how bad the team was (the Broncos went 3-11 in 1961). First proof of that was a year away: in 1962, the now-orange-and-blue clad Broncos won 4 more games, going 7-7, and drawing over 14 thousand more per game, at 25.4 K. (The Denver Broncos have remained on the same site in Denver since their inception in 1960…playing at Bears Stadium/Mile High Stadium [for 41 years up to 2000], and then at Broncos Stadium at Mile High [since 2001]. The Denver Broncos have won 3 Super Bowl titles [last in the 2015 season].)

Below: standout player who was on the 1961 Denver Broncos: Lionel Taylor (SE) [5-time All-AFL].
denver-broncos-1961_lionel-taylor_c_.gif"denver-broncos-1961_lionel-taylor_c_.gif"
Images above – gridiron-uniforms.com/[AFL 1961]; 1961 Topps card from vintagecardprices.com.

    1961 AFL Championship game (the Houston Oilers beat the Chargers in the title game, for the second straight season)…

The 1961 AFL title game was marred by poor officiating. It also featured 13 turnovers. Oilers QB George Blanda gave up 5 interceptions. But his 35 yd TD pass to Billy Cannon in the 3rd Q was the difference (see photos below). The irony was that the Houston Oilers, who had a high-powered offense that set records in 1961, won the AFL title that year thanks to a defense that kept the Chargers from scoring a TD.
http://billsportsmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/houston-oilers_1961_afl-champions_balboa-stadium_george-blanda_billy-cannon_charlie-hennigan_n_.gif
Photo and Image credits above – 1961 AFL title game at Balboa Stadium, program from afl-football.50webs.com. George Blanda scrambling, photo by Hy Peskin at hypeskin.com/1961-afl-championship-houston-oilers-at-san-diego-chargers. George Blanda [photo from 1961 AFL Title game], photo by Hy Peskin at gettyimages.com. Billy Cannon on sideline, photo by Hy Peskin at hypeskin.com. Billy Cannon making a reception, photo by David F. Smith/Associated Press via nytimes.com/2017/11/02/sports/houston-championships. Chargers coaches berate lineman, photo unattributed at goldenrankings.com/AFLchampionship1961. Los Angeles Examiner headline Dec 25 1961, “Old Pro Blanda Whips Gillman Again”, from ebay.com. George Blanda scrambling, photo unattributed at fs64sports.blogspot.com. Oilers [1960 photo] in huddle, unattributed at sportsecyclopedia.com/nfl. Charlie Hennigan, unattributed at nflpastplayers.com. Oilers players on bench [photo circa 1961], screenshot from Full Color Football #1 uploaded by TheAFLHistory at youtube.com.
__
Photo and Image credits on the map page…
Houston Oilers,
Oilers players on bench [photo circa 1961], screenshot from Full Color Football #1 uploaded by TheAFLHistory at youtube.com. Reproduction of 1960-61 Houston Oilers helmet, photo from supersportscenter.com. George Blanda [photo circa 1964], unattributed at goldenrankings.com. George Blanda [photo from 1961 AFL Title game], photo by Hy Peskin at gettyimages.com. Don Floyd [1961 Fleer card], from marketplace.beckett.com. Billy Cannon [photo circa 1961], unattributed at fanbase.com. Charley Tolar [1965 photo/re-done as quasi=1961 Fleer card], from boblemke.blogspot.com. Bill Groman [photo from 1960], photo unattributed at sportsecyclopedia.com/[Houston Oilers]. Tony Banfield [1962 Fleer card], from footballcardgallery.com. Charlie Hennigan [photo circa 1964], unattributed at crazycantoncuts.blogspot.com. Al Jemison [1962 Fleer card], from ebay.com.

Offensive stats leaders on map page,
George Blanda [photo circa 1961], photo unattributed at fs64sports.blogspot.com. Billy Cannon [photo circa 1962], from AP via chron.com/sports. Charlie Hennigan [photo from 1961 AFL title game], photo by http://hypeskin.com/wpbeta/1961-afl-championship-houston-oilers-at-san-diego-chargers//wpbeta/1961-afl-championship-houston-oilers-at-san-diego-chargers/”>hypeskin.com. Bill Groman [1961 Fleer card], from amazon.com.

Thanks to,
-Blank map by anonymous US federal government employee, at File:StatesU.svg (commons.wikimedia.org).
-Thanks to Sportslogos.net for 1960-era AFL team logos.
-Thanks to Buffalo Bills official site for original Bills logo (1960-61).
-Thanks to Infinite Jets blog for hard-to-find full-color NY Titans logo.
-Thanks to the Coffin Corner newsletter, for this pdf, profootballresearchers.org/archives/Website_Files/Coffin_Corner/13-04-430.pdf [AFL attendance by team 1960-69] .
-Thanks to the contributors at pro-football-reference.com.
-Thanks to the contributors at AFL 1961 season (en.wikipedia.org).
-Special thanks to Tim Brulia, Bill Schaefer and Rob Holecko of The Gridiron Uniform Database, for giving billsportsmaps.com the permission to use football uniforms illustrations from Gridiron Uniform Database {GUD}.

September 24, 2018

American Football League: 1960 AFL season, map with helmets/jerseys & final standings + offensive stats leaders; champions: Houston Oilers. /+ Chart of Average Attendance, NFL vs. AFL (the 10 years they were in competition: 1960-69), including NFL/AFL/Super Bowl title-winners in the 1960s.

afl_1960_1st-season_map_w-final-standings_o-stats-leaders_champions-houston-oilers_post_m_.gif
American Football League: 1960 AFL season, map with helmets/jerseys and final standings + offensive stats leaders; champions: Houston Oilers




By Bill Turianski on 24 September 2018; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Links…
-1960 AFL season
-1960 AFL Championship Game (en.wikipedia.org).
-1960 AFL season (pro-football-reference.com).

The map… The map shows the 8 teams in the inaugural season of the American Football League (IV) (1960). At the lower-right of the map-page are the final standings of the 1960 AFL, along with home jerseys and helmets of the 8 AFL teams of 1960. At the bottom-right corner are the attendance figures for the 1960 AFL. The map lists all 8 original venues of the 8 charter members of the AFL, and it shows every location that the 8 original AFL teams have played in (1960-69 in AFL, 1970-2018 in NFL). At the upper-right of the map-page are standout players for the champions, the 1960 Houston Oilers. Below that are 1960 AFL offensive leaders in the following categories: Passing Yardage, Frank Tripucka, Denver Broncos. QB Rating, Tom Flores, Oakland Raiders. TD Passes, Al Dorow, New York Titans. Rushing Yardage and Yards from Scrimmage, Abner Haynes, Dallas Texans. Receiving Yards, Bill Groman, Houston Oilers. Total TDs, Art Powell, New York Titans.

The AFL versus the NFL…
In the late 1950s, just as the NFL was becoming a vastly popular sporting entertainment to millions of Americans, here is what the 12-team NFL thought about expansion, as represented by a quote from the Washington owner George Preston Marshall: “There is no excuse for expansion in the National Football League. We furnish football now, for free, through television. Expansion can only weaken the personnel.” The AFL proved this to be a fallacy. Principal founder of the AFL Lamar Hunt, co-founder Bud Adams, the other AFL owners, and all the players who played in the AFL, would prove that there was plenty of room for more pro football teams in America.

In 1960, the AFL started with 8 teams, and the eight ownership groups were dubbed “the Foolish Club”.
To a man, the NFL front office, as well as the front offices of all the 12 established NFL teams, were quite sure the AFL would soon be a bust. But by the mid-1960s, the NFL had realized that the AFL was for real. By the close of the 1965 season, the American Football League, after 6 seasons, had basically become a significant rival to the NFL. The AFL had increased its attendance remarkably. The AFL went from averaging 16 K per game in their first season in 1960, to averaging 31 K per game five years later in 1965. The AFL’s television contract with NBC, and the several major stadiums being built for AFL teams, were indications that in the late 1965/early 1966 time period, the AFL was starting to look like it was a success, a success that could only threaten the NFL. And the AFL was planning on expansion [the Miami Dolphins joined the AFL in 1966 and the Cincinnati Bengals became the 10th AFL team in 1968].

The AFL had a ten-year battle with the NFL that saw the AFL gradually gain more popularity, as the decade of the 1960s wore on. The first indication that the new AFL might be able to challenge the NFL was when the Houston Oilers signed 1959 Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon [of LSU], despite the fact that the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams had signed Cannon two months earlier (the Oilers owner Bud Adams had offered Cannon $3,000 more per season plus a Cadillac). In June 1960, the Oilers’ record-breaking $110,000 contract with Cannon was upheld in court, and the AFL had poached the biggest prospect from out of the hands of the NFL. (The speedy Cannon went on to be the MVP of the 1960 AFL Championship Game {see illustration at the end of this post}.)

A major way in which the AFL was able grab the attention of sports fans was its style of play.
While the NFL of this era centered on the stodgy running game, the AFL was based on the decidedly more exciting passing game, throwing downfield play after play. Visionary head coach Sid Gillman of the Chargers introduced the vertical offense, stretching the football field by throwing deep downfield passes, instead of short passes. Gillman and his proteges were instrumental in making football into the modern game that it is today. But it wasn’t just the Chargers that were emphasizing the passing game in the new AFL: most teams there were doing it. And the league’s first champions, the Houston Oilers, under head coach Lou Rymkus, won titles with an aggressive passing game.

Rejected NFL QB George Blanda came out of retirement to join the Houston Oilers as a 33-year-old.
Blanda had been QB/K for the Chicago Bears from 1950-58, but he retired when he learned that George Halas intended to demote him to only placekicking duties. So when the AFL got started up, Blanda realized he could get another shot as a starting QB. And so, in 1960 and ’61, Blanda led the Houston Oilers to the first two AFL titles, setting a TD passing record that stood for 23 years. Blanda threw 36 TD passes in 1961. (That record was matched by YA Tittle of the NFL’s New York Giants two years later in 1963, and was not beaten until the NFL added 2 games to the season, and was first surpassed by Dan Marino in 1984; and is now held by Tom Brady with 50 TD passes.) One of Blanda’s main targets as he led the Oilers to those two consecutive AFL titles was Charlie Hennigan. Hennigan was a WR who had played for a small college in Louisiana (Northwestern State), and he had never gotten a chance in the NFL. He was working as a high school football coach and Biology teacher before the AFL came along. In 1961, Hennigan had 12 TD Receptions and his 1,746 yards receiving that season was a pro football record that stood for 34 years.

So much for the idea that more pro football teams circa 1960 would result in a weaker on-field product. Here were two guys – Blanda and Hennigan – who were shut out of the NFL, but who went on to glory in the new AFL, setting records that stood for decades. And again, with the record Blanda set in 1961 (as a 34-year-old), we’re talking about a record set for TD passes, one of the most exciting plays in pro sports. Here was the AFL in a nutshell: more chances for the players, and more excitement for the fans.

Average Attendance, NFL vs. AFL (the 10 years they were in competition: 1960-69); plus NFL/AFL/Super Bowl title-winners in the 1960s…
afl_vs_nfl_attendance_1960-69_title-winners_super-bowl_i-iv_winners_chart_h_.gif
Source for attendance figures: pdf at ProFootballResearchers.org [Coffin Corner newsletter, Sept 1991, by Bob Carroll], profootballresearchers.org/archives/Website_Files/Coffin_Corner/13-04-430.pdf. Helmet illustrations from gridiron-uniforms.com.

And so in the summer of 1966, the NFL headed off the threat of a mutually destructive competition between the two leagues, and negotiated a merger with the AFL. This merger created the Super Bowl in the 1967 season, setting the stage for a full AFL/NFL merger in 1970.

In 1959 there were 12 NFL teams, and absolutely no plans for expansion, despite its ever-growing popularity. And, it must be added, despite the fact that there were a whole host of cities shut out of the NFL and clamoring for expansion teams. In 1970, thanks to the success of the AFL, there were 26 NFL teams…and more to come.

In a ten-year-span, the AFL cut the crowd-size difference between the two leagues by almost ten thousand per game (9.8 K). By 1969, 7 of the 10 AFL teams were drawing over 40-K-per-game (NY Jets at 63 K, Oakland Raiders at 53 K, Kansas City Chiefs at 49 K, Denver Broncos at 46 K, San Diego Chargers at 46 K, Houston Oilers at 44 K, Buffalo Bills at 40 K). The AFL went from drawing a quasi-bush league 16.5-K-per-game in their first season, to drawing a very respectable 40.6-K-per-game in their final season of 1969. That was an increase of over 24,000 per game.
(Source: THE AMERICAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE ATTENDANCE, 1960-69 [pdf].)

And crucially, by the 1968 and 1969 seasons, the AFL became legitimate where it mattered the most…on the field.
In the end, the AFL proved to be the equal of the NFL by the very fact that the last two match-ups between an AFL team and an NFL team ended with the AFL team being the victor. In the 1968 season, the AFL’s New York Jets shocked the sporting world by beating the favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. And in the 1969 season, the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs upended the favored Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV.

So in 1970, all 10 teams of the AFL joined the NFL.
This is the only time in the 140-plus-year history of major league sports in the United States and Canada that a competing pro league was fully absorbed into the established pro league, on an equal basis, with no strings attached. Every other such major-leagues-merger was done piecemeal, where the established league got to pick and choose from the rival-league’s roster of teams, and then dictate the terms. Such as with the 8 American Association teams that joined the National League between 1887 to 1892. And such as with the 3 AAFC teams that joined the NFL in 1950. And as with the 4 ABA teams that joined the NBA in 1976. And as with the 4 WHA teams that joined the NHL in 1979. The NFL, circa the late 1950s, had bolted the door on cities like Houston and Boston and Denver and Buffalo and Oakland (and San Diego and Kansas City and Miami). But a decade later, they had to let the whole lot of them in.

57 minute video: Rebels with a Cause: the Story of the American Football League (video uploaded by FWP Film Network at youtube.com).

1960: original AFL teams from the Northeast (Boston Patriots, New York Titans, Buffalo Bills). [Boston Patriots changed name to New England Patriots in 1971; New York Titans changed name to New York Jets in 1963]. Shown on the map-segment below are all the venue-locations of the Patriots franchise, the Bills franchise, and the Titans/Jets franchise (1960-2018).
Original helmets, and primary logos, shown. With all locations the teams have played in (1960-2018).
afl-1960_boston-patriots_ny-titans_buffalo-bills_map_northeastern-usa_c_.gif

1960: original AFL teams from the Southwest (Houston Oilers, Dallas Texans [II]) [Houston Oilers (1960-96) moved to Memphis, TN (1997), and then to Nashville, TN (1998) and became the Tennessee Titans (1999); Dallas Texans (1960-62) moved to Kansas City, MO in 1963, and became the Kansas City Chiefs.].
Original helmets, and primary logos, shown. Shown on the map-segment below are all the venue-locations of the Texans/Chiefs franchise, and the Oilers/Titans franchise (1960-2018).
afl-1960_houston-oilers_dallas-texans_map_southwest-usa_c_.gif

1960: original AFL team from the Mountain West (Denver Broncos).
Original helmet, and primary logo, shown.
afl-1960_denver-broncos_map_mountain-west-usa_c_.gif

1960: original AFL teams from the West Coast (Los Angeles Chargers, Oakland Raiders) [Los Angeles Chargers (1960) moved to San Diego in 1961 (San Diego Chargers 1961-2016), and then moved back to Los Angeles in 2016; Oakland Raiders moved to Los Angeles in 1982 (Los Angeles Raiders 1982-94), and then moved back to Oakland in 1995]. Original helmets, and primary logos, shown. Shown on the map-segment below are all the venue-locations of the Chargers franchise, and the Raiders franchise (1960-2018).
afl-1960_los-angeles-chargers_oakland-raiders_map_west-coast-usa_d_.gif

    Houston Oilers, the 1960 AFL champions…

houston-oilers_1960_afl-champions_jeppesen-stadium_oilers-24_chargers-16_george-blanda_billy-cannon_k_.gif
Photo and Image credits above – Chargers and Oilers 1960 helmets/jerseys by gridiron-uniforms.com/[1960 AFL title game]. George Blanda (close-up shot) screenshot from Full Color Football #1 uploaded by TheAFLHistory at youtube.com. George Blanda takes a snap in 1960 AFL title game, photo unattributed at fs64sports.blogspot.com/2010/01/1961-oilers-defeat-chargers-for-first-[afl-title-game]. Billy Cannon, photo unattributed at fanbase.com. Blanda to Cannon for 88-yrad-TD, 3 screenshots from Full Color Football #1 uploaded by TheAFLHistory at youtube.com. Oilers 1960 uniform, illustration by Gridiron Uniforms Database: gridiron-uniforms.com/[Seasons/1960/AFL/Oilers]. Shot from Oiler 1961 training camp, photo by NFL/Getty Images via smithsonianmag.com/history/the-american-football-leagues-foolish-club.

___
Houston Oilers, on map page
Screenshot of AFL founders, Hunt and Adams, from video uploaded by Rusty Brewer at youtube.com.
Oilers players on bench [photo circa 1961], screenshot from Full Color Football #1 uploaded by TheAFLHistory at youtube.com. Reproduction of 1960-61 Houston Oilers helmet, photo from supersportscenter.com. George Blanda [image from 1962], screenshot from Full Color Football #1 uploaded by TheAFLHistory at youtube.com. George Blanda [photo circa 1961], photo unattributed at fs64sports.blogspot.com. Billy Cannon [circa 1960 photo, later colorized by John Turney], unattributed at pinterest.com but originally from nflfootballjournal.blogspot.com. Billy Cannon and Rich Michael [photo circa 1961], photo unattributed at profootballhof.com. Dave Smith [photo from 1961], photo by Hy Peskin/Getty Images via gettyimages.com. Al Jamison [1961 Fleer trading card], unattributed at pinterest.com. Mark Johnston [photo from 1960], photo by Neil Leifer/Getty Images via gettyimages.com. Bill Groman [1961 Fleer card], from amazon.com.


Offensive stats leaders on map page,
Frank Tripucka, [1961 Fleer trading card], from tradingcarddb.com. Tom Flores [1961 Fleer trading card], from footballcardgallery.com. Al Dorow [photo from 1st Titans game v Buffalo at Polo Grounds], photo by Ernie Sisto/New York Times at nytimes.com. Abner Haynes, [photo circa 1962], photo unattributed at pinterest.com. Bill Groman [photo from 1960 AFL title game (on Jan. 1 1961)], photo by Darryl Norenberg via espn.com. Art Powell [photo from 1960 versus Oilers at Polo Ground], photo by Neil Leifer/Getty Images via gettyimages.com.

Thanks to,
-Blank map by anonymous US federal government employee, at File:StatesU.svg (commons.wikimedia.org).
-Thanks to Sportslogos.net for 1960-era AFL team logos. -Thanks to Buffalo Bills official site for original Bills logo (1960-61). -Thanks to Infinite Jets blog for hard-to-find full-color NY Titans logo.
-Thanks to the Pro Football Researchers.org, via their Coffin Corner newsletter, for this THE AMERICAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE ATTENDANCE, 1960-69 [pdf].
-pro-football-reference.com.
-Thanks to the contributors at AFL 1960 season (en.wikipedia.org).
Special thanks to Tim Brulia, Bill Schaefer and Rob Holecko of The Gridiron Uniform Database, for giving billsportsmaps.com the permission to use football uniforms illustrations from Gridiron Uniform Database {GUD}.

Powered by WordPress