This required considerable effort during those years in which Christmas fell on a Saturday or a Sunday, given that ordinarily those days would be days in which NFL playoff games were to be held.
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As a result, the NFL decided to not schedule any Christmas Day games for the next 17 seasons. The league also came under fire from some quarters for intruding on a traditional religious and family holiday, and a Kansas state legislator proposed a bill to ban the scheduling of future games on December 25.
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Because of the length of the latter game, the NFL received numerous complaints, reportedly due to the fact that it caused havoc with Christmas dinners around the nation. The first two games of the Divisional Playoff Round were held on Christmas Day the first of these was between the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings, while the second of the two contests played that afternoon, the Miami Dolphins versus the Kansas City Chiefs, wound up being the longest game in NFL history. The first NFL games actually played on December 25 came after the merger, during the 1971–72 NFL playoffs. The AFL had scheduled the 1966 championship game for Monday afternoon December 26, but when the two leagues agreed to merge in 1970 and play a " World Championship game" starting with the 1966 season, the AFL game was moved back to Sunday, January 1. (The NFL's 1966 championship game was also held on Sunday, January 1, 1967, two weeks after the end of the regular season.) New Year's Day was an available day since the college bowl games are moved back to Monday, January 2 in years in which January 1 falls on a Sunday.
Where was the first mnf game full#
The American Football League compensated differently: the 1960 championship game was moved back by a full week, being played on New Year's Day 1961, with Christmas Sunday being an off-week. If that Sunday fell on Christmas Day December 25, the league preferred to move it to the following day, Monday, December 26 this rescheduling occurred for both the 1955 and the 1960 championship games. The 1943 NFL Championship Game, played on December 26 of that year because of scheduling complications brought on by World War II, was the first regulation NFL game to be played on or after Christmas.įrom 1943 until the 1970 AFL-NFL Merger, the NFL regular season usually ended in mid-December, with the NFL Championship Game being held on the Sunday two weeks later. Once league schedules were standardized in the 1930s, the NFL Championship Game was typically held in mid-December.
Where was the first mnf game professional#
In the earliest days of professional football, the season typically ended near the end of November (marquee games were often played on Thanksgiving) or in the first week of December, depending on the team exhibition games would then be held in the winter. This provides a window of roughly 20 hours of local time, spanning late Christmas Eve into Christmas Day, in which the league will not play. In rare cases when a game must be played on the evening of Christmas Eve, the game is typically hosted by a west coast team so that the game takes place in the late afternoon there, and likewise, games played in the late afternoon on Christmas Day are hosted in either the Eastern or Central time zones so that they do not start before 3:30 p.m. This situation most recently occurred in 2016 and will next occur again in 2022. If Christmas falls on a Sunday, the normal Sunday afternoon games are moved to Saturday, Christmas Eve, and one-three games are scheduled for Christmas night to be broadcast nationally. The NFL has generally scheduled games on Christmas Day only if it falls on Thursday-Monday. Two games were played each Christmas Day from 2004 to 2006 and then from 2016 to 2017. Since then, the NFL has held occasional games on Christmas Day in some years, as part of week 16 or 17 of the regular season. In contrast to Thanksgiving Day games, however, they are not an annual occurrence as of 2021, there have been 24 Christmas Day games in the NFL's history.Īfter the NFL held two Divisional Playoff games on Christmas Day in 1971, the league avoided any more games on Christmas Day until 1989.
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For games airing under NFL Christmas Special branding, see NFL Network Special.Ĭhristmas Day and Christmas Eve games in the National Football League (NFL) are an occasional part of the league's schedule. VIKINGS is a registered trademark of the Minnesota Vikings LLC.This article is about general NFL games on Christmas. This site is neither endorsed, nor sponsored by, nor affiliated with Minnesota Vikings or NFL Properties LLC. Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy.