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1997 NFL season

The 1997 NFL season was the 78th regular season of the National Football League (NFL). The Oilers relocated from Houston, Texas to Nashville, Tennessee. The newly renamed Tennessee Oilers played their home games during this season at the Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Memphis, Tennessee while construction of a new stadium in Nashville started. Houston would rejoin the NFL with the expansion Texans in 2002.

Regular season

August 31 – December 22, 1997

December 27, 1997

Denver Broncos

Green Bay Packers

January 25, 1998

Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego, California

Denver Broncos

February 1, 1998

Aloha Stadium

This would be the only season between 1989 and 2002 in which a game ended in a tie, and the last season where two occurred in the same season until 2016.


Due to Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, the Chicago Bears–Miami Dolphins game at Pro Player Stadium was delayed one day to Monday, October 27.


The season ended with Super Bowl XXXII when the Denver Broncos defeated the Green Bay Packers 31–24 at Qualcomm Stadium. This broke the National Football Conference (NFC)'s streak of thirteen consecutive Super Bowl victories, the last American Football Conference (AFC) win having been the Los Angeles Raiders defeating the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl XVIII.

February 1, 1997: Four-time Super Bowl starting quarterback Jim Kelly announces his retirement from the Buffalo Bills. .

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Referee changes[edit]

Red Cashion and Howard Roe retired. Bill Carollo and Phil Luckett were promoted to referee.

When a team fakes a punt and throws the ball downfield, pass interference will not be called on the two outside defenders who are actually trying to block a coverage man from getting downfield and might not even know the ball has been thrown.

In order to reduce taunting and excessive celebrations, no player may remove his helmet while on the playing field except during timeouts, between quarters, and in the case of an injury. Violating the rule results in a 15-yard penalty. This is known as the " rule" after the Dallas Cowboys' running back's habit of taking his helmet off every time he scored a touchdown.

Emmitt Smith

Preseason[edit]

American Bowl[edit]

A series of National Football League pre-season exhibition games that were held at sites outside the United States. Three were contested in 1997, including the defending Super Bowl XXXI champion Green Bay Packers competing in Toronto.

: Two games were played on Thursday, November 27, featuring the Chicago Bears at the Detroit Lions and the Tennessee Oilers at the Dallas Cowboys, with the Lions and Oilers winning.

Thanksgiving

– Dick Vermeil; replaced Rich Brooks who was fired after the 1996 season.

St. Louis Rams

– Mike Ditka; replaced interim head coach Rick Venturi who replaced the resigning Jim Mora that same year.

New Orleans Saints

– Jim Fassel; replaced Dan Reeves who was fired after the 1996 season.

New York Giants

– Dan Reeves; replaced June Jones who was fired after the 1996 season.

Atlanta Falcons

– Bill Parcells; replaced Rich Kotite who was fired after the 1996 season.

New York Jets

– Bobby Ross; replaced Wayne Fontes who was fired after the 1996 season.

Detroit Lions

– Steve Mariucci; replaced George Seifert who resigned after the 1996 season.

San Francisco 49ers

– Pete Carroll; replaced Bill Parcells who accepted the job to coach the Jets.

New England Patriots

– Joe Bugel; replaced Mike White who was fired after the 1996 season.

Oakland Raiders

– Kevin Gilbride; replaced Bobby Ross who resigned after the 1996 season.

San Diego Chargers

: Jacksonville Municipal Stadium was renamed Alltel Stadium after the communications company Alltel acquired the naming rights

Jacksonville Jaguars

: Jack Murphy Stadium was renamed Qualcomm Stadium after the tech company Qualcomm acquired the naming rights

San Diego Chargers

: The relocated Oilers moved from Houston's Astrodome to the Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Memphis

Tennessee Oilers

: The Redskins moved from RFK Stadium to Jack Kent Cooke Stadium in the Maryland suburbs, named in memory of team owner Jack Kent Cooke

Washington Redskins

The added new striping on pants, and switched from black to red numbers on the white jerseys.

Atlanta Falcons

The switched to a new numbers style with shadows in the back. White pants were worn with their purple jerseys instead of black pants.

Baltimore Ravens

The started to use a brighter shade of orange on their uniforms. A secondary logo featuring a leaping tiger was added to the jersey sleeves, and another secondary logo with Bengal's head was also introduced.

Cincinnati Bengals

The introduced new uniforms, changing their primary color from orange to navy blue, and their royal blue helmets to navy blue. The design featured a streak running down the sides of both the jerseys and the pants: orange on the blue jerseys and blue on the white jerseys. The "D" logo with the horse coming out of it was retired in favor of a horse head with blue outlines and an orange mane.

Denver Broncos

The reduced the number of sleeve stripes from five to three.

Green Bay Packers

The switched from block numbers to a new style font, and added black side panels to the jerseys.

Jacksonville Jaguars

The introduced new uniforms featuring a darker shade of aqua and new shadows in the numbers. The dolphin in the helmet logo was also darkened and resigned to give it a more serious expression.

Miami Dolphins

The discontinued wearing green pants with their white jerseys, and wore white pants for all games regardless of their jersey.

New York Jets

The switched from block to Futura Bold Condensed numbers and names on back on the jerseys, matching the number font on the back of their helmets. A Steelers logo patch was also added to the left side of all jerseys, as an alternative to "fixing" the traditional "missing" logo on the helmet's right side. To celebrate the team's 75th anniversary season, the Steelers introduced 1960s-era throwback uniforms with black jerseys, gold numbers and helmets, and white pants. The nameplate on the white jerseys was made solid black.

Pittsburgh Steelers

The added the eagles head logo to the white jersey sleeves (they only did it to the green jerseys in 1996)

Philadelphia Eagles

The wore white pants instead of navy blue with their white jerseys.

San Diego Chargers

The removed the gold trim on nameplates to just plain black.

San Francisco 49ers

The introduced new uniforms, changing their primary color from orange to red, and their white helmets and pants to pewter. Black and orange became trim colors. They also replaced the "Bucco Bruce" helmet logo with a red wind-swept flag featuring a white pirate skull and crossed sabres similar to a Jolly Roger.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The relocated began wearing an alternative logo on the left side of all jerseys that combined their oil rig derrick logo with elements from the flag of Tennessee.

Tennessee Oilers

Television[edit]

This was the fourth and final year under the league's four-year broadcast contracts with ABC, Fox, NBC, TNT, and ESPN. ABC, Fox, and NBC continued to televise Monday Night Football, the NFC package, the AFC package, respectively. Sunday night games aired on TNT during the first half of the season, and ESPN during the second half of the season. This was the last season to date that TNT broadcast NFL games, as well as the last for NBC until 2006. When the new TV contracts were signed near the end of the season, Fox retained the NFC package, CBS took over the AFC package, and ESPN won the right to televise all of the Sunday night games.


With Mike Ditka becoming the new head coach of the New Orleans Saints, Sam Wyche was named to replace him on The NFL on NBC pregame show. NBC fired Marv Albert following Week 3 due to sexual assault charges against him; Tom Hammond replaced Albert as the network's #2 play-by-play announcer.


For TNT's final season, Mark May joined Verne Lundquist and Pat Haden in a three-man booth.

Football Outsiders 1997 DVOA Ratings and Commentary

"The Official national Football League: 1998 Record and Fact Book." Workman Publishing Co. New York. July 1998.

NFL Record and Fact Book ( 1-932994-36-X)

ISBN

(Last accessed October 17, 2005)

NFL History 1991–2000

Total Football: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League ( 0-06-270174-6)

ISBN

(Last accessed October 17, 2005)

Steelers Fever – History of NFL Rules