2014 NFL season
The 2014 NFL season was the 95th season in the history of the National Football League (NFL) and the 49th of the Super Bowl era. The season began on Thursday, September 4, 2014, with the annual kickoff game featuring the defending Super Bowl XLVIII champion Seattle Seahawks hosting the Green Bay Packers, which resulted with the Seahawks winning. The season concluded with Super Bowl XLIX, the league's championship game, on Sunday, February 1, 2015, at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, with the New England Patriots defeating the Seahawks, in one of the closest games in Super Bowl history.
This article is about the American football season in the United States. For the Gaelic football season in Ireland, see 2014 National Football League (Ireland).Regular season
September 4 – December 28, 2014
January 3, 2015
February 1, 2015
January 25, 2015
Some notable events of the season include every team losing at least 4 games, the Carolina Panthers going to the playoffs despite having a losing record, the NFC Championship Game where the Seahawks would make a comeback against the Packers, and Super Bowl XLIX where the Patriots intercepted the ball at the one yard line and win the game.
New referees[edit]
Referees Scott Green and Ron Winter retired after the 2013 season. Ron Torbert, who spent the past four seasons as a side judge, and Craig Wrolstad, who spent the past 11 seasons as a field judge, were promoted to referee to replace Green and Winter. On June 25, 2014, the NFL announced Mike Carey's retirement as a referee. Like former director of officiating Mike Pereira for Fox Sports, Carey will become the rules/refereeing analyst for CBS's NFL coverage on the network's Thursday night and Sunday afternoon games. He was replaced by Brad Allen, who spent the past nine seasons as an ACC referee. He was the first rookie NFL referee since 1962 when Tommy Bell was hired as a referee straight out of the Southeastern Conference. (NFL officials normally spend at least their first season in another position than head referee.) In addition to promoting Allen, Torbert, and Wrolstad to the referee position, ten new officials were hired, including Shawn Hochuli, son of referee Ed Hochuli.[29]
Preseason[edit]
Training camps for the 2014 season were held in late July through August. Teams may start training camp no earlier than 15 days before the team's first scheduled preseason game.[1]
Prior to the start of the regular season, each team played four preseason exhibition games. The preseason schedule got underway with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game on Sunday evening, August 3. The Hall of Fame game is a traditional part of the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame induction weekend celebrating new Hall of Fame members. It was played at Fawcett Stadium which is located adjacent to the Hall of Fame building in Canton, Ohio. The game, which was televised in the U.S. on NBC, featured the New York Giants and Buffalo Bills, with the Giants winning 17–13.[53] Continuing the recent trend of scheduling teams that are associated with former players being inducted into the Hall, the 2014 class included former Giants defensive end Michael Strahan and former Bills wide receiver Andre Reed. The others who were inducted into the Hall of Fame are linebacker Derrick Brooks, punter Ray Guy, defensive end Claude Humphrey, offensive tackle Walter Jones, and defensive back Aeneas Williams.[54] The 65-game preseason schedule wrapped up on Thursday, August 28, a week before the start of the regular season.[55]
Media[edit]
2014 was the first season under a nine-year television contract with CBS (almost all AFC afternoon away games), Fox (almost all NFC afternoon away games), NBC (Sunday Night Football games, Thanksgiving night game, and the Kickoff game); and an eight-year contract with ESPN (Monday Night Football games).[293][294] Among the changes from the previous television contracts were allowing games to be "cross-flexed" between CBS and Fox, enabling CBS to televise NFC away games, and Fox to broadcast AFC away games (see above). NBC was given the rights to broadcast a Divisional playoff game, and their Spanish language sister network Mun2 simulcasted select NBC games, with Spanish language graphics and play-by-play during the Thanksgiving game; Mun2 changed their branding to the more sports-centric NBC Universo with their Spanish simulcast of Super Bowl XLIX. The contract also allowed ESPN to televise a Wild Card playoff game (which, like other NFL games carried on cable, was simulcast on an over-the-air station in each of the team's primary market).[293] In addition, ESPN began exclusively televising all Pro Bowls for the next eight seasons.
Under a new, one-year contract, CBS also took over the production of Thursday Night Football and aired the first eight games of the package, plus half of a Week 16 Saturday doubleheader, in simulcast with NFL Network. The arrangement was meant to bring more prominence and higher production values to TNF, which had historically hosted the league's least-watched primetime games.[295][296] As part of the arrangement, CBS affiliates were given the right of first refusal to air the required local simulcasts of TNF games solely broadcast elsewhere by NFL Network.[69][297] The agreement was renewed for the 2015 season.[298]
CBS made several personnel changes following the retirements of Don Criqui, Marv Albert, and Dan Dierdorf from the NFL broadcast booth. Brian Anderson and Tom McCarthy joined as play-by-play announcers, while Chris Simms (Phil Simms' son) and Trent Green joined as color commentators, both of whom come over from Fox Sports. CBS used a three-man announcing crew of Andrew Catalon, Steve Beuerlein and Steve Tasker on select regional NFL games, a departure from the typical practice of reserving three-man crews for national and high-profile contests.[299] Mike Carey joined the broadcast team as the network's in-house rules expert.[300] Jim Nantz and Phil Simms handled play-by-play for the Thursday Night Football games.[295] There were also changes to The NFL Today, as Shannon Sharpe and Dan Marino both left the panel, replaced by Bart Scott and Tony Gonzalez.[301]
On Fox, the most notable personnel change was the demotion of Pam Oliver, the network's top sideline reporter for nearly 20 years, to the second broadcast team as Erin Andrews took over the spot on the first broadcast team. 2014 was Oliver's last year covering NFL games for Fox.[302] Other personnel changes include the additions of Donovan McNabb, David Diehl, Kirk Morrison, and Brendan Ayanbadejo to Fox's stable of color commentators, replacing outgoing commentators Tom McCarthy, Brian Billick and Tim Ryan.[303] Brady Quinn also joined the Fox stable. Also briefly joining Fox's play-by-play stable was UFC announcer Mike Goldberg; Goldberg's time doing NFL telecasts was cut short after one game, and he was replaced by Tim Brando, who came over from CBS.[304]