1997 NFL season


The 1997 NFL season was the 78th regular season of the National Football League. 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.
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 's streak of thirteen consecutive Super Bowl victories, the last American Football Conference win having been the Los Angeles Raiders defeating the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl XVIII.

Player movement

Retirements

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

Draft

The 1997 NFL draft was held from April 19 to 20, 1997, at New York City's Theater at Madison Square Garden. With the first pick, the St. Louis Rams selected offensive tackle Orlando Pace from Ohio State University.

Referee changes

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

Major rule changes

  • 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.

Preseason

American Bowl

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.
DateWinning teamScoreLosing teamScoreStadiumCity
July 27, 1997Pittsburgh Steelers30Chicago Bears17Croke Park

Hall of Fame Game

The Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, in which the Minnesota Vikings defeated the Seattle Seahawks 28–26, was played on July 26, and held at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio, the same city where the league was founded. The 1997 Hall of Fame Class included Mike Haynes, Wellington Mara, Don Shula and Mike Webster.

Regular season

Scheduling formula

Highlights of the 1997 season included:

Tiebreakers

  • Miami finished ahead of NY Jets in the AFC East based on head-to-head sweep.
  • Pittsburgh finished ahead of Jacksonville in the AFC Central based on better net division points.
  • Oakland finished ahead of San Diego in the AFC West based on better division record.
  • San Francisco was the top NFC playoff seed based on better conference record than Green Bay.
  • Detroit finished ahead of Minnesota in the NFC Central based on head-to-head sweep.
  • Carolina finished ahead of Atlanta in the NFC West based on head-to-head sweep.

Coaching changes

Stadium changes

New uniforms

  • The Atlanta Falcons added new striping on pants, and switched from black to red numbers on the white jerseys.
  • The Baltimore Ravens switched to a new numbers style with shadows in the back. White pants were worn with their purple jerseys instead of black pants.
  • The Cincinnati Bengals 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.
  • The Denver Broncos 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, which will remain the same until the end of the 2023 season.
  • The Green Bay Packers reduced the number of sleeve stripes from five to three.
  • The Jacksonville Jaguars switched from block numbers to a new style font, and added black side panels to the jerseys.
  • The Miami Dolphins 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.
  • The New York Jets discontinued wearing green pants with their white jerseys, and wore white pants for all games regardless of their jersey.
  • The Pittsburgh Steelers 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.
  • The Philadelphia Eagles added the eagles head logo to the white jersey sleeves
  • The San Diego Chargers wore white pants instead of navy blue with their white jerseys.
  • The San Francisco 49ers removed the gold trim on nameplates to just plain black.
  • The Tampa Bay Buccaneers 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.
  • The relocated Tennessee Oilers 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.

Television

This was the fourth and final season under the NFL'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 television 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.