FOF9 -- Indiana Flyers Post-Merger
 

The year is 1970. Excitement over the AFL-NFL merger has come to a head, with four successful Super Bowl games played before the merger. The leagues decided that when they come together, they should look at all possible avenues for expansion, and accelerate the schedules so that they all happen in the inaugural season of the new combined NFL. The league will also restart the "Super Bowl" count, so that the new Super Bowl I will be played at the end of the 1970 season.

In order to maintain balance between the AFL and the NFL, each league needs to have the same number of teams. Since the NFL has 16 teams, and the AFL has 10, several proposals were made involving three teams switching from the NFL to the AFL, culminating in the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, and Pittsburgh Steelers making the move. These proposals were eventually scrapped, and it was determined that the NFL would keep all 16 of its teams, and the AFL would add six new expansion teams. This would allow the NFL to maintain its reputation as a "classic" league while the AFL could be billed as a more "modern" league. That said, the AFL now welcomes the following six expansion teams to its ranks:

1. Carolina Panthers
2. Indiana Flyers
3. Jacksonville Jaguars
4. Seattle Seahawks
5. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
6. Tennessee Titans

Also at this time, the Washington Redskins have taken this opportunity to switch to a less offensive nickname, and have changed their name to the Washington Senators, in honor of the Washington team from 1921, the first season of the NFL.

Each 16-team league will be split into two 8-team divisions, and both leagues take this chance to realign in order to obtain geographical balance. As of press time, both leagues are still deciding between a North-South or an East-West split.

Here is how the NFL would look with each split:

North -- Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers
South -- Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Colts, Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Rams, New Orleans Saints, San Francisco 49ers, St. Louis Cardinals, Washington Senators

East -- Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, Washington Senators
West -- Chicago Bears, Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Rams, Minnesota Vikings, New Orleans Saints, San Francisco 49ers, St. Louis Cardinals

And here's how the AFL would look:

North -- Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals, Denver Broncos, Indiana Flyers, Kansas City Chiefs, New York Jets, Seattle Seahawks
South -- Carolina Panthers, Houston Oilers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins, Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tennessee Titans

East -- Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, Cincinnati Bengals, Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
West -- Denver Broncos, Houston Oilers, Indiana Flyers, Kansas City Chiefs, Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers, Seattle Seahawks, Tennessee Titans

While the division alignment is not fully decided, the schedule philosophy has been set. Teams will play 16 games in 16 weeks in a schedule designed to eliminate the possibility of rematches in the Super Bowl, and minimize the possibility of them in the playoffs. In Week 1, teams will play the team that finished in the same position as them in the other division, and in Weeks 2-8, teams will play a round-robin of everyone else in their own division. The 2nd half of the schedule will be the same as the first, with home and away teams flipped. The 4 division champions will make the playoffs, and the winner of each semifinal game will advance to the Super Bowl.

The six expansion teams, having very little time to assemble a roster and coaching staff, are not expected to be competitive in this inaugural 1970 season, but hope to grow into fully functioning members of the league in time.

So I've been mostly playing FOF9 with historical data, and my goal has been to use it to create a league that's "better" than the way things are now. Mostly that's involved going back to when I was a kid, when there were 28 teams in 6 divisions that frankly made no sense. As I've played around with different schedules, it's occurred to me that when the league is structured this way, it doesn't make for evenness in scheduling. In fact, 32 is a much better number, and thinking about it, there's not much to improve on with the way divisions are set up in the current NFL -- they've moved teams around in a way that's kept everything pretty neat and organized, and the few franchise moves that have happened since that haven't really screwed it up. The only "weird" thing is Dallas being in the NFC East, and I think that's probably preferred for most people. Maybe some weirdness with the AFC North and South, but no one really cares about that.

This is actually frustrating to me, since there are things I'd like to change, but in doing so, the result is worse than the current NFL setup. I've love to move Seattle back to the AFC, but doing so just messes everything up. Seems like the NFL was pretty brilliant moving them to the NFC, since they have so few teams in the West.

So, I'm tearing the whole thing up, and trying to make things as "historically accurate" as possible, with an extremely loose version of "historically accurate" that means "if it's not the way it is now, but is the way it was sometime in the past, it's good." For example, I'm taking out the idea that Baltimore, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh joined the AFC in the merger, and keeping them in the NFL. I'm pretending the Colts never left Baltimore, the Cardinals never left St. Louis, the Rams stayed in LA, the Raiders in Oakland, etc. I'm putting all the teams that have joined since the merger in the AFC to keep the conferences even -- which means the Seahawks get to go there. It also means there's some weirdness with Carolina and Tampa Bay being in the AFC, while we have to get used to Baltimore, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh in the NFC. The Patriots will remain being Boston, not New England -- and this probably won't affect anything, but the stadiums will all be in the city instead of suburbs (I checked and couldn't find any teams that were in the suburbs in 1970, otherwise I would have kept them there). The Rams have the old "blue-and-yellow" that I'm familiar with from the 80s instead of the "blue-and-gold" they have now, but not the "blue-and-white" that they actually wore in 1970. I would have kept Washington as the Redskins since I hate the Commanders name, but I don't want to offend for the sake of some dumb dynasty on a board no one goes to anymore, so I changed it to Senators, since it looks like there was an NFL team with that name for one season in the 20s.

Another thing is that this is meant to be as interactive as possible, limited of course by how many people actually read this. I'm still torn on whether to split the conferences North-South or East-West. I feel pretty good that North-South is the way to go for the NFC -- it keeps Detroit with Chicago, Green Bay, and Minnesota, and keeps Atlanta with New Orleans. For the AFC I'm not sure. I'd love to hear thoughts or votes. And if there are any other ideas or suggestions, let me know about them, too!

Here is how the NFL would look with each split:

North -- Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers
South -- Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Colts, Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Rams, New Orleans Saints, San Francisco 49ers, St. Louis Cardinals, Washington Senators

North1
Chicago
Detroit
Minnesota
Green Bay

North2
Cleveland
New York
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh

South1
Atlanta
Baltimore
New Orleans
Washington

South2
Dallas
Los Angeles
St. Louis
San Francisco

East -- Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, Washington Senators
West -- Chicago Bears, Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Rams, Minnesota Vikings, New Orleans Saints, San Francisco 49ers, St. Louis Cardinals

East1
Atlanta
Baltimore
New York
Washington

East2
Cleveland
Detroit
Pittsburgh
Philadelphia

West1
Chicago
Green Bay
Minnesota
New Orleans

West2
Dallas
St.Louis
Los Angeles
San Francisco

And here's how the AFL would look:

North -- Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals, Denver Broncos, Indiana Flyers, Kansas City Chiefs, New York Jets, Seattle Seahawks
South -- Carolina Panthers, Houston Oilers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins, Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tennessee Titans

North1
Boston
Buffalo
Cincinnati
New York

North2
Denver
Indiana
Kansas City
Seattle

South1
Carolina
Jacksonville
Miami
Tampa Bay

South2
Houston
Oakland
San Diego
Tennessee

East -- Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, Cincinnati Bengals, Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
West -- Denver Broncos, Houston Oilers, Indiana Flyers, Kansas City Chiefs, Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers, Seattle Seahawks, Tennessee Titans

East1
Carolina
Jacksonville
Miami
Tampa Bay

East2
Boston
Buffalo
Cincinnati
New York

West1
Denver
Oakland
San Diego
Seattle

West2
Houston
Indiana
Kansas City
Tennessee

AFL is an easy, clean 3 Florida teams + Carolina no matter the divisional alignment. East/West is a cleaner, more coherent split between the West and the Central divisions, with the fourth division Rust Belty.

I hate all arrangements of the NFL divisions under that split. I'd do some swapping and rearranging to create more geographically logical divisions. You can't achieve that with the current divides.

I'm actually planning on 8-team divisions, not 4-team divisions, so there's no worry about splitting each division into 2. I'm just trying to decide between "North-South" or "East-West" for each conference. Currently, I have the AFC set up to be East-West, and the NFC set up North-South, so the standings look like this:

The 16-game schedule is that you play everyone in your division twice for 14 games, plus 2 games against the team in the other division (but same conference) that ranked the same as you. So it looks like this:

The 2 division winners play in a Conference Championship, and winners of those games play in the Super Bowl.

Are those screenshots visible to everyone? I've never posted any before, so I'm not sure that what I'm doing is working.

Screenshots are visible... 1st FOF9 dynasty!

Great, thanks! Maybe not the first yet -- I feel like it will be a while before I officially start. I have some of the easy things done -- all the teams are in the right divisions, the schedule is created, and I have all the players on the right teams (a little shuffling of team IDs was needed to take nilodor's 1970 files and set them up for a 32-team league instead of 26). I still need to:

1. Take my 1976 coaches file and alter it for 1970
2. Add some cool historical-looking logos
3. Improve accuracy of 1970 player files

I think there may be a couple other things that come up (or I remember again) along the way, too. But anyway, this thread is just a teaser to see if any discussion or interaction can be generated while we wait.

I'm looking forward to this!

Rad! Makes me wanna fire up steam