The 1968 American Football League

American Football League

The American Football League was a major American Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence...

 season was the ninth regular season of the American Football League, and its penultimate season prior to the AFL-NFL Merger

AFL-NFL Merger

The AFL–NFL merger of 1970 was the merger of the two major professional American football leagues in the United States at the time: the National Football League and the American Football League...

.

The season ended when the New York Jets

New York Jets

The New York Jets are a professional football team headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey, representing the New York metropolitan area. The team is a member of the Eastern Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...

 defeated the Oakland Raiders

Oakland Raiders

The Oakland Raiders are a professional American football team based in Oakland, California. They currently play in the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...

 in the AFL Championship Game; the Jets then defeated the National Football League

National Football League

The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

's Baltimore Colts

Indianapolis Colts

The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. They are currently members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League ....

 in Super Bowl III

Super Bowl III

Super Bowl III was the third AFL-NFL Championship Game in professional American football, but the first to officially bear the name "Super Bowl". This game is regarded as one of the greatest upsets in sports history...

 in one of the biggest sports upsets in history.

Division races

With the addition of the Cincinnati Bengals, the AFL's ten teams were grouped into two divisions. Each team would play a home-and-away game against the other four teams in its division, one game against each of the five teams in the opposite division, and a second game against one of the other division's teams.

The best team in the Eastern Division would play against the best in the Western Division in a championship game. If there was tie in the standings (as happened when Oakland and Kansas City both finished at 12-2-0), a playoff would be held to determine the division winner.

Week	EASTERN		WESTERN
1	BOSTON	1-0-0	Tie (KC, SD)	1-0-0
2	Tie (Bos, NYJ)	1-0-0	Tie (Oak, SD)	1-0-0
3	N.Y. JETS	2-0-0	Tie (Oak, SD)	2-0-0
4	Tie (Bos, NY)	2-1-0	OAKLAND	3-0-0
5	N.Y. JETS	3-1-0	OAKLAND	4-0-0
6	N.Y. JETS	3-2-0	KANSAS CITY	5-1-0
7	N.Y. JETS	4-2-0	KANSAS CITY	6-1-0
8	N.Y. JETS	5-2-0	KANSAS CITY	7-1-0
9	N.Y. JETS	6-2-0	KANSAS CITY	7-2-0
10	N.Y. JETS	7-2-0	KANSAS CITY	8-2-0
11	N.Y. JETS	7-3-0	KANSAS CITY	9-2-0
12	N.Y. JETS	8-3-0	Tie (KC, Oak)	9-2-0
13	N.Y. JETS	9-3-0	Tie (KC, Oak)	10-2-0
14	N.Y. JETS	10-3-0	Tie (KC, Oak)	11-2-0
15	N.Y. JETS	11-3-0	Tie (KC, Oak)	12-2-0

Standings http://nflhistory.net/linescores/pdf/1968a.pdf

The Cincinnati Bengals

Cincinnati Bengals

The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional football team based in Cincinnati, Ohio. They are members of the AFC's North Division in the National Football League . The Bengals began play in 1968 as an expansion team in the American Football League , and joined the NFL in 1970 in the AFL-NFL...

 joined the league as an expansion team.




* — Team qualified for Championship Game.

Italics mean team qualified for the playoffs.

Playoffs

• Western Division playoff
  • Oakland Raiders 41, Kansas City Chiefs 6, December 22, 1968, Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum
    McAfee Coliseum
    O.co Coliseum is a multi-purpose stadium, located in Oakland, California, in the Coliseum Industrial area...
    
    , Oakland, California
    Oakland, California
    Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
    
    
• AFL Championship Game
  • New York Jets 27, Oakland Raiders 23, December 29, 1968, Shea Stadium
    Shea Stadium
    William A. Shea Municipal Stadium, usually shortened to Shea Stadium or just Shea , was a stadium in the New York City borough of Queens, in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. It was the home baseball park of Major League Baseball's New York Mets from 1964 to 2008...
    
    , New York City
    New York City
    New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
    
    

• Super Bowl III
  Super Bowl III
  Super Bowl III was the third AFL-NFL Championship Game in professional American football, but the first to officially bear the name "Super Bowl". This game is regarded as one of the greatest upsets in sports history...
  
  
  • N.Y. Jets (AFL) 16, Baltimore Colts (NFL) 7, at Orange Bowl, Miami, Florida
    Miami, Florida
    Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
    
    

External links

• Football Database