1965 American Football League Championship Game
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| Date | December 26, 1965 | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Stadium | Balboa Stadium, San Diego, California | ||||||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 30,361 | ||||||||||||||||||
| TV in the United States | |||||||||||||||||||
| Network | NBC | ||||||||||||||||||
| Announcers | Curt Gowdy, Paul Christman, and Charlie Jones | ||||||||||||||||||
The 1965 American Football League Championship Game was the sixth AFL championship game, played on December 26 at Balboa Stadium in San Diego, California.
It matched the Western Division champion San Diego Chargers (9–2–3) and the Eastern Division champion Buffalo Bills (10–3–1) to decide the American Football League (AFL) champion for the 1965 season.
The defending champion Bills entered the game as 6½ point underdogs; the Chargers had won the first regular season meeting on October 10 by a convincing 34–3 score and tied the Thanksgiving rematch 20–20.
In favorable 60 °F (16 °C) conditions on the day after Christmas, the Bills shut out the Chargers and repeated as champions, scoring two touchdowns in the second quarter, one on a punt return. They added three field goals in the second half to win 23–0. Of the ten AFL title games, this was the only shutout.
This was the last AFL Championship to end the season; the first Super Bowl followed the 1966 season.
The AFL still had five game officials in 1965; the NFL added a sixth official this season, the line judge. The AFL went to six officials in 1966, and the seventh official, the side judge, was added in 1978.
Referee Jim Barnhill died less than three months after this game; while officiating a high school basketball playoff game in Wisconsin, he collapsed and died at age 45.
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