1966 American Football League Championship Game
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| Date | January 1, 1967 | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Stadium | War Memorial Stadium, Buffalo, New York | ||||||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 42,080 | ||||||||||||||||||
| TV in the United States | |||||||||||||||||||
| Network | NBC | ||||||||||||||||||
| Announcers | Curt Gowdy, Paul Christman, and Pat Hernon | ||||||||||||||||||
The 1966 American Football League Championship Game was the seventh AFL championship game, played at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo, New York, on January 1, 1967.
It matched the Western Division champion Kansas City Chiefs (11–2–1) and the Eastern Division champion Buffalo Bills (9–4–1) to decide the American Football League (AFL) champion for the 1966 season.
The host Bills entered as two-time defending champions, but the visiting Chiefs were three-point favorites, mainly because of their explosive and innovative offense led by head coach Hank Stram. The Bills were a more conventional team with a solid defensive line and a running mindset on offense. The two teams had split their season series, played early in the schedule without weather as a factor, with the road team winning each.
The Chiefs defeated the Bills by a score of 31–7, and advanced to Super Bowl I to play against the National Football League (NFL) champion Green Bay Packers.
The game was originally scheduled for Monday, December 26, the week after the conclusion of the regular season. The AFL–NFL merger agreement of June 1966 called for a "world championship game" between the league champions. When a date of January 15, 1967, was established, the AFL title game was moved to January 1, same as the NFL championship game in Dallas.
Like the NFL, the host team for the title game was alternated between the divisions, with the Eastern hosting in even-numbered years and the Western in odd. Home-field advantage was not adopted until 1975.
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