1970 NFL season
| Regular season | |
|---|---|
| Duration | September 18 – December 20, 1970 |
| Playoffs | |
| Start date | December 26, 1970 |
| AFC Champions | Baltimore Colts |
| NFC Champions | Dallas Cowboys |
| Super Bowl V | |
| Date | January 17, 1971 |
| Site | Miami Orange Bowl, Miami, Florida |
| Champions | Baltimore Colts |
| Pro Bowl | |
| Date | January 24, 1971 |
| Site | Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum |
The 1970 NFL season was the 51st regular season of the National Football League, and the first one after the AFL–NFL merger. The season concluded with Super Bowl V when the Baltimore Colts beat the Dallas Cowboys 16-13 at the Miami Orange Bowl. The Pro Bowl took place on January 24, 1971, where the NFC beat the AFC 27-6 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
The merger forced a realignment between the combined league's clubs. Because there were 16 NFL teams and 10 AFL teams, three teams needed to transfer to balance the two new conferences at 13 teams each. In May 1969, the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, and the Pittsburgh Steelers agreed to join all ten AFL teams to form the American Football Conference (AFC). The remaining NFL teams formed the National Football Conference (NFC).
Replacing the old Eastern and Western conferences (although divisions from those conferences still existed but were renamed to suit the realignment), the new conferences, AFC and NFC, function similar to Major League Baseball's American and National leagues, and each of those two were divided into three divisions: East, Central, and West. The two Eastern divisions had five teams; the other four divisions had four teams each. The realignment discussions for the NFC were so contentious that the final plan was selected from a vase in January 1970.
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