2010 National Football League season
| Regular season | |
|---|---|
| Duration | September 9, 2010 – January 2, 2011 |
| Playoffs | |
| Start date | January 8, 2011 – January 23, 2011 |
| AFC Champions | Pittsburgh Steelers |
| NFC Champions | Green Bay Packers |
| Super Bowl XLV | |
| Date | February 6, 2011 |
| Site | Cowboys Stadium, Arlington, Texas |
| Champions | Green Bay Packers |
| Pro Bowl | |
| Date | January 30, 2011 |
| Site | Aloha Stadium, Halawa, Honolulu, Hawaii |
The 2010 NFL season was the 91st regular season of the National Football League.
The regular season began with the NFL Kickoff game on NBC on Thursday, September 9, at the Louisiana Superdome as the New Orleans Saints, Super Bowl XLIV champions, defeated the Minnesota Vikings 14–9.
Tom Brady, quarterback of the New England Patriots, was named MVP for the 2010 season. In Super Bowl XLV, the League's championship game played at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, the Green Bay Packers defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers 31–25 to win their fourth Super Bowl. spoiling the Steelers chance for a 7th title. This season also marked the first full-length season in which a team with a losing record made the playoffs, when the Seattle Seahawks won the NFC West with a 7–9 record, after defeating the St. Louis Rams in week 17 to clinch the division title. One week later, the Seahawks dethroned the defending champion New Orleans Saints in the Wild Card round, to become the first ever sub .500 playoff team to win a postseason game.
The 2010 regular season was the first year that the league used a modified version of the scheduling formula that was first introduced in 2002, in which all teams play each other at least once every four years, and play in every other team's stadium at least once every eight years (notwithstanding the regular season games played overseas as part of the NFL International Series). Under the original 2002 formula, since the pairings were strictly based on alphabetical order, those teams scheduled to play the entire AFC West had to travel to both Oakland and San Diego in the same season, while those teams playing the entire NFC West had to make their way to both San Francisco and Seattle. In 2008, the New England Patriots and New York Jets each had to make cross-country trips to all four of the aforementioned West Coast teams. In an effort to relieve east coast teams from having to travel to the West Coast multiple times during the same season, teams will only have to visit one West Coast team (AFC West or NFC West), plus one western team from the same division closer to the Midwest, under the 2010 modified formula. Specifically, those teams traveling to Oakland will now also play at Denver, while those playing at San Diego will also play at Kansas City. For teams scheduled to play the NFC West, those traveling to San Francisco will also go to Arizona, while those scheduled to play in Seattle would initially also travel to St. Louis.
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