The STUPIDEST PLAYOFF TIEBREAKER in NFL/AFL HISTORY | 1968 AFL

Imagine a coin flip determining which team had home field advantage throughout the postseason. As stupid as that sounds, back in 1968 in the American Football League, this happened. In 1968, home field in the AFL West playoff game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders was determined by a coin flip. And the ramifications of that coin toss were huge. This is the story behind that
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#nfl #afl #nflplayoffs #chiefs #kansascitychiefs #kcchiefs #raiders #lasvegasraiders #nflthrowback #sports #football #highlights
Members of the 1968 Chiefs:
Noland Smith
Jan Stenerud
Mike Livingston
Jacky Lee
Len Dawson
Jack Gehrke
Emmitt Thomas
Goldie Sellers
Mike Garrett
Willie Mitchell
Bert Coan
Ceasar Belser
Frank Pitts
Paul Lowe
Gloster Richardson
Curtis McClinton
Wendell Hayes
Johnny Robinson
Jerrel Wilson
Robert Holmes
Jim Kearney
Sam Longmire
Jim Lynch
Bud Abell
EJ Holub
Dave Martin
George Daney
Curley Culp
Willie Lanier
Curt Merz
Remi Prudhomme
Ed Budde
Dave Hill
Jerry Mays
Mo Moorman
Jim Tyrer
Bobby Bell
Reggie Carolan
Ed Lothamer
Fred Arbanas
Chuck Hurston
Buck Buchanan
Aaron Brown
Otis Taylor
Ernie Ladd
Hank Stram (head coach)
Lamar Hunt (owner)
Members of the 1968 Raiders:
Jim Otto
Daryle Lamonica
Eldridge Dickey
Mike Elscheid
George Blanda
Cotton Davidson
Warren Powers
Rodger Bird
Larry Todd
Charlie Smith
Willie Brown
Fred Biletnikoff
Nemiah Wilson
Howie Williams
Roger Hagberg
Billy Cannon
Gus Otto
Hewritt Dixon
Preston Ridlehuber
Pete Banaszak
John Roderick
George Atkinson
Dave Grayson
Kent McCloguhan
Bill Budness
Duane Benson
Jerry Hopkins
Dan Birdwell
Dan Conners
Chip Oliver
Dave Ogas
Bob Kruse
Gene Upshaw
Wayne Hawkins
Jim Harvey
Al Dotson
Bob Syihus
Ike Lassiter
Art Shell
Harry Schuh
Karl Rubke
Warren Wells
John Eason
Ben Davidson
Carleton Oats
Bill Fairband
Dave Kocourek
Bill Miller
John Rauch (head coach)
Al Davis (owner)

[@epholson97]

It's amazing how many of these types of stories there have been in NFL history. What's even more amazing is how familiar you are with what seems to be, all of them! Greatly appreciate another great & informative video! Best channel on KZbin!

[@TheAlfrulz]

Another stupid thing from the 1968 playoffs was home field advantage for the AFL championship was determined on a divisional rotating basis. So the 12-2 Raiders had to travel to NY to face the 11-3 Jets. The Jets won 27-23. I'm sure it didn't help Oakland to have to play a special one game playoff with KC, then travel cross country to play the well rested Jets, who had the previous week off. But that was the norm of the time. Your record didn't matter after the regular season ended. The 1968 AFL and NFL championship games was going to be hosted by the Eastern division/ conference champion no matter what.

[@Rockhound6165]

Wasn't the first time. The 1972 AFC Championship game was the 15-0 Miami Dolphins @ the 12-3 Pittsburgh Steelers.

[@davidcobb2693]

Not only did Oakland have a better record than NY, the "Heidi" game was their only regular season meeting in 1968, the game should have been played in Oakland.

[@bucksdiaryfan]

That was the same for the NFL, and it skewed the championship for the 39 years it was in effect. The home team won 71% of the time. To illustrate the unfairness, the ceremonial home field team in the Super Bowl has a losing record. Point being, the arbitrary nature of homefield advantage skewed the championship team

[@denisceballos9745]

I like the way JG9 includes newspaper clippings from the time, in this case, the Desert Sun. He must have a couple of good research interns working over there. 👍

[@morghenmurdochlundgren8640]

Too bad the Chiefs couldn't have improved their odds on the coin flip by Spiking The Coin on every down,I mean flip.

[@raytaylor6412]

Another coin flip situation that happened: the Milwaukee Bucks won a coin flip in 1969 against the Phoenix Suns to get the number one pick in the upcoming draft and select Lew Alcindor, later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Who NBA history have been altered if the Suns had won the coin flip?

[@jsivco3sivco785]

The Phila. 76ers lost out on Bill Walton on a flip with Portland in 1974. In 1977, Walton's Trailblazers beat Philly in the NBA finals. 🙁

[@jeffanderson3962]

Blazers also lost out on Akeem Olajuwon to Houston in a 1984 flip. We know the rest of that story for those two teams as well as the Bulls.

[@andrewarmstrong7254]

The weirdest part of this video was the Lions making the Playoffs.

[@johnhardman825]

The Cowboys beat the Loins 5-0 in the playoffs in Dallas. I work that game and my job was over by the 1st quarter and I got to see the game free.

[@johnreese3797]

The playoff format has always had it's quirks. Seeding wasn't introduced until 1975 but even then it was rarely 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3. That's because from 1970-77 the league had a rule that 2 teams from the same division couldn't meet until the conference championship. This was somewhat rectified in 1978 when a second wild card team was added. However those teams could only play each other in the wildcard game but not the divisional round. They finally got rid of that rule in 1990 with the addition of a third wild card team but even then you often had a situation where a wildcard team had a better record than a division winner and the wildcard was seeded lower.

[@DanielJohn2300]

That hit at 7:56 would definitely be a penalty today.

[@denisceballos9745]

Yes, that’s 6’4, 252# DE Jerry Mays (75) with a helmet-to-helmet hit on QB Tom Sherman (14). Play continued. It was a different game for QBs back then.

[@pronkb000]

Little-known fact: the AFL's legal counsel responsible for this mess was a little-known upstart attorney named Harvey Dent.

[@triskaidekathirteen724]

Two Face!

[@jasonfire3434]

In baseball, for years when there was a one-game tiebreaker playoff, home-field advantage was determined by coin flip until they changed it so the head-to-head season series determined home field. So this isn’t too unprecedented. Still good on the league for changing such a stupid rule.

[@ericthomas917]

They could have just did head to head to break the tie instead of a stupid one game playoff game

[@danangell5482]

I get why they wouldn't, but this had an easy solution. Neutral-site game. Play the AFL West title game in Denver.

[@daBEAGLE1017]

That hit was brutal @ 7:54

[@michaelnewton5873]

Considering the Winner of the AFL was the Jets and they won SB III It was huge coin flip.

[@Bruce12867]

Baseball has been using coin flips to determine home field advantage for years, and no one seemed to bat an eye. When pro football got started, they borrowed a lot of things from baseball, including rotating home field by division/conference, and the coin toss to determine many things, such as home field advantage and draft order.

[@TheAlfrulz]

Thank you. You explained it exactly as how my thoughts were unfolding from watching this video. Coin tosses for tie breaker home field advantage was the standard in pro football at the time. I know the special one game playoff used a coin toss for the Giants/ Browns in 1958, and Packers/ Colts in 1965. And probably all other instances before then. The NFL followed the lead of baseball because baseball was the king of team sports. Tie breaker procedures only started to evolve with the league merger in 1970. Even draft order was a good point. The #1 overall pick of the 1970 draft came down to a coin flip. Pittsburgh won the flip over Chicago, and picked Terry Bradshaw.

[@big8dog887]

Baseball can get away with it better because homefield isn't as important. Last at-bat is important, of course, but it's not a "boost of adrenaline from the crowd" type of sport. I believe I read somewhere that the win probability at the beginning of a baseball game favors the home team at 53%. Who's pitching is way more important than where they're playing.

[@Daniel-cu8zt]

I love the videos and the incredible amount of work and research you do.... but, has anyone said you sound like Jonah Hill!!

[@johnmoreno3891]

Oakland lost to the NYJ in the AFL championship that year (1968) If the Raiders had beaten the Jets SB 3 would’ve been Raiders v Colts

[@Davepool-hs7vr]

Can you do another video involving the Chiefs and the Raiders?

[@jeffanderson3962]

Doesn't matter anyway. Mickey Mouse AFL champ will just get eaten alive by Baltimore or whoever wins the NFL...

[@TehJew22]

Or did it?

[@travis303]

Why is it every time I see a video about my Chiefs involve the Raiders screwing them over? First the touchdown that shouldn't have been a touchdown and now this. Those cheating bastards. No wonder Chiefs fans like me have hated the Raiders our entire lives.

[@willosotherworld7109]

What are the odds that ALL THIS had to happen that a COIN FLIP decided a tiebreaker.

[@chadwickwhite6107]

Yeah the flip of a coin. One side gives you Home Field Advantage, while the other side means LESS than a 39.6. Let's FACE IT. If you don't have Home Field Advantage OR a home playoff game, OR you aren't EVEN in the PLAYOFFS PERIOD your team should just SPIKE the football into the ground on EVERY single OFFENSIVE play!!!!!!

[@CTubeMan]

How was home field advantage decided in the 1963 AFL East championship game you mentioned?

[@andrewpadaetz5549]

It alternated between East (even numbered years) and West (odd numbered years). In '68, thus the winner of the playoff hopped on the next flight to La Guardia for the title game against the Jets (so named because of Shea Stadium's proximity to LGA..although plane flights were (and still are if you go to Mets games at Citi Field) a distraction during baseball games).

[@CTubeMan]

@@andrewpadaetz5549 I was specifically asking about the AFL East tiebreaker, not the AFL Championship Game.

[@big8dog887]

I was going to ask that, and the other question I had was did the NFL develop a tie-breaker system yet at that point?

[@andrewpadaetz5549]

@@big8dog887 not in 1963. First tie breaker was in ‘67 when the Rams and Colts tied for the Coastal Division title; since the Rams went 1-0-1 vs the Colts they won the tiebreaker.

[@FusionCyborg]

Fun Fact about those 1967 Baltimore Colts: They went 11-0-2 (Undefeated, and a perfect win rate at 1.000 because the NFL & 4th AFL didn't count ties in calculation.) through the first 13 weeks, and only lost there finale in week 14, and still to miss the playoffs due to the newly introduced division tie-breaker system. There final win rate in 1967 was ~0.917, which is the highest win rate for a team that missed the post-season in North American professional sports.

[@DaCoachMLHS]

If home field for the '68 Western playoff was determined by a coin flip, how was the '63 Eastern playoff home field decided? Same way?

[@inwalters]

Ok, soon it's going to be for these videos [every random sentence] - for more information "click the card in the upper right"

[@nasetvideos]

This was a wild story--Hard to believe that the tiebreaker was the way this happened. A coin flip? Wow--Have to think an entire league could have come up with a much better way to handle this. Never heard this story. Great job--Outstanding reporting on this AFL story

[@andrewpadaetz5549]

Indeed..and as stated at the start of the video, it almost happened again 2 years later in the NFC wild card. A Giants W instead of L in the final game vs LA and the nightmare scenario happens.

[@triskaidekathirteen724]

What is tuff to digest is the 1972 Dolphins (perfect Season) had to go to Pittsburgh for Championship game......and almost lost ... Well the score was close anyway...21-17...

[@johnreese3797]

It wasn't as close as the final score. The Steelers last td was in garbage time.

[@Fireyninjadog]

Kc had the better division record, 7-1 to Oakland's 6-2. Man, things were different back then

[@kyledamron]

Still wish Raiders got their stadium in Oakland win they are winning in Oakland there is nothing like it

[@Rockhound6165]

Baseball does this all the time. When there's going to be a one game playoff to decide a division title or a wild card spot there's a coin toss where it's going to be played.

[@pronkb000]

Not anymore. I think they got rid of it when they added the extra wild card. Now it's by most wins head-to-head.

[@kyledamron]

I feel like if home field advantage wasn't rotating raider beat the jets and maybe win super bowl 3

[@mariothemartian2016]

In my country raiders are bad news. When the raiders come lock your home

[@stevengrvp]

Wow coin flipped

[@crashburn3292]

I assume this video has something to do with this years' (2022) Raiders and Chargers possibly being able to both get into the playoffs by playing to a tie in this week's game? (If the Colts lose) As much as I'd love to see this game, I'd also LOVE to see both teams taking a knee for 5 quarters, both make the playoffs and RUIN the ratings of this NFL game. The NFL deserves it.

[@CTubeMan]

Or both quarterbacks should just spike the ball into the ground on every single play.

[@crashburn3292]

@@CTubeMan How they play to a tie is not the point, but ok.

[@TheSloppyjoejr]

Imagine going to that game and they just knee it every time. I would be really mad.

[@DanielJohn2300]

A knee-fest would be funny, but it won't happen, because the Chargers and Raiders hate each other too much.

[@stevevernon1978]

yeah, but it won't come to that because the Colts won't lose to the Jags.

[@CowSaysMooMoo]

The VIDEO that is STILL 4 and a HALF MINUTES longer than it NEEDS to BE....THIS one!! For the love of Pete stop repeating yourself, make your point and Peace Out like Antonio Brown....

[@scottconner7930]

54 Years Ago