Baltimore on Sunday will host the AFC Championship Game for the first time in a little over 53 years.
The Ravens, the transplanted original Cleveland Browns and the No. 1 seed in the AFC, earned that right with a resounding 34–10 victory over the Houston Texans in the divisional round on Saturday.
It was on Jan. 3, 1971 when Baltimore’s former team, the Colts, defeated the Oakland Raiders 27-17 in the 1970 AFC finals. The Raiders had rallied to cut the deficit to 20–17 in the fourth quarter before quarterback John Unitas sealed the deal with a 68-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Ray Perkins. The Raiders were quarterback by the ageless George Blanda, who doubled as the team’s kicker.
This was the first season after the completion of the merger between the NFL and the American Football Leagye. The Colts, Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers had moved from the old NFL to the recreated AFL, the AFC, to balance out the two conferences at 13 teams apiece. It was the second time that the Colts and Browns had moved together from one league to another. In 1950, the Browns, Colts and San Francisco 49ers moved from the All-American Football Conference when it forwarded to the NFL.
The Colts, with a record of 11–2–1, won the AFC East and then defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 17-0 in the divisional round. The Bengals, coached by former Browns head coach Paul Brown and in just their third year of existence, captured the AFC Central championship with an 8–6 record, just edging out the 7–7 Browns of head coach Blanton Collier, his former longtime Ckeveland assistant coach. The key game in Cincinnati’s drive to the title was a late-season 14–10 victory over the Browns at Riverfront Stadium. The Browns had won the first game back in Cleveland early in the year, 30–27.
It was a big step back for the Browns, who had been to the NFC (NFL) Championship Game the previous two seasons, losing first to the Colts and then the Minnesota Vikings to be denied a trip to the Super Bowl. Collier, who should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame along with Brown, retired after the 1970 season because of a severe hearing problem, ending an eight-season tenure.
The Colts, built largely by former head coach Don Shula before his move to the Miami Dolphins in 1970, would go on to win Super Bowl V 16-13 over the NFC champion Dallas Cowboys on a last-play 32-yard field goal by Jim O’Brien. The Dolohins finished second in the AFC East in 1970 and made their first playoff appearance, losing 21-14 to the Raiders in the divisional round. That set the stage for Miami’s climb to being the best team overall in football over the four years, including winning two straight Super Bowls, and launching Shula, the Painesville Harvey High School and John Carroll product who was the head coach of the Colts when they lost 27-0 to the Browns in the 1964 NFL Championship Game, toward his HOF induction and the NFL’s all-time winningest coach. Shula was a defensive back with the Browns in 1951 and ‘52.
Steve King
