Coming into 1997, the New York Jets had been barely relevant for over a decade. Since 1986, they had only made the playoffs once and that 1991 run was at 8-8. In 1996, the Jets bottomed out at 1-15. In the offseason, New York hired Bill Parcells. Not only were the Jets getting an all-time […]
Jimmy Johnson’s much-ballyhooed arrival in Miami had fizzled in 1996, when the Dolphins failed to make the playoffs. The 1997 Miami Dolphins took a step forward, nudging into the postseason and beginning a run of consistent success. Dan Marino was now 36-years-old, but the future Hall of Famer was still an effective quarterback. Throwing more […]
Coming into 1997, it had been a long time since Tampa Bay Buccaneer fans had seen playoff football—or even anything resembling a competitive team. Since the 1979-82 stretch where they made three postseason trips in four years, the Bucs had not only failed to make the playoffs, they also never had a winning season, never […]
The Minnesota Vikings entered the 1997 season as an established contender. They had made the playoffs four times in their five seasons under head coach Dennis Green. One thing they had not done, however, was actually win a postseason game. After a wild roller-coaster ride of a regular season, the Vikings again made the playoffs—and […]
The Washington Redskins entered 1997 looking for a breakthrough. Norv Turner had taken over in 1994 and his rebuilding project showed signs of life by 1996, when the Redskins nearly made the playoffs. Improvement was expected in ’97. But while Washington was still competitive and stayed in the hunt to the bitter end, the postseason […]
The New York Giants were on a four-year decline coming into the 1997 season. After making the playoffs in 1993 under Dan Reeves, the Giants steadily slipped and then bottomed out with an 11-21 record over 1995-96. New York made a coaching change, hired Jim Fassel and won the NFC East for the first time […]
The 1997 Jacksonville Jaguars came into the season on a high. As a second-year franchise in 1996, they shocked the world with a late-season run to squeak into the playoffs and then reached the AFC Championship Game. Was that real or was it a fluke? In ’97, the Jags enjoyed a stronger regular season, got […]
The Dallas Cowboys were the NFL’s gold standard in the first half of the 1990s. From 1991 through 1996, they made the playoffs every year, won five NFC East titles and captured three Super Bowl trophies. But all runs come to an end eventually and 1997 was the year the Cowboys fell out of the […]
After missing the postseason, the 1997 Detroit Lions got back on track and Barry Sanders won a co-MVP award. Read the game-by-game narrative of how it unfolded.
1997 was a year of change for the San Francisco 49ers, with Steve Mariucci taking over as head coach. For almost two decades the franchise had been the gold standard in the NFL—winning Super Bowl titles under Bill Walsh in 1981, 1984 and 1988, and then doing it twice more under George Seifert in 1989 […]
Everything was about redemption for the 1997 Denver Broncos, both short-term and long-term. In the short-term, this was a team that had the #1 seed in the AFC playoffs in 1996 and lost in a big upset at home to the Jacksonville Jaguars. In the long-term, 37-year-old quarterback John Elway had yet to win a […]
The 1997 New England Patriots were in an odd dynamic. On the one hand, they were coming off a Super Bowl appearance in 1996, had a rising star at quarterback in Drew Bledsoe and a future Hall of Fame running back in Curtis Martin. On the other hand, they were in transition. Bill Parcells, who […]