1971 NFL season

The 1971 NFL draft was held January 28–29 at New York City's Belmont Plaza Hotel. With the first pick, the New England Patriots selected quarterback Jim Plunkett, the Heisman Trophy winner from Stanford University. The next two selections were also quarterbacks: Archie Manning and Dan Pastorini.

Three referees--Walt Fitzgerald, Bob Finley and George Rennix--retired following the 1970 season.

Finley and Fitzgerald officiated all ten seasons of the American Football League's existence. Finley was the referee for the 1968 "Heidi Game" between the Jets and Raiders, and Fitzgerald was the referee for the AFL Championship Game between the same two teams six weeks later.

Rennix was the referee for the 1961 NFL Championship Game, where Green Bay routed the New York Giants 37-0 for the Packers' first of five league championships in seven seasons under legendary coach Vince Lombardi.

Bob Frederic, Dick Jorgensen and Fred Wyant were promoted to fill those vacancies. Frederic was the back judge on Jack Vest's crew in 1970, Jorgensen the line judge on Rennix's crew, and Wyant the line judge on Ben Dreith's crew. Ironically, Dreith and Wyant were demoted from referee to line judge simultaneously following the 1989 season.

Rich Eichhorst, a back judge on Bernie Ulman's crew in 1970, resigned to concentrate on officiating college basketball; he was replaced by Don Orr, who officiated in the league through 1995; Orr also wore number 77, the same as Eichhorst. Ben Tompkins replaced Eichhorst on Ulman's crew.

Also hired this season was future referee Gene Barth, who was placed on Jim Tunney's crew as line judge. Barth officiated in the NFL for 20 seasons, 16 as a referee, highlighted by his assignment to Super Bowl XVIII following the 1983 season. Barth assumed number 14, which Finley previously wore.

• Teams will not be charged a time out for an injured player unless the injury occurs inside the last two minutes of a half or overtime (since 1974).
• Missed field goal attempts which cross the goal line can be run back. Previously, only those which fell short of the goal line could be returned; those which broke the plane of the goal line resulted in an automatic touchback.

• September 5 - George Trafton, age 74. Center for the Chicago Bears from 1920-1932. Elected to the Pro Football Hall Of Fame in 1964.
• October 24 - Chuck Hughes, age 28. Wide receiver, Detroit Lions. Died shortly after catching a pass in a game against the Chicago Bears. Hughes was the last player to die during an NFL game.
  • Lions players wore a black armband on their jerseys to honor Hughes for the season's remaining eight games.
• November 27 - Joe Guyon, age 79. Wing back for the New York Giants and Oorang Indians, elected to the pro football hall of fame in 1966.

Starting in 1970, and until 2002, there were three divisions (Eastern, Central and Western) in each conference. The winners of each division, and a fourth “wild card” team based on the best non-division winner, qualified for the playoffs. The tiebreaker rules were changed to start with head-to-head competition, followed by division records, record against common opponents, and records in conference play. More tiebreakers were provided in 1971 because, in 1970, reversing just one game’s outcome would have led to a coin toss between Dallas and Detroit for the NFC wild card berth.

Teams listed with an asterisk in these tables are leaders on tiebreak

Note: Prior to the 1975 season, the home teams in the playoffs were decided based on a yearly rotation of division winners. Had the playoffs been seeded, the divisional round matchups would have been #3 Cleveland at #2 Miami and #4 wild card Baltimore at #1 Kansas City in the AFC; #4 wild card Washington at #1 Minnesota and #3 San Francisco at #2 Dallas in the NFC (since the Cowboys and Vikings both had 11-3 records and did not play during the regular season, the tiebreaker would have been conference record. Minnesota was 9-2 vs. NFC teams compared to Dallas' 8-3).

** Indicates double overtime victory

• The newly renamed New England Patriots moved from Harvard Stadium in Boston to their new home field, Schaefer Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
• The Chicago Bears moved their home games from Wrigley Field to Soldier Field.
  • The Bears played their 1970 home opener vs. the Eagles at Northwestern University's Dyche Stadium, but their request to move there full-time was rejected by the city of Evanston and the Big Ten Conference.
• The Philadelphia Eagles moved their games from Franklin Field to Veterans Stadium.
  • The Eagles were scheduled to move to the new facility in South Philadelphia in 1970, but labor strikes and bad weather caused numerous construction delays.
• The San Francisco 49ers moved from Kezar Stadium into Candlestick Park.
• The Dallas Cowboys moved after their first two regular season home games from the Cotton Bowl to Texas Stadium.
• 11 teams played their home games on artificial turf in 1971. This was up from 7 teams in the NFL in 1970. The teams were: Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, Miami, New England, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and San Francisco.

• The Atlanta Falcons switched their primary jerseys from black to red.
• The Chicago Bears adopted a second white jersey with block numbers, which was worn four of the five games in which the Bears wore white jerseys. Also, a second navy blue jersey without sleeve stripes was added for warm weather games.
• The New York Jets wore a modified white jersey in the first half of the season which did not have green stripes over the shoulders.
• The Oakland Raiders switched from silver to black numbers on their white jerseys.
• The San Francisco 49ers added alternate jerseys with no striping or TV numbers for hot games.

This was the second year under the league's four-year broadcast contracts with ABC, CBS, and NBC to televise Monday Night Football, the NFC package, and the AFC package, respectively. Frank Gifford's contract with CBS expired. He was then hired by ABC to serve as play-by-play announcer for MNF, while Keith Jackson returned to call college football for the network. Jack Whitaker and Pat Summerall replaced Gifford as hosts on The NFL Today, which was still a pre-recorded pregame show. At NBC, Al DeRogatis and Kyle Rote swapped color commentator positions, with DeRogatis joining Curt Gowdy as the network's lead broadcast team and Rote joining Jim Simpson at #2.^[3]