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2006 NFL season

2006 National Football League season
Regular season
Duration September 7 – December 31, 2006
Playoffs
Start date January 6, 2007
AFC Champions Indianapolis Colts
NFC Champions Chicago Bears
Super Bowl XLI
Date February 4, 2007
Site Dolphin Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida
Champions Indianapolis Colts
Pro Bowl
Date February 10, 2007 (2007-02-10)
Site Aloha Stadium

The 2006 NFL season was the 87th regular season of the National Football League. Regular season play was held from September 7 to December 31, 2006.

The NFL title was eventually won by the Indianapolis Colts, when they defeated the Chicago Bears 29-17 in Super Bowl XLI at Dolphin Stadium at Miami Gardens, Florida on February 4.

This was the first season that the NFL used a "flexible-scheduling" for the last few weeks of the season, allowing the league flexibility in selecting games to air on Sunday night, in order to feature the current hottest, streaking teams. This was implemented to prevent games featuring losing teams from airing during primetime late in the season, while at the same time allowing NBC to rake in more money off of the higher ratings from surprise, playoff-potential teams that more fans would enjoy watching.

Under the flexible-scheduling system, all Sunday games in the affected weeks tentatively had the start times of 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT, except those played in the Pacific or Mountain time zones, which will have a tentative start time of 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT (or 4:15 p.m. ET/1:15 p.m. PT if it is a doubleheader weekend). On the Tuesday 12 days before the games, the league moved one game to the primetime slot, and possibly one or more 1 p.m. slotted games to the 4 p.m. slots. During the last week of the season, the league could re-schedule games as late as six days before the contests so that all of the television networks will be able to broadcast a game that has playoff implications.

This was the first season that NBC held the rights to televise Sunday Night Football, becoming the beneficiaries by negotiating the new flexible-scheduling system.ESPN became the new home of Monday Night Football, replacing sister network American Broadcasting Company, who chose to opt out of broadcasting league games. Meanwhile, CBS and Fox renewed their television contracts to the American Football Conference and the National Football Conference packages, respectively.


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