Quote:
Originally posted by spookyfish
Maybe someone can refresh my memory, but didn't the NFL eliminate the off week between the Conference Championship games and the Super Bowl when they lenghtened the season, or am I imagining things? Why is the Super Bowl two weeks away this year?
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It's varied in recent years. The constraints the league faces are not wanting to start in august (or maybe it's before labor day weekend) and not wanting to end in February, but wanting 17 weeks in the regular season. It faced the additional constraint of christmas in some years, and not wanting to have playoff games on christmas eve. So, they mix it all up, and in some years had only a single week between the playoffs and super bowl. This year, the superbowl in Feb. (for the second time, and the first not because of 9/11), so they could take the exta week off. In past years, the game would have been played on Jan. 25. (And if you look at the date of the super bowl, it was already a week later than in most of the 80s.)
(Also, the year of 9/11, the game was scheduled for only a one-week break, which is why they had to push the date back, and -- presumably -- pay some major cheese to the car dealers, who had their convention scheduled for that week in N.O.)
