MIN – White 9 pass from Tarkenton (Cox kick) MIN 35–6.MIN – Foreman 30 run (Cox kick) MIN 28–3.MIN – Foreman 2 run (Cox kick) MIN 21–3.MIN – White 27 pass from Tarkenton (Cox kick) MIN 14–3.MIN – Voigt 18 pass from Tarkenton (Cox kick) MIN 7–0.In the United States, CBS televised the NFC playoff games, while NBC broadcast the AFC games and Super Bowl XI.ĭivisional playoffs Saturday, Decem NFC: Minnesota Vikings 35, Washington Redskins 20 EST on Sundays, the two divisional playoff games on Sunday, December 19 were pushed to 2:00 p.m. The conference championship games were played Sunday, December 26, and Super Bowl XI was played on January 9, the earliest date in Super Bowl history.ĭue to the at-the-time Maryland state law that prohibited Baltimore Colts home games from starting earlier than 2:00 p.m. In order to avoid scheduling playoff games on the holiday, the regular season opened a week earlier than normal (September 12, the second Sunday of the month, rather than the customary third Sunday) so that the Divisional Playoffs could be held on December 18 and 19 instead of December 25 and 26, and thus no games would be needed on Christmas Day. Although the Super Bowl, the third and final round of the playoffs, was played at a neutral site, the designated home team was based on an annual rotation by conference.Ĭhristmas fell on a Saturday in 1976. The two surviving teams from each conference's divisional playoff games then meet in the respective AFC and NFC Conference Championship games, hosted by the higher seed. The first round, the divisional playoffs, had a restriction where two teams from the same division could not meet: the surviving wild card team visited the division champion outside its own division that had the higher seed, and the remaining two teams from that conference played each other. The three division winners were seeded 1 through 3 based on their overall won-lost-tied record, and the wild card team was seeded 4. Within each conference, the three division winners and one wild card team (the top non-division winner with the best overall regular season records) qualified for the playoffs. 6 Super Bowl XI: Oakland Raiders 32, Minnesota Vikings 14.5.1.2 NFC: Minnesota Vikings 24, Los Angeles Rams 13.5.1.1 AFC: Oakland Raiders 24, Pittsburgh Steelers 7.4.2.2 NFC: Los Angeles Rams 14, Dallas Cowboys 12.4.2.1 AFC: Pittsburgh Steelers 40, Baltimore Colts 14.4.1.2 AFC: Oakland Raiders 24, New England Patriots 21.4.1.1 NFC: Minnesota Vikings 35, Washington Redskins 20.