2001 NFL season

2001 National Football League season

Regular season
Duration	September 9, 2001 – January 7, 2002
In the wake of the September 11 attacks, a number of games were re-scheduled.
Playoffs
Start date	January 12, 2002
AFC Champions	New England Patriots
NFC Champions	St. Louis Rams
Super Bowl XXXVI
Date	February 3, 2002
Site	Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana
Champions	New England Patriots
Pro Bowl
Date	February 9, 2002
Site	Aloha Stadium

The 2001 NFL season was the 82nd regular season of the National Football League (NFL).

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the NFL's week 2 games (September 16–17) were postponed and re-scheduled to the weekend of January 6–7. In order to retain the full playoff format, all playoff games, including Super Bowl XXXVI, were re-scheduled one week later. The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl, defeating the St. Louis Rams 20-17 at the Louisiana Superdome.

Details

Following a pattern set in 1999, the first week of the season was permanently moved to the weekend following Labor Day. With Super Bowls XXXVI-XXXVII already scheduled for fixed dates, the league initially decided to eliminate the Super Bowl bye weeks for 2001 and 2002 to adjust.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the games originally scheduled for September 16–17 were postponed and re-scheduled to the weekend of January 6–7. In order to retain the full playoff format, all playoff games, including the Super Bowl, were re-scheduled one week later. The season-ending Pro Bowl was also moved to one week later. This was the last season in which each conference had 3 divisions, as the conferences were realigned to 4 divisions for the 2002 NFL season.

Canceling the games scheduled for September 16–17 was considered and rejected since it would have canceled a home game for half the teams of the league. It would have also resulted in an unequal number of games played: Sept. 16–17 was to have been a bye for the San Diego Chargers, so that team would still have played 16 games that season and each of the other teams would have played only 15 games (the Chargers ultimately finished 5–11, making any competitive advantages to playing an extra game moot).

New England at Carolina in week 17, January 6, 2002

As a result of rescheduling Week 2 as Week 17, the Pittsburgh Steelers ended up not playing a home game for the entire month of September (their only home game during that month was originally scheduled for Sept. 16). The ESPN Sunday Night Football game for that week was also changed. It was originally scheduled to be Cleveland at Pittsburgh, but it was replaced with Philadelphia at Tampa Bay, which was seen as a more interesting matchup (it was the only night game the Browns had on the schedule, whereas the Steelers had a few others; so 2000 and 2001 marked the first back-to-back seasons for the Browns without a primetime game since 1974–76; the Browns would finally play in Heinz Field at night in 2003). Ironically, the Eagles and the Buccaneers would both rest their starters that night, and they would meet one week later in the playoffs. In recognition of this, when NBC began airing Sunday Night Football in 2006, there would be no game initially scheduled for weeks 11–17 – a game initially scheduled in the afternoon would be moved to the primetime slot, without stripping any teams of a primetime appearance. This way of "flexible scheduling" would not be utilized at all in 2007, and since 2008, it is only utilized in the final week.

The games that eventually made up Week 17 marked the latest regular season games to be played during what is traditionally defined as "NFL season" (under the current format, the regular season cannot end later than January 3 in any given year).

Another scheduling change took place in October, when the Dallas Cowboys-Oakland Raiders game was moved from October 21 to 7 to accommodate a possible Oakland Athletics home playoff game on the 21st (the start of Major League Baseball's postseason was also delayed by the 9/11 attacks due to rescheduling of a week's worth of games). The rescheduling ended up being unnecessary as the Athletics would not make it past the Division Series round.

Also, this was the only NFL season where every jersey had a patch to remember those who died on 9/11, and the New York Jets and New York Giants wore a patch to remember the firefighters who died.

The season ended with Super Bowl XXXVI when the New England Patriots defeated the St. Louis Rams.

Major rule changes

• Fumble recoveries will be awarded at the spot of the recovery, not where the player's momentum carries him. This change was passed in response to two regular season games in 2000, Atlanta Falcons–Carolina Panthers and Oakland Raiders–Seattle Seahawks, in which a safety was awarded when a defensive player's momentum in recovering a fumble carried him into his own end zone.
• Taunting rules and roughing the passer will be strictly enforced.

Uniform and stadium changes

• New Orleans Saints – Replaced their gold pants with black pants.
• Pittsburgh Steelers – New stadium: Heinz Field.
• San Diego Chargers – White pants with road uniforms.
• Denver Broncos – New stadium: Invesco Field.
• St. Louis Rams – New font for uniform numbers.
• Philadelphia Eagles – New hard turf field, due to a cancelled preseason game scheduled against the Baltimore Ravens in which then Ravens' coach Brian Billick told officials of the NFL that he refused to have his team play on a slippery and bouncy turf field which he deemed unsafe.

Coaching changes

• Buffalo Bills – Gregg Williams; replaced Wade Phillips who was fired following the 2000 season
• Cleveland Browns – Butch Davis; replaced Chris Palmer who was fired following the 2000 season
• Detroit Lions – Marty Mornhinweg; replaced interim Head Coach Gary Moeller who replaced Bobby Ross who resigned during the 2000 season.
• Kansas City Chiefs – Dick Vermeil; replaced Gunther Cunningham who was fired following the 2000 season
• New York Jets – Herman Edwards; replaced Al Groh who resigned to become the Head Coach of the University of Virginia.
• Washington Redskins – Marty Schottenheimer; replaced interim Head Coach Terry Robiskie who replaced Norv Turner who was fired during the 2000 season

Final regular season standings

W = Wins, L = Losses, PCT = Winning Percentage, PF= Points For, PA = Points Against

Clinched playoff seeds are marked in parentheses and shaded in green. No ties occurred this year.

AFC East
Team	W	L	PCT	PF	PA
(2) New England Patriots	11	5	.688	371	272
(4) Miami Dolphins	11	5	.688	344	290
(6) New York Jets	10	6	.625	308	295
Indianapolis Colts	6	10	.375	413	486
Buffalo Bills	3	13	.188	265	420
AFC Central
Team	W	L	PCT	PF	PA
(1) Pittsburgh Steelers	13	3	.813	352	212
(5) Baltimore Ravens	10	6	.625	303	265
Cleveland Browns	7	9	.438	285	319
Tennessee Titans	7	9	.438	336	388
Jacksonville Jaguars	6	10	.375	294	286
Cincinnati Bengals	6	10	.375	226	309
AFC West
Team	W	L	PCT	PF	PA
(3) Oakland Raiders	10	6	.625	399	327
Seattle Seahawks	9	7	.563	301	324
Denver Broncos	8	8	.500	340	339
Kansas City Chiefs	6	10	.375	320	344
San Diego Chargers	5	11	.313	332	321

NFC East
Team	W	L	PCT	PF	PA
(3) Philadelphia Eagles	11	5	.688	343	208
Washington Redskins	8	8	.500	256	303
New York Giants	7	9	.438	294	321
Arizona Cardinals	7	9	.438	295	343
Dallas Cowboys	5	11	.313	246	338
NFC Central
Team	W	L	PCT	PF	PA
(2) Chicago Bears	13	3	.813	338	203
(4) Green Bay Packers	12	4	.750	390	266
(6) Tampa Bay Buccaneers	9	7	.563	324	280
Minnesota Vikings	5	11	.313	290	390
Detroit Lions	2	14	.125	270	424
NFC West
Team	W	L	PCT	PF	PA
(1) St. Louis Rams	14	2	.875	503	273
(5) San Francisco 49ers	12	4	.750	409	282
New Orleans Saints	7	9	.438	333	409
Atlanta Falcons	7	9	.438	291	377
Carolina Panthers	1	15	.063	253	410

Tiebreakers

• New England finished ahead of Miami in the AFC East based on better division record (6–2 to Dolphins' 5–3).
• Cleveland finished ahead of Tennessee in the AFC Central based on better division record (5–5 to Titans' 3–7).
• Jacksonville finished ahead of Cincinnati in the AFC Central based on head-to-head sweep (2–0).
• N.Y. Giants finished ahead of Arizona in the NFC East based on head-to-head sweep (2–0).
• New Orleans finished ahead of Atlanta in the NFC West based on better division record (4–4 to Falcons' 3–5).
• Baltimore was the second AFC Wild Card based on better record against common opponents (3–2 to Jets' 2–2).
• Green Bay was the first NFC Wild Card based on better conference record (9–3 to 49ers' 8–4).

Playoffs

Main article: 2001–02 NFL playoffs

	Jan. 12 – Veterans Stadium					Jan. 19 – Soldier Field
	6	Tampa Bay	9
						3	Philadelphia	33
	3	Philadelphia	31								Jan. 27 – Edward Jones Dome
						2	Chicago	19
						NFC
	Jan. 13 – Lambeau Field										3	Philadelphia	24
						Jan. 20 – Dome at America's Center
											1	St. Louis	29
	5	San Francisco	15								NFC Championship
						4	Green Bay	17
	4	Green Bay	25													Feb. 3 – Louisiana Superdome
						1	St. Louis	45
	Wild Card Playoffs
						Divisional Playoffs
	Jan. 12 – Network Associates Coliseum															N1	St. Louis	17
						Jan. 19 – Foxboro Stadium
																A2	New England	20
	6	N.Y. Jets	24													Super Bowl XXXVI
						3	Oakland	13
	3	Oakland	38								Jan. 27 – Heinz Field
						2	New England	16*
						AFC
	Jan. 13 – Pro Player Stadium										2	New England	24
						Jan. 20 – Heinz Field
											1	Pittsburgh	17
	5	Baltimore	20								AFC Championship
						5	Baltimore	10
	4	Miami	3
						1	Pittsburgh	27

* Indicates overtime victory

Bold text Indicates winning team

Milestones

The following teams and players set all-time NFL records during the season:

Record	Player/Team	Previous Record Holder
Most Sacks, Season*	Michael Strahan, New York Giants (22.5)	Mark Gastineau, New York Jets, 1984 (22.0)
Most Consecutive Games Lost, Season	Carolina (15)	Tied by 4 teams (14)

* – Sack statistics have only been compiled since 1982.

Statistical leaders

Team

Points scored	St. Louis Rams (503)
Total yards gained	St. Louis Rams (6,930)
Yards rushing	Pittsburgh Steelers (2,774)
Yards passing	St. Louis Rams (4,903)
Fewest points allowed	Chicago Bears (203)
Fewest total yards allowed	Pittsburgh Steelers (4,504)
Fewest rushing yards allowed	Pittsburgh Steelers (1,195)
Fewest passing yards allowed	Dallas Cowboys (3,019)

Individual

Scoring	Marshall Faulk, St. Louis (128 points)
Touchdowns	Marshall Faulk, St. Louis (21 TDs)
Most field goals made	Jason Elam, Denver (31 FGs)
Rushing	Priest Holmes, Kansas City (1,555 yards)
Passing	Kurt Warner, St. Louis (101.4 rating)
Passing touchdowns	Kurt Warner, St. Louis (36 TDs)
Pass receiving	Rod Smith, Denver (113 catches)
Pass receiving yards	David Boston, Arizona (1,598)
Punt returns	Troy Brown, New England (14.2 average yards)
Kickoff returns	Ronney Jenkins, San Diego (26.6 average yards)
Interceptions	Ronde Barber, Tampa Bay and Anthony Henry, Cleveland (10)
Punting	Todd Sauerbrun, Carolina (47.5 average yards)
Sacks	Michael Strahan, New York Giants (22.5)

Awards

Most Valuable Player	Kurt Warner, Quarterback, St. Louis
Coach of the Year	Dick Jauron, Chicago
Offensive Player of the Year	Marshall Faulk, Running back, St. Louis
Defensive Player of the Year	Michael Strahan, Defensive End, New York Giants
Offensive Rookie of the Year	Anthony Thomas, Running Back, Chicago
Defensive Rookie of the Year	Kendrell Bell, Linebacker, Pittsburgh
NFL Comeback Player of the Year	Garrison Hearst, Running Back, San Francisco

External links

• Football Outsiders 2001 DVOA Ratings and Commentary
  • Pro Football Reference.com – 2001

References

• NFL Record and Fact Book (ISBN 1-932994-36-X)
• NFL History 2001– (Last accessed October 17, 2005)
• Total Football: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League (ISBN 0-06-270174-6)
• Steelers Fever – History of NFL Rules (Last accessed October 17, 2005)