The Toilet Bowl: How 3rd Place Used to Be Determined | NFL Films Presents

The Play Off Bowl had two prime objectives: 1) Provide an extra TV game to fund the NFL pension plan. and 2) Broaden the pool of post season bonuses. The $1500 per man winners share and the $750 losers share is significant when you are making $15000. a season. Note none of the players ever passed on the dough.

3:39 Seeing them use modern broadcast technology on classic clips is honestly so cool. Also between this and the College All-Star Game, the NFL really did love its bizarre exhibition games that aged like milk.

RIP Roger Brown. Go Lions and he should be in the Hall of Fame

Loser of the AFC and NFC championship should play in the toilet bowl the week between the conference championship and Super Bowl. Winning team gets $100k incentive, a free vacation, and their first game of the next season is at home

Thank you NFL Films for even acknowledging this game existed. It seemed like it was kept quiet for so long. Easy today to criticize with 24/7 NFL coverage, but in an era with the possibility of seeing no more than 3 games a week, and little to no during-the-week content, an extra game is a big deal. And for the players, an extra week's game check was a very big deal. Proceeds also went to the pension fund. It's much like a college bowl. Whoever wants to be there more will put out a better effort. It had its place and time. Now, like with the College All-Star Game and all other all-star games (except MLB), the money to be lost with a serious injury is exponentially greater than that to be won in the game. Thanks for playing up the game and the things that came out of it.

NCAA March Madness used to do Consolation game too before championship game

Very fitting that the Lions won the Playoff Bowl 3 times

I attended the final game, where the Rams shut out the Cowboys, 31-0. Roger Brown, who was featured in this, played in that game for the Rams. As a kid who had just become a football fan, it was the first football game I ever attended. a few days earlier, I celebrated my 11th birthday, and attended the game with my father and older brother, who both, sadly, are now gone.

It gave those of us who lived in Florida a chance to see a game. I have fond memories of going with my dad to see the Lions vs. Browns game in the first one. I got Jim Brown's autograph that day, so it was a great game.

I attended the last game, my father took me. I was 4. Don't recall much, do recall the stadium being 1/2 empty. Thanks, Dad.

Loved seeing Roger Brown, Alex Karras' running mate on that fearsome DL .. Lions were Western Conference representatives first TWO editions of this (ahem) classic, and i was a kid of 9 born in Detroit, growing up in Miami, attending with my dad and his dad, and i became a lifelong Lions fan — and it's been a long ride from Milt Plum to Jared Goff .. thanks for posting this on @NFLFilms. #GoLions

The 1970 Playoff Bowl (1969 season) was the first time in franchise history that the Cowboys were shutout in a game.

Rather see this than the Flag Bowl

I remember watching the Cowboys play in the T Bowl. It was like a pre-season game during the post season.

This would probably be more interesting than the Pro Bowl, as it currently stands. Give a few more incentives for the winner, and it could be a good time.

I thought I know all there was to know about football but I never heard of this.

Unless you made Joe Namath type money, which most players didn't, that extra game seemed like a gift to many. Heck, I can remember magazines back then talking about the jobs NFL players had in the offseason just to survive. Fred Cox was a chiropractor and Gary Cuozzo was an orthodontist and they stayed busy.

The Playoff Bowl against the Vikings was the only time that the cowboys ever won in the venerable Orange Bowl. Too bad for them that it didn't count.

6:23-little did Shula know at the time he would spend a lot more time on that Orange Bowl sideline.

Lombardis quote was "a hinky-dink football game, held in a hinky dink town, played by hinky-dink players. That's all second place is -- hinky-dink." Also, the original name of the game was the Bert Bell benefit bowl, named after the well regarded NFL commissioner who died of a heart attack in the fall of 1959.