The American Football Conference’s Central Division was unquestionably the best division in pro football during the 1975 season. Three of its four teams earned at least 10 wins in a 14-game regular season.
The Pittsburgh Steelers finished that year with a league-best 12-2 record. The Steelers would eventually go on to win their second straight Super Bowl championship at the end of the 1975 season.
The Cincinnati Bengals were just behind Pittsburgh. The Bengals finished 1975 with an 11-3 record, which was good enough for them to claim the AFC Wild Card spot. Back then, only four teams in each conference could make the playoffs, and even though they did not win a division title, the Bengals nevertheless managed to earn a spot on this postseason tournament.
The Houston Oilers, however, did not. They finished the 1975 regular season with a strong 10-4 record. That would have been good enough for a possible playoff spot if they had played in a weaker division in the NFL.
But the AFC Central Division in 1975 was definitely not weak. Statistically speaking, the Steelers, Bengals and Oilers finished at or near the top of the team statistics across the league. Let’s explore some of those stats.
STATS FROM THE BEST DIVISION (1975)
Pittsburgh finished the 1975 season as the fifth-best overall offense and the second-best overall defense in the NFL. They had scored 373 points in 1975, while only permitting 162 total points that year. There was no shortage of great players on Pittsburgh’s roster.
From quarterback Terry Bradshaw, to running backs Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier, to wide receivers Lynn Swann and John Stallworth, to Steel Curtain defensive players like “Mean” Joe Greene, Jack Ham, Jack Lambert, and Mel Blount…the Steelers just had a plethora of great players all up and down their roster.
Cincinnati finished the 1975 season with the ninth-best overall offense and the sixth-best overall defense in the NFL. In a league with 28 teams at that time, those are fairly high rankings. The Bengals scored 340 points in 1975, and their defense gave up 246 points that season.
Cincy’s quarterback was none other than Ken Anderson, a passer who had the reputation of being one of the most accurate quarterbacks in the league during the era of the 1970s. He finished the 1975 season by completing almost 60 percent of his passes, and he led the NFL in passing yardage with 3,169 yards. His passing average was just under 244 yards per game in 1975.
Houston finished the 1975 season with the 12th-best overall offense and the fifth-best overall defense in the NFL. Nobody really expected Houston to be as good as they actually were in 1975. Yes, they had a strong finish in 1974 as they posted a 7-7 mark that year. But they somehow were able to ride that momentum to finish just one win short of a playoff berth in 1975.
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Houston’s strength was their defense, a unit which surrendered only 13 total touchdowns all year long. They won their final three games of the regular season at San Francisco and at Oakland, and at home versus the Cleveland Browns. They were unable to defeat the Steelers and the Bengals, however. If they had just managed to win one of those contests against either Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, the Oilers would have won a wild card berth.
In truth to be told, there were several great divisions in the NFL during the 1970s. Most notable among them was the 1976 and 1979 NFC Eastern Division. But I’ll go with the 1975 AFC Central Division as being the best of the best, a division with three of its four teams winning at least 10 games in a 14-game regular season.
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Trivia Question:
What was the record of the Cleveland Browns in 1975, the only team in the AFC Central Division to not win at least 10 games that year?
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Host of Pro Football in the 1970s - Joe Zagorski
Throughout his days, Joe spent some time as a sportswriter and has been a member of the Pro Football Researchers Association since the mid-1980s. Joe is also a proud member of the Pro Football Writers of America.
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