Fifty-three years ago today, on January 3, 1971, the Baltimore Colts beat the Oakland Raiders, 27-17, in the first-ever AFC Championship Game. The NFL and AFL had merged in 1970, and the expanded NFL was divided into two conferences, the NFC and AFC. Because the AFL had only ten teams to the NFL’s sixteen, the NFL’s Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Cleveland Browns moved to the AFC to give the conferences an equal number of teams.
In the AFC Championship game, the Colts and Raiders put up comparable offensive numbers, but Baltimore’s defense won the day, recovering four turnovers to Oakland’s none. The Colts also collected five quarterback sacks, with Bubba Smith and Roy Hilton each getting two. After beating the Raiders, the Colts went on to edge the Dallas Cowboys, 16-13, in Super Bowl V.
Today’s card of the day is Bubba Smith’s rookie card, a 1970 Topps. Smith was the first overall pick in the 1967 NFL Draft (see the Gallery’s First Overall Draft Picks page), which the Colts had obtained from the New Orleans Saints. Smith played a total of nine seasons in the NFL: five for the Colts, two for the Raiders, and two for the Houston Oilers.
Topps apparently like Smith’s image on this card, because they used it over and over for the next few years, even changing his jersey color as he changed teams. You can see all of Smith’s cards in the Gallery.
