FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — In hindsight, the merger between the National Football League and American Football League has proven to be one of the greatest business decisions in the history of professional football.
But if Gino Cappelletti and a number of former AFL players, coaches and executives had their way, the 1970 merger would have never happened. The AFL was built from the ground up, and at times, survival was quite literally an everyday issue. So when the league gained some ground with the American public and credibility with the NFL, those in the AFL reached a conclusion: If they didn’t need the NFL then, why did they need the NFL now?
“I was actually disappointed when they came up with the merger,” Cappelletti said Wednesday. “I was saying, ‘Why not just stay the way it is like with baseball — American League and National League.’ We already won two games in the Super Bowl. Why join them? You don’t have to. Just keep the leagues separate. [Raiders owner] Al Davis and [former owner] Sonny Werblin of the New York Jets fought tooth and nail to keep it separate, but the rest of the owners voted them down and they made the merger to join the NFL. Most of us who played in the league, we were hoping we’d just maintain our own identity.
“I wasn’t alone. A lot of players, we were proud of what the AFL did in 10 years. Hey, we’ll take those guys on if they want to stay that way. It was that attitude — I don’t want to say it in those words — but it was that kind of attitude. We’ll play it off at the end of the year [in the Super Bowl].”
Cappelletti was a kicker and wide receiver for the Boston Patriots from 1960-70, which spanned the entire duration of the AFL, and he retired as the league’s all-time leading scorer. Cappelletti will serve as the Patriots’ honorary captain when they visit the Denver Broncos in an AFL Legacy Game on Sunday.
It’s a rematch of the first game in AFL history, which the Broncos won, 13-10, at B.U. Field on Sept. 9, 1960. Cappelletti scored the league’s first ever points with a field goal, and Gene Mingo, who will be Denver’s honorary captain Sunday, scored the AFL’s second touchdown on a punt return. The pair will be at midfield for the coin toss, which Cappelletti will call.
The Legacy Game is part of a yearlong celebration of the AFL’s 50th anniversary, which has made Cappelletti as proud as ever.
“It’s something the AFL really deserved,” Cappelletti said. “It looked like [the AFL] was fading away. I’ve got to tell you, I was concerned about the image of the AFL, [which] in those years was starting to fade away. The National Football League finally wants to recognize what the AFL meant to the success of professional football. It was very instrumental and also [elevated the NFL’s] parity. This is what they were saying all along — Mickey Mouse league, they just can’t compete.
“I am so proud of the league in honoring the AFL because it really deserves it and it should not be forgotten for the contributions it made.”
The AFL gained popularity through its offensive innovation, which helped attendance and media interest, as well as interest from the NFL’s players, who started crossing over to the AFL because the league offered to pay higher salaries to land NFL stars.
Before the merger, the NFL and AFL came up with the idea of the Super Bowl, pitting the league champions against one another for professional football supremacy. Even though the AFL was considered a joke by some snobs in the NFL, the league claimed two consecutive Super Bowls when the Jets defeated the Baltimore Colts in 1968 and the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Minnesota Vikings in 1969.
With that, Cappelletti and the AFL’s players believed they would be on to bigger things, and they didn’t feel they needed to merge leagues to improve their overall strength. Instead, Cappelletti wanted to keep things as is, with both leagues playing their full seasons before staking a year’s worth of pride on the line in the Super Bowl.
“We would have had two great leagues that would have been playing it off at the end of the year,” Cappelletti said. “I’ve got to tell you, I think there would have been some war-like games.”
