The 2001 NFL season was the 82nd regular season of the National Football League (NFL), and the first season of the 21st century. The league permanently moved the first week of the regular season to the weekend following Labor Day. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the NFL's week 2 games (September 16 and 17) were postponed and rescheduled to the weekend of January 6 and 7, 2002. To retain the full playoff format, all playoff games, including Super Bowl XXXVI, were rescheduled one week later. The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl, defeating the St. Louis Rams 20–17 at the Louisiana Superdome.
This was the last season with 31 teams as the Houston Texans were introduced as an expansion team the following season. It was also the final season to feature the AFC Central and NFC Central divisions, as they were realigned into the AFC North, AFC South, NFC North, and NFC South the following season.
Player movement
Transactions
July 27: The San Francisco 49ers sign quarterback Ricky Ray.[1] Ray would go on to a career in the Canadian Football League.
Trades
July 20: The New Orleans Saints trade Robert Arnaud to Washington.[2]
Retirements
April 9, 2001: Three-time Super Bowl champion Troy Aikman announces his retirement, after failing to find another team.
After the 2000 season, defensive end Reggie White retired after spending his last season in Carolina.
After the 2000 season, Eddie Murray, who had played in 3 stints (1980-1995, 1997, 1999-2000) and Irving Fryar, who entered the NFL in 1984, decided they had played their final NFL games in Washington.
Warren Moon and Al Del Greco, two players who entered the NFL in 1984, retired after spending their last seasons in Kansas City and Tennessee, respectively.
Jessie Tuggle, who entered the NFL in 1987, retired after spending all 14 of his seasons with the Falcons.
Mike Pereira became the league's director of officiating, succeeding Jerry Seeman, who had served the role since 1991. Pereira was a side judge in 1996 and 1997 before joining the league office, where he was groomed as Seeman's successor over the next three seasons.
Bill Leavy and Terry McAulay were promoted to referee. Phil Luckett returned to back judge, while another officiating crew was added in 2001 in preparation for the Houston Texans expansion team, the league's 32nd franchise, in 2002.
Due to labor dispute, the regular NFL officials were locked out prior to the final week of the preseason. Replacement officials who had worked in college football or the Arena Football League officiated NFL games during the last preseason week and the first week of the regular season. A deal was eventually reached before play resumed after the September 11 attacks.
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[3] and Oakland Raiders–Seattle Seahawks,[4] 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.
Korey Stringer: Former tackle for the Minnesota Vikings died from a heat stroke August 1, 2001, during training camp. Vikings team wore a 77 patch on their jerseys to commemorate Stringer.
Regular season
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 and 17 were postponed and rescheduled to the weekend of January 6 and 7. To retain the full playoff format, all playoff games, including the Super Bowl, were rescheduled 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 three divisions, as the conferences would be realigned to four divisions for the 2002 NFL season.
Canceling the games scheduled for September 16 and 17 was considered and rejected since it would have canceled a home game for about half the teams (15 of 31). It would have also resulted in an unequal number of games played: September 16 and 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 irrelevant).
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 September 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. Ironically, the Eagles and Buccaneers would both rest their starters that night, and 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 to 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 used at all in 2007, and since 2008, it is only used in the final week, except for the 2017 season, when no primetime game was scheduled for Week 17 due to that Sunday falling on New Year's Eve.
The games that eventually made up Week 17 marked the latest regular season games to be played during what is traditionally defined as the "NFL season" (under the format at the time, the regular season could not end later than January 3 in any given year; this changed in 2021, as the NFL expanded to 17 games with the end of the regular season pushed back one week as a result; the 2021 regular season ended on January 9, and under the new format, the latest the regular season could end is January 10).
Another scheduling change took place in October, when the Dallas at Oakland game was moved from October 21 to 7 to accommodate a possible Oakland Athletics home playoff game on October 21. The rescheduling ended up being unnecessary as the Athletics would not make it past the Division Series round.
Houston Texans – Dom Capers was hired as the expansion Texans’ first head coach on January 19, 2001. The Texans would play their inaugural season the next year.
San Diego Chargers – John Butler, hired on Jan 4, 2001, filled the position that had been vacant since Bobby Beathard's retirement on April 25, 2000. Before Butler's hiring, player personnel director Billy Devaney took the responsibility of player acquisitions.[9]
Green Bay Packers – Head coach Mike Sherman assumed Ron Wolf's duties as GM. Wolf announced he would retire as Packers GM in February 2001, stayed on through the April NFL draft and officially retired as Packers GM in June 2001.
Philadelphia Eagles – Head coach Andy Reid assumed Tom Modrak's duties as GM. Modrak was fired on May 8, 2001. Owner Jeffrey Lurie cited his displeasure with Modrak's insistence on having an escape clause in his contract as the primary reason.[10] The next day, Reid was named executive vice president of football operations, effectively making him the team's general manager.[11]
Chicago Bears – Jerry Angelo was hired as the Bear's first general manager since 1987 on June 12, 2001.[12]Mark Hatley, who had been de facto general manager in his role as vice president of pro personnel, had joined the Green Bay Packers front office as vice president of football operations in May 2001, after it was clear he was out of the Bears’ general manager search.[13][14]
Following 9/11, every jersey had a patch to remember those who died on that day, while the New York Jets and New York Giants wore a patch to remember the firefighters who died.
Television
This was the fourth year under the league's eight-year broadcast contracts with ABC, CBS, Fox, and ESPN to televise Monday Night Football, the AFC package, the NFC package, and Sunday Night Football, respectively.
Pat Summerall announced that this would be his last season as a full-time NFL broadcaster. This would also be John Madden's last year of commentating on Fox, ending the 21-season Summerall–Madden pairing that dated back since 1981 on CBS. With Matt Millen leaving Fox to become the general manager of the Detroit Lions, the network tapped Daryl Johnston from CBS and the then-recently retired quarterback Troy Aikman to join Dick Stockton as Fox's No. 2 team.