1982 NFL season

• August 25, 1982: Quarterback Ken Stabler, winner of Super Bowl XI with the Oakland Raiders, signed with the New Orleans Saints.^[1]

September 18, 1982: The New Orleans Saints traded longtime starter Archie Manning to the Houston Oilers for offensive tackle Leon Gray.^[2]

• February 10, 1982: Four-time Super Bowl champion Mean Joe Greene announces his retirement.^[3]

The 1982 NFL Draft was held from April 27 to 28, 1982, at New York City's Sheraton Hotel. With the first pick, the New England Patriots selected defensive end Kenneth Sims from the University of Texas. And with the second pick, the Baltimore Colts selected Johnie Cooks from Mississippi State.

• The penalty for incidental grabbing of a facemask that is committed by the defensive team changed from five yards and an automatic first down to only five yards with no automatic first down. The incidental facemask penalty was eliminated for the 2008 season.
• The penalties for illegally kicking, batting, or punching the ball changed from 15 yards to 10 yards.
• This was the first season that the NFL recorded quarterback sacks as an official statistic.

For the first time all Sunday afternoon games began in one of two windows: 1:00 p.m. ET/noon CT for early games, or 4:00 p.m. ET/1:00 p.m. PT for late games. From 1970 to 1981, most games began at 1 p.m. local time regardless of the home team (except in Denver, where the Broncos kick off at 2 p.m. MT). An exception to this rule was made for the Baltimore Colts, who were forced to begin Sunday home games no earlier than 2 p.m. Eastern due to a Baltimore ordinance, since repealed, which prohibited Sunday sporting events from beginning prior to that hour. That ordinance was cited by owner Robert Irsay as a burden and a factor in moving the franchise to Indianapolis in March 1984.

Players began a 57-day strike following the completion of week 2 of the regular season. As a result of the impasse, games were simply cancelled until a settlement was reached (ultimately, Weeks 3 to 10).

During the players strike, the NFLPA put on two exhibition games. One game was played at RFK Stadium in Washington DC and the other was at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Low attendance and court rulings forced the NFLPA to cancel any further games.

Upon reaching that settlement, the NFL announced that Weeks 11 to 16 would be played as scheduled, and the games originally scheduled for week 3 of the season would be played following the completion of the resumed regular season as a new week 17, with the playoffs pushed back one week. Later, the NFL decided to use the final week 17 to hold various intra-division games from cancelled Weeks 3 to 10 instead of merely playing the week-3 games. This was done to increase attendance and to allow some teams to balance out home and away games, to the extent possible (either five home and four away, or four home and five away). Because the 1982 shortened season would include only nine regular season contests for each team, the NFL announced that the three divisions in each of the two conferences would be eliminated for the purpose of determining playoff qualifications, and the regular season would be followed by an expansion of the playoffs from 10 to 16 teams. With this, each conference had 14 teams competing for 8 playoff spots, with division standings being disregarded in favor of overall conference standings. The Washington Redskins were the Super Bowl winners.

Clinched playoff seeds are marked in parentheses and shaded in green

Each of the first three rounds of the playoffs was pushed back one week in order to make room for the new week 17, which was originally scheduled as the Wild Card weekend. This was possible because there was an idle week between the Conference Championship games and the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl was held as originally scheduled.

Until this season, no team ever reached the post-season with a losing record. The Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions both made playoff appearances with 4–5 records. It would be 28 years before another team with a losing record would make the postseason (however, this would be accomplished in a full season).^[4]

The postseason would mark several "firsts" and "lasts" for several teams and players:

• This was the Cardinals' first postseason appearance since 1975 and last postseason game representing St. Louis. The franchise relocated to Arizona in 1988 and did not return to the playoffs until 1998. The Cardinals were 0–3 in playoff games representing St. Louis, with all three on the road.
• This marked Terry Bradshaw's final appearance at Three Rivers Stadium. He sat out nearly all of the 1983 season with an elbow injury, appearing in just one half of a late-season game against the Jets in what turned out to be their final game at Shea Stadium. It would also be the final appearance of fellow Hall of Famers Lynn Swann and Jack Ham, both of whom would retire in the offseason, the last home playoff game of head coach Chuck Noll (who would coach eight more years, with the Steelers either missing the playoffs or only playing away playoff games), and the Steelers last home playoff game until 1992.
• This was Tampa Bay's last playoff game until 1997, by which time the Buccaneers replaced their orange uniforms. From 1983 to 1996, they suffered 14 consecutive losing seasons, 13 of which saw Tampa Bay lose 10 or more games.
• This would be Atlanta's last playoff appearance until the 1991 season.
• This was the final postseason appearance in the Hall of Fame careers of Chargers stars Dan Fouts, Charlie Joiner, and Kellen Winslow. All would remain with the Chargers until at least 1986, but the Chargers would not return to the postseason until 1992.
• This was the Packers' first postseason appearance since 1972 and only the second since Vince Lombardi stepped down as head coach following the 1967 season, as well as the team's only postseason victory between the Lombardi and Brett Favre eras (1969–91). The Packers would not play another postseason game until 1993.
• This would be the final playoff win in Cowboys coach Tom Landry's career before his firing in 1989. It would be the Cowboys last playoff victory until 1991. After appearing in 10 of the previous 13 NFC Championship games, this would be Dallas's last appearance until 1992.

• Baltimore Colts: Frank Kush replaced the fired Mike McCormack.
• Chicago Bears: Mike Ditka replaced the fired Neill Armstrong.
• New England Patriots: Ron Meyer replaced the fired Ron Erhardt.

• Seattle Seahawks: Jack Patera was fired during the players strike after the team lost their first two games. Mike McCormack, the team's director of football operations, took over as interim for the remainder of the season.

• The relocated Los Angeles Raiders moved from the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
• The Minnesota Vikings moved from Metropolitan StadiuminBloomington to the MetrodomeinMinneapolis

• The league discontinued the 1979 numbering system for officials, with officials numbered separately by position, and reverted to the original system where each NFL official was assigned a random number regardless of position. Officials who were in the league in 1978 were allowed to reclaim their old number or switch to a number used by a 1978 official who had since retired or was not in use in 1978; officials hired beginning in 1979 then picked from remaining numbers based upon seniority. Also the officials' position was now abbreviated on the back of the uniform instead of being spelled out in full.
• The Baltimore Colts began wearing gray pants with their blue jerseys. The gray pants featured a horseshoe on each hip, with the player's number inside the horseshoe.
• The Chicago Bears switched from gray to navy blue face masks.
• The Detroit Lions switched from silver to white numbers on their blue jerseys.
• The Dallas Cowboys added elliptical blue circles with the player's number to the hip area of the pants.
• The St. Louis Cardinals repeated their helmet logo on top of the sleeve stripes of their white jerseys.

ABC, CBS, and NBC each signed five-year contracts to renew their rights to broadcast Monday Night Football, the NFC package, and the AFC package, respectively. The major change was that ABC was allowed into the Super Bowl rotation beginning with Super Bowl XIX at the end of the 1984 season.^[5]

Len Berman replaced Bryant Gumbel as host on NBC's pregame show NFL '82. Pete Axthelm also joined the show as a studio analyst.

With games canceled during the players' strike, CBS sent Pat Summerall and John Madden, and some of their other regular NFL announcing crews, to instead call a few college football Division II and III games.^[6] NBC acquired the rights to air the Canadian Football League for those weeks, sending Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen, and their other regular NFL announcing crews to those games.^[7]

During this season, the new Channel 4 in the United Kingdom began its coverage of the NFL^[8] which was to earn a substantial following during English soccer's low point of the mid-1980s. However, the first game shown—between the Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers—had been played some time before it was shown in the UK, because coverage began during the players' strike.^[9]

• October 26 – Vince Jacob, age 51. Official since 1975 (line judge 1975–77; side judge 1978 – first two weeks of 1982).

• December 11 – Rich Houston, age 37. Drafted in the 4th round of the 1969 National Football League Draft, Houston played for the New York Giants 1969–1973.

• NFL Record and Fact Book (ISBN 1-932994-36-X)
• NFL History 1981–1990 Archived October 6, 2008, at the Wayback Machine (Last accessed December 4, 2005)
• Total Football: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League (ISBN 0-06-270174-6)
• 1982 NFL season at Football Reference