Instead of a traditional Thanksgiving Day game hosted by the Dallas Cowboys, the league scheduled a Miami Dolphins at St. Louis Cardinals contest.

The 17.2 average points scored per team per game was the lowest since 1942, and it was the only post-merger NFL season where no player surpassed 1,000 receiving yards.

[1] The season ended with Super Bowl XII when the Cowboys defeated the Denver Broncos.

With the first pick, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected running back Ricky Bell from the University of Southern California.

Tampa Bay and Seattle continued as "swing" teams that did not participate in regular conference play.

NBC also renamed its pregame show, referring to it as NFL '77 to start and updating the program's title every new season.