2002 NFL season

Also, the Chicago Bears played their home games in 2002 in Champaign, Illinois, at Memorial Stadium because of the reconstruction of Soldier Field.

The NFL title was won by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when they defeated the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII, at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California, on January 26, 2003.

The 2002 NFL draft was held from April 20 to 21, 2002, at New York City's Theater at Madison Square Garden.

155 players were left unprotected by their teams for the Houston Texans to select to fill their initial roster.

The NFL does not use a fixed bracket playoff system, and there are no restrictions regarding teams from the same division matching up in any round.

Although the Super Bowl, the championship round of the playoffs, is played at a neutral site, the designated home team is based on an annual rotation by conference.

[13] Reebok had initially announced when the deal was signed in 2000 that aside from the expansion Texans, all NFL teams would be wearing new uniforms for the 2002 season.

Although Summerall had previously announced his retirement as a full-time NFL broadcaster after the 2001 season ended, he continued to call selected games for Fox in 2002.

Meanwhile, ABC hired Madden from Fox to join Al Michaels in a two-man booth, dropping the network's experiment with Micheals, Dan Fouts, and comedian Dennis Miller on MNF.

Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, and Cris Collinsworth replaced Summerall and Madden as Fox's new lead broadcast team.

The network opted to leave Dick Stockton and Daryl Johnston as Fox's #2 team in a two-man booth, and not find a replacement for Aikman there.

To replace Collinsworth on Fox NFL Sunday, the network initially used a rotating series of guest analysts before Jimmy Johnson took over the seat permanently midway through the season.