2006 NFL season

The season began with the reigning Super Bowl XL champion Pittsburgh Steelers defeating the Miami Dolphins in the NFL Kickoff Game.

The NFL title was eventually won by the Indianapolis Colts, when they defeated the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI at Dolphin Stadium at Miami Gardens, Florida on February 4, 2007.

During his tenure, the league added four new teams; saw four franchises move (including two franchises—the Rams and Raiders—from Los Angeles, the second-largest television market in the U.S.); the construction of seventeen new stadiums; began its own in-house television specialty cable network, the NFL Network; greatly increased television rights fees with its broadcasters, including the addition of the Fox network and its NFL programming; and maintained labor peace with the players' union.

With the first pick, the Houston Texans selected defensive end Mario Williams from North Carolina State University.

The uniforms were designed by Reebok using a proprietary material technology to keep officials both warm and dry during the winter months of the season.

Officials also wore full-length black pants with white stripe during the winter months to stay warm, which was criticized by media.

This was the first major design overhaul since 1979, when the position name was added to the shirt, but later abbreviated in 1982.For the first time since Super Bowl IV at the conclusion of the 1969 season, the official NFL game ball was known as "The Duke" in honor of Wellington Mara, whose family owns the New York Giants.

Lamar Hunt died in Dallas, Texas on December 13 from complications from prostate cancer at the age of 74.

Less than two months later, on February 24, 2007, Broncos running back Damien Nash collapsed and died after a charity basketball game at a high school.

Based on the NFL's scheduling formula, the intraconference and interconference matchups for 2006 were: Intraconference Interconference This was the first season that the NFL used a "flexible-scheduling" for the last few weeks of the season, allowing the league flexibility in selecting games to air on Sunday night, in order to feature the current hottest, streaking teams.

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.

However, play-by-play announcer Al Michaels remained under contract with ABC/ESPN, and plans were originally for him to be teamed with Joe Theismann, who would be coming over from ESPN Sunday Night Football.

Bob Costas became the host of Football Night in America, while Cris Collinsworth, Jerome Bettis, and Sterling Sharpe became its studio analysts.

James Brown moved from Fox to CBS, replacing Greg Gumbel as host of The NFL Today.