2001 NFL season

Infobox NFL
year = 2001
NFLchampion = New England Patriots
regular_season = September 9, 2001 - January 7, 2002
playoffs_start = January 12, 2002
AFCchampion = New England Patriots
NFCchampion = St. Louis Rams
sb_name = XXXVI
sb_date = February 3, 2002
sb_site = Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana
pb_date = February 10, 2002

The 2001 NFL season was the 82nd regular season of the National Football League. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the games for September 16 - September 17 were postponed and re-scheduled to the weekend of January 6 - January 7. In order to retain the full playoff format, all playoff games, including the Super Bowl were re-scheduled one week later. The season-ending Pro Bowl was also moved one week later. This was the last season before the 2002 realignment, in which the AFC Central and the NFC Central were either renamed or divided.

Canceling the games scheduled for Sept. 16-17 was considered and rejected. That would have cancelled a home game for about half the teams of the league, and also would have resulted in an unequal number of games played (Sept. 16-17 was to have been San Diego's bye week, so that team would still have played 16 games that season and each of the other teams would have played only 15 games).

As a result of rescheduling Week 2 as Week 18, the ESPN Sunday night primetime game for that week was 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. Also, this was the only NFL season where every jersey had a patch to remember those to die in 9/11, and the NY Jets and NY Giants wore a patch to remember the fire fighters who died.

The season ended with Super Bowl XXXVI when the New England Patriots defeated the St. Louis Rams.

Major rule changes

* Fumble recoveries will be awarded at the spot of the recovery, not where the player's momentum carries him.
* Taunting rules will be strictly enforced.
* Roughing the passer will be strictly enforced.

Final regular season standings

"W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, PCT = Winning Percentage, PF= Points For, PA = Points Against"

"Clinched playoff seeds are marked in parentheses and shaded in green"

* - Sack statistics have only been compiled since 1982.

tatistical leaders

Team

Notes

References

* "NFL Record and Fact Book" (ISBN 1-932994-36-X)
* [http://www.nfl.com/history/chronology/2001- NFL History 2001-] (Last accessed October 17 2005)
* "Total Football: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League" (ISBN 0-06-270174-6)
* [http://www.steelersfever.com/nfl_history_of_rules.html Steelers Fever - History of NFL Rules] (Last accessed October 17 2005)