NFL

Season Description
The 2008 NFL season was the 89th regular season of the National Football League (NFL), themed with the slogan "Believe in Now."

Super Bowl XLIII, the league's championship game, was at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, on February 1, 2009, with the Pittsburgh Steelers coming out victorious over the Arizona Cardinals 27–23 and winning their NFL-record sixth Vince Lombardi Trophy.

Conversely, the Detroit Lions became the first NFL team with a winless season since the strike-shortened 1982 NFL season, finishing their season 0–16. Their 0-16 record would eventually be matched by the 2017 Cleveland Browns. For the first time since the NFL expanded to the sixteen-game season in 1978, three teams won two or fewer games: the Lions, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the St. Louis Rams. Previously two teams won two or fewer games in 1979, 1981, 1983, 1985, 1992, and 2001. Also, for the first time since the 1985 Denver Broncos, a team finishing with an 11–5 record missed the playoffs — the defending AFC champion New England Patriots.

The regular season began on September 4 with the defending Super Bowl XLII champion New York Giants defeating the Washington Redskins.

This was the last NFL season to air on analog television, as the Digital television transition in the United States, which required all full-power stations to covert to digital, began on June 12, 2009.

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