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The 1995 AFC Championship Game was the championship game for the American Football Conference for the 1995 season. The game was played on January 14, 1996〔 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, home of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who hosted the Indianapolis Colts for the chance to play the winner of the National Football Conference in Super Bowl XXX in Tempe, Arizona. While it was considered a mismatch between an expected Super Bowl contender (Pittsburgh) and a Cinderella team (Indianapolis) in the week leading up to the game, it turned out to be very competitive, going down to the last play of the game when Colts quarterback Jim Harbaugh threw a Hail Mary pass that was dropped in the end zone by the intended receiver, Aaron Bailey. The dropped pass gave the Steelers a 20–16 victory and sent them to Super Bowl XXX, the team's first Super Bowl appearance since Super Bowl XIV sixteen years earlier. The game would mark a turning point for both franchises. For Steelers head coach Bill Cowher, it would be the first of only two times the Steelers would advance to the Super Bowl during his 15-year tenure at home, as the team would host the AFC Championship Game five times between 1994 and 2004 but would lose nearly all of them, with the 1995 game being the one exception. For the Colts, it marked an unexpected period of success in the mid-1990s for a franchise that otherwise struggled between its 1984 move to Indianapolis (as well as the team's last few years in Baltimore before that) and the team drafting Peyton Manning with the number one overall pick in the 1998 NFL Draft. The game has been ranked among the best Conference Championship games in the history of the National Football League by several publications, including ''Sports Illustrated'', ESPN,〔http://www.livedash.com/transcript/nfl%27s_greatest_games-%281995_afc_championship__indianapolis_colts_at_pittsburgh_steelers%29/3672/ESPN2/Friday_January_15_2010/167161/〕 AOL,〔http://www.aolnews.com/2007/01/16/cowhers-greatest-games-no-2-1995-season-steelers-colts-afc-c/〕 and several local publications throughout the United States.〔http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/546478/Steelers--best-worst-moments-in-AFC-title-games.html?nav=751〕 NFL Films would go on to feature the game in both its ongoing ''NFL Films Game of the Week'' and ''NFL's Greatest Games'' series. ==Background== Entering the 1995 NFL season, the Pittsburgh Steelers were expected to compete for the AFC Central title and a trip to the Super Bowl following a 12–4 regular season the year before behind its "Blitzburgh" defense that saw the team upset by the San Diego Chargers 17–13 in the 1994 AFC Championship Game. However, the team got off to a slow start, starting the 1995 season at 3–4 before ripping through the NFL on an eight-game winning streak. The team's last regular season loss was in Week 17 against the Green Bay Packers, 24–19 at Lambeau Field, a game that had no playoff implications since both teams had already clinched their respective playoff seedings entering the game. The Steelers' 11–5 record was good enough for the AFC Central Division championship (four games ahead of the Cincinnati Bengals and Houston Oilers) and the conference's number 2 seed, earning a first-round bye in the playoffs. The Colts were coming off an 8–8 season in 1994 that was the team's best record since 1987, when the team won the AFC East with a 9–6 record during the strike-shortened season. Aside from the 1987 season, the Colts had not appeared in the playoffs since 1977 when the team was in Baltimore. Behind veteran quarterback Jim Harbaugh, the 1995 season would change that, as several come-from-behind victories propelled the team to a 9–7 record and the number 5 seed in the AFC playoffs. When the playoffs started, the Steelers defeated the Buffalo Bills 40–21 in the Divisional round to advance to their second consecutive AFC Championship Game. Meanwhile, the Colts defeated the defending AFC champion San Diego Chargers 35–20 at Jack Murphy Stadium, then pulled off the upset by defeating the top-seeded Kansas City Chiefs 10–7 at Arrowhead Stadium. The upset of the Chiefs meant that the AFC Championship Game would be a home game for the Steelers instead of traveling to Kansas City for the AFC Championship Game. The upset also marked the Colts' first AFC Championship Game appearance in 24 years, since the then-Baltimore Colts lost to the Miami Dolphins 21–0 in 1971. The Colts were the first number 5 seed to advance to a conference championship game since the 1990 playoff expansion. It would mark the first time since the 1970 merger that no team that was a member of the American Football League at any point in its history participated in the AFC Championship Game, as both the Colts and Steelers were with the "old" NFL before moving to the newly formed AFC in 1970 to even out the two conferences. (Since then, only the 2008 AFC Championship Game between the Steelers and their archrivals, the Baltimore Ravens, has the AFC title been played for between two non-AFL teams.) The game was a rematch of the Week 3 contest between the two teams from the previous season, which the Steelers won at home, 31–21. The 1995 AFC Championship Game would be the second of four consecutive seasons in which the two teams met in Pittsburgh, an uncommon sight for non-division rivals. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1995 AFC Championship Game」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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