The season schedule itself was pushed back a week from what was originally planned , owing to the assassination of President Kennedy , which resulted in the AFL moving games from that weekend ( i.e. , the weekend of November 23 – 24 ) to the weekend of December 21 – 22 . Since only three games had been scheduled , with Boston and Buffalo both having a bye , it meant that the Patriots and Bills finished their regular schedule on Saturday , December 14 , a week before the league 's other six teams did . Consequently , the Patriots and Bills could have played their tiebreaker playoff on December 22 , potentially leaving the AFL Championship Game for the next weekend ( the originally scheduled date ) , since they knew after games of December 15 that they and they alone had tied for the division title . However , the Western Division race had not yet been decided and Chargers and Raiders owners Barron Hilton and Al Davis respectively objected to playing the Eastern playoff " early " on the grounds that it would have given the Eastern winner an unfair advantage in terms of rest in case the Chargers and Raiders also had to play a tiebreaker . The Chargers won their last game and with it won the West outright , nevertheless the Bills-Patriots Eastern Division playoff was not played until after the following week on Saturday , December 28 ( the day before the Chicago-New York NFL Championship Game ) . This meant that the Boston-San Diego championship game was not played until January 5 , 1964 . Thus was held the second professional playoff game ever held in January ( with the AFL 's first ever title playoff on January 1 , 1961 , being the only time before then that that had occurred ) . As it happened , the Patriots-Chargers playoff was also latest date on which a non-Super Bowl playoff game was ever held , and it retained that record until the AFC and NFC Championship Games of January 7 , 1979 . No 14-game season ever ended later
assassination
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
1963 American Football League season