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2014 NFL season

National Football League games played August 2014 through February 2015

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ4630246 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 2014 NFL season was the 95th season in the history of the National Football League (NFL) and the 49th of the Super Bowl era. The season began on Thursday, September 4, 2014, with the annual kickoff game featuring the defending Super Bowl XLVIII champion Seattle Seahawks hosting the Green Bay Packers, which resulted with the Seahawks winning. The season concluded with Super Bowl XLIX, the league's championship game, on Sunday, February 1, 2015, at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, with the New England Patriots defeating the Seahawks 28–24, in one of the closest games in Super Bowl history.

Some notable events of the season include every team losing at least 4 games, the Carolina Panthers going to the playoffs despite having a losing record, the NFC Championship Game where the Seahawks would make a comeback against the Packers, and Super Bowl XLIX where the Patriots would intercept the ball at the one yard line and win the game.

Player movement

The 2014 league year began at 4 pm EST on March 11, which marked the start of the league's free agency period. The per-team salary cap was set at US$133 million, a $10 million increase from the previous year. The so-called "legal tampering" period during which time agents representing prospective unrestricted free agent players (though not the players themselves) were allowed to have contact with team representatives with the purpose of determining a player's market value and to begin contract negotiations, began at noon (EST) on March 8.

Free agency

A total of 471 players were eligible for some form of free agency at the beginning of the free agency period. In addition, a number of highly paid players were released after the start of the league year to allow their teams to regain space under the salary cap. Among the high-profile players who changed teams via free agency were:

Quarterbacks Josh McCown (Chicago to Tampa Bay), Mark Sanchez (New York Jets to Philadelphia) and Michael Vick (Philadelphia to New York Jets)

Running backs LeGarrette Blount (New England to Pittsburgh), Donald Brown (Indianapolis to San Diego), Toby Gerhart (Minnesota to Jacksonville), Chris Johnson (Tennessee to New York Jets), Maurice Jones-Drew (Jacksonville to Oakland) and Ben Tate (Houston to Cleveland)

Wide receivers Kenny Britt (Tennessee to St.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “2014 NFL season” as national Football League games played August 2014 through February 2015. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2014, 2015—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where season, National and Football can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as national Football League games played August 2014 through February 2015. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4630246. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2014 and 2015.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “2014 NFL season” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.