The 1943 NFL season was the 24th regular season of the National Football League. As more players left to serve in World War II, three teams were affected by the depleted rosters. The Cleveland Rams were granted permission to suspend operations for this season. The Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers merged for this one season. The combined team, known as Phil-Pitt (and called the "Steagles" by fans), played four home games in Philadelphia and two in Pittsburgh.

The season ended when the Chicago Bears defeated the Washington Redskins, 41–21, in the NFL Championship Game played the day after Christmas (the first time in NFL history that a playoff game was played so late in the year). Chicago had finished its regular season on November 28, winning the Western Division with an 8–1–1 record. However, the Bears had to wait for three straight weekends while the Eastern Division teams settled on a champion. Washington and the New York Giants ended the regular season by playing against each other on two consecutive Sundays, December 5 and December 12 (the December 12th game being a makeup from the postponed game of October 3rd), with the Giants winning both games to force a first-place tie at 6–3–1 each. The Redskins, however, won the playoff game to advance to play the Bears.

The National Football League has enjoyed success in selling out many of their venues from season ticket sales alone. Out of 32 teams in the league, 24 claim to have waiting lists from under 1,000 people to over 150,000. For some fans, this means a wait not just of years, but decades. This is due mostly to the NFL's short window of play; there are only eight regular-season home games, forcing the most devoted fans into a desperate and sometimes costly search for a limited number of events.

Since 1973, the waiting lists have also had the by-product of preventing any home games of certain teams from being blacked out on local television. Home games must be sold out within 72 hours of kickoff before a telecast is allowed, and the longest waiting lists have ensured every home game of the applicable teams being locally televised. Prior to 1973, home games could not be locally televised even if they were sold out. Four teams have had the benefit of not seeing any blackouts at all since 1972.

Personal Seat Licenses (PSLs) is a license which grants the holder the right to buy season tickets for a particular team. PSLs were first used in the NFL by the expansion Carolina Panthers in 1993 to help finance their new stadium. Since that time, several teams have used the mechanism to finance new stadium projects including the Chicago Bears remodel of Soldier Field and more recently the Dallas Cowboys. The New York Jets and the New York Giants used PSL programs to finance the construction of the New Meadowlands Stadium, now MetLife Stadium.

Thomas Lee Mack (born on November 1, 1943) is a former left guard for the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL, spending all 13-years with them from 1966 to 1978. Mack was the son of a professional baseball player (Cleveland Indians' second baseman, Ray Mack, aka Raymond James Mack [born Raymond James Mlckovsky])

Mack was the number 1 pick of the Rams in the 1966 NFL Draft, second overall, from the University of Michigan, one of only two rookies not cut in George Allen’s tough veteran-dominated squad.

During his rookie campaign when starter Don Chuy was injured during the 5th game of the season, Mack moved into the lineup. He was back as the starter for 3 games after that, lost out to Ted Karras briefly, only to reclaim the position and start for the next 12 years. Mack never missed a game through injury in his entire career, appearing in 184 consecutive contests, a streak topped only by Merlin Olsen and Jack Youngblood. He played next to center Ken Iman from 1966 to 1974 and left tackle Charley Cowan from 1966 to 1975. During Mack's career with the Rams, they compiled an impressive record, with winning seasons 12 out of the 13. During this span, the Rams enjoyed a .720 winning percentage with a won-lost-tie record of 129-48-7, winning their division (and reaching the playoffs) 8 times (1967,1969,1973 to 1978) and reaching 4 NFC championship games.

Timothy Richard Tebow ( /ˈtiːboʊ/; born August 14, 1987) is an American football quarterback for the New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at the University of Florida, winning the Heisman Trophy in 2007 and appearing on BCS National Championship-winning teams in the 2006 and 2008 seasons. After graduating, he was drafted by the Denver Broncos as the 25th overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft. Tebow is known as a dual threat quarterback, adept at both rushing and passing the football. With his unorthodox NFL quarterback skills, frequent demonstrations of his religious devotion, and his team's success, Tebow has attracted unprecedented praise, criticism, and attention from the sporting media and beyond. Commenting on Tebow's play and the attention he has garnered, many football players and observers have said that they "have never seen anything like it."

Tebow played quarterback for Nease High School in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida and was ranked among the top quarterback prospects in the nation as a high school senior. He ultimately chose to attend the University of Florida. As a backup and situational quarterback, Tebow helped the Gators win the national championship during the 2006 college football season. Tebow was the Gators' starting quarterback during the 2007 season when he became the first college sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy. In 2008, Tebow led Florida to a 13-1 record and its second national championship in three years, and was named the offensive MVP of the national championship game. The Gators again went 13–1 in 2009, Tebow's senior year. At the conclusion of his college career, he held the Southeastern Conference's all-time records in both career passing efficiency and total rushing touchdowns, appearing second and tenth (respectively) in the NCAA record book in these categories.

Hannah Storm (born Hannah Storen June 13, 1962) is an American television sports journalist, serving as co-anchor of ESPN's SportsCenter Monday–Thursday mornings, and is also host of the NBA Countdown pregame show on ABC as part of the network's NBA Sunday game coverage, until 2011.

Storm was born in Oak Park, Illinois, and is the daughter of sports executive Mike Storen, who was a commissioner of the American Basketball Association, general manager of that league's Indiana Pacers, Kentucky Colonels and Memphis Sounds franchises, and president of the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA. Her mother, Hannah G. Storen, is a successful real estate agent in Houston, Texas. She graduated from Westminster Schools of Atlanta in 1979 and the University of Notre Dame in 1983, with degrees in political science and communications. She is married to sportscaster Dan Hicks. The couple have three daughters: Riley, Ellery and Hannah.

Storm took her on-air name during her stint as a disc jockey for a hard rock radio station in Corpus Christi, Texas, in the early 1980s. While at Notre Dame, she worked for WNDU-TV, the Notre Dame-owned NBC affiliate in South Bend, Indiana. After graduation, she took a job as a disc jockey at KNCN-FM (C-101) in Corpus Christi, Texas. Six months later, she got a job at a Houston rock station KSRR 97 Rock as the drive-time sportscaster. Storm stayed in Houston for four years doing a variety of radio and television jobs, including hosting the Houston Rockets halftime and postgame shows and also hosted Houston Astros postgame shows on television. She worked as a very popular weekend sports anchor on WCNC TV 36 (formerly WRET) in Charlotte, NC in 1988-89. She made the leap to CNN from there.