It was an N.F.L. postseason game with several official and unofficial names and no meaning at all. The Playoff Bowl was one name. But you might have called it the Bert Bell Benefit Bowl (for a former commissioner), the Pro Playoff Classic or the Runner-Up Bowl.

If you were paying any attention at all.

By any name, Roger Brown, an All-Pro right tackle for the Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams, remembers that speck of an iota of a footnote in the history of the N.F.L.’s postseason.

Brown was there with the Lions at the dawn of the Playoff Bowl when the second-place finishers in the league’s conferences played. He was present with the Rams when the format changed to match the losers in a new first round of the playoffs.

“Why are you waking the dead?” Brown said, sounding less than jolly. “I was in five of them, and to have played in it five in the 10 years it was in existence is pitiful.”