2011 NFL season 2011 NFL season The 2011 NFL season was the 92nd regular season of the National Football League. It began on Thursday, September 8, 2011, with the Super Bowl XLV champion Green Bay Packers defeating the Super Bowl XLIV champion New Orleans Saints 42–34 at Lambeau Field and ended with Super Bowl XLVI, the league's championship game, on February 5, 2012, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis where the New York Giants defeated the New England Patriots 21–17. Due to a labor dispute between league owners and players, a lockout began on March 11 and ended on July 25, lasting 18
Super Bowl XLV The secondary was led by pro bowl safety Troy Polamalu, who won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award, tying his career-best seven interceptions and returning them for 101 yards and a touchdown. Coach Mike Tomlin, already the youngest coach to ever win a Super Bowl, became the youngest coach ever to make it to the Super Bowl twice at age 38. The Pittsburgh Steelers had also accomplished going to the Super Bowl in five different decades; and, in every decade since the post AFL-NFL merger. 1970s: 1975, 1976, and 1979. 1980s: 1980. 1990s: 1996. 2000s: 2006 and 2009.