1967 NFL Championship Game - Buildup

Buildup

The 1967 game was a rematch of the 1966 NFL title game which was held on January 1, 1967. More than two years after football had become the most popular televised sport in the nation, this game featured a match up that all of America hoped for in the NFL Championship.

Landry and Lombardi's path crossed in 1954 with the New York Giants when Lombardi became the offensive coordinator and Landry, the left cornerback for the Giants, took on the added role of defensive coordinator. Landry was the best defensive mind of his era and Lombardi was the best offensive coach of his era. From a personality standpoint, Landry and Lombardi were the antithesis of each other. Lombardi was a vociferously demanding coach who would respond with the greatest elation to success and tremendous sadness to the slightest setback. Landry was stoic and calm in even the most tense situations.

The Vegas betting line listed the Packers as 6 1/2 point favorites. The Cowboys would employ their vaunted "Doomsday Defense", a nickname given to the defensive unit by a Dallas journalist because it had been successful at making goal line stands. The eight year-old Dallas franchise was trying to win its first ever world championship. The Packers were on a quest to achieve what had never been done before—three consecutive world championships. To the game, Green Bay brought its renowned Lombardi sweep and the Cowboys brought a defensive scheme, The Flex, which was specifically designed by Landry to stop the "running to daylight" tactic the Packers employed in their sweep. Although the Packers and the Chicago Bears were arch-rivals, Lombardi's most passionate game planning was in preparing for Landry's "Flex".

Saturday, on the eve of the game, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle called Jim Kensil and Don Weiss, the executive directors of the NFL, for an update on the weather conditions. It is suspected that they informed him that Sunday's game time temperature of about 5 °F (−15 °C) was playable. Rozelle, who in June 1966 had seen to it that the AFL-NFL Championship game would always been held in a warm weather city, inquired if the game could be postponed until Monday. Predictions held Monday would be even colder than Sunday and the game was not postponed. Little did they know that the cold front would be far colder and would arrive much sooner than expected. The Packers, who had for years eschewed late-season home games because of the cold winters, would play host to the Cowboys in a game that would mark the coldest New Year's Eve in the history of Green Bay and the coldest title game in the history of the NFL, a record that still stands. David Maraniss recounts in his 1999 Vince Lombardi autobiography When Pride Still Mattered that Packer safety Willie Wood left his home Sunday morning to find that his car's battery was frozen and dead. When a local service-station attendant was summoned to start the car, Wood told him "It's just too cold to play. They're going to call this game off."