Professional Football Researchers Association Forum
PFRA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the history of professional football. Formed in 1979, PFRA members include many of the game's foremost historians and writers.
Mark L. Ford wrote:I think that at the time of the 1967 NFL Championship, Rozelle's memories of 1963 were still fresh.
I've mentioned before that if Rozelle had postponed games the week of Kennedy's assassination, the result in that game might have been different. That's because everything would have been pushed back a week, and on January 5, 1964, the high in the Windy City that day was a practically balmy 46. The following year in Cleveland wasn't that great--30 degrees in game played right off Lake Erie, and the next year was the Packers-Browns slopfest.
The 1965 title game was similar to the '67 game in that the day before, the weather was fine. The morning of the game, a snowstorm hit, making the field a mud pit.
Pretty much, all of the championship games hosted by the Packers, league or conference, have been in freezing weather, ranging from unpleasant to bitter. The exception was the first one they hosted, in 1939, when it got into the high 40s. Still, that was a fall game, in mid-December, and it was moved from Green Bay down to Milwaukee (West Allis).
There's also the Sneaker Game, Bears v Giants on ice.
The Buffalo game was moved to Detroit this year because the stands might have been empty, some sort of Emergency had been declared, and maybe the TV crews would have had hard time getting there as well as the press. I am sure the media influenced the decision, they get up in faces now, influencing decisions. Also, people are more simp-like than in the distant and near distant past. People rarely talk about games that were moved except as examples in this type of discussion.
I wish last years Super Bowl had been played in a frosty snow storm, myself. The only time football isn't fun to watch in bad conditions was that game at Chicago a couple decades ago, played in the fog- because viewers couldn't see anything, including the announcers...
Bob Gill wrote:I think the point of the first question was that the Packers' last drive wouldn't have gone deep in Dallas territory, and in that case I'd say the game wouldn't be remembered, except for how cold it was.
If the Cowboys had stopped Starr's quarterback sneak, though, I do think it would be remembered as a great game.
I agree. If the Cowboys had won the Ice Bowl and gone on to defeat the Raiders in Super Bowl II, pro football history would have been different. Don Meredith might have played past 1968. Vince Lombardi would be less talked about today, or at least the Lombardi Trophy would be named something else.
I don't see how Lombardi would of been less talked about today because of that reason.
The Packers I believe where the best team of the 60's under him and I believe the Lombardi Trophy was fist awarded to them when The Packers won Superbowl I.
Bob Gill wrote:I think the point of the first question was that the Packers' last drive wouldn't have gone deep in Dallas territory, and in that case I'd say the game wouldn't be remembered, except for how cold it was.
If the Cowboys had stopped Starr's quarterback sneak, though, I do think it would be remembered as a great game.
I agree. If the Cowboys had won the Ice Bowl and gone on to defeat the Raiders in Super Bowl II, pro football history would have been different. Don Meredith might have played past 1968. Vince Lombardi would be less talked about today, or at least the Lombardi Trophy would be named something else.
I don't see how Lombardi would of been less talked about today because of that reason.
The Packers I believe where the best team of the 60's under him and I believe the Lombardi Trophy was fist awarded to them when The Packers won Superbowl I.
Nothing would be farther from the truth. It was only renamed the Lombardi Trophy in 1970, after Lombardi's death from cancer. The first awarding of the now-called Lombardi Trophy was for Super Bowl IV.