The 1967 NFL Championship Game, commonly referred to as the Ice Bowl, was the 35th NFL championship, played on December 31 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
It determined the NFL's champion, which met the AFL's champion in Super Bowl II, formerly referred to as the second AFL–NFL World Championship Game. The Dallas Cowboys (9–5), champions of the Eastern Conference, traveled north to meet the Western champion Green Bay Packers (9–4–1), the two-time defending league champions. It was a rematch of the previous year's title game, and pitted two future Hall of Fame head coaches against each other, Tom Landry of the Cowboys and Vince Lombardi of the Packers. The two head coaches had a long history together, as both had coached together on the staff of the late 1950s New York Giants, with Lombardi serving as offensive coordinator and Landry as defensive coordinator.
Because of the adverse conditions in which the game was played, the rivalry between the two teams, and the game's dramatic climax, it has been immortalized as the Ice Bowl and is considered one of the greatest games in NFL history. NFL 100 Greatest Games ranked this game as the 3rd greatest game of all time. With the temperature at kickoff at , it is still the coldest game ever played in NFL history.
Leading up to the 50th Anniversary of the game, NFL Films released an episode of its Timeline series about the events that day and the lasting impact. The episode is narrated and co-produced by filmmaker Michael Meredith, whose father Don Meredith was the quarterback for the Cowboys that day.
Route to the NFL championship The NFL added a sixteenth team in and realigned to four divisions, with each winner advancing to the postseason. Future hall of fame head coach Tom Landry of Dallas led his team to first place in the Capitol Division with a 9–5 record. The Green Bay Packers, and future hall of fame head coach Vince Lombardi, won the Central Division with a 9–4–1 record.
1967 NFL playoffs
In the first round of the four-team playoffs, the Cowboys met the Century Division champions, the Cleveland Browns (9–5) for the Eastern Conference title. In the Western Conference, the Packers hosted the Los Angeles Rams (11–1–2), the Coastal Division champions (with the league's best record). The Baltimore Colts of the Coastal Division were also 11–1–2, but lost the tiebreaker to the Rams and were excluded from the postseason.
At the Cotton Bowl, in a spectacular game by quarterback Don Meredith, the Cowboys obliterated the Browns 52–14.St. John, 2000 pg. 147 In the week prior to the Rams game, Vince Lombardi inspired his team all week with a rendition of St. Paul's Run to Win letter to the CorinthiansO'Brien, 1987 pg. 300Claerbaut, 2004 pg. 222 and, in what Bart Starr would later say was Lombardi's most rousing pre-game speech, incited his teamO'Brien, 1987 pg. 301 to a 28–7 victory over the Rams at Milwaukee County Stadium.Davis, 2008 pg. 347
The home field for the NFL Championship alternated between the two conferences; even-numbered years were hosted by the Eastern and odd-numbered by the Western. Starting with the season, playoff sites were determined by regular season record, rather than a rotational basis.
Buildup The 1967 game was a rematch of the previous season played in Dallas on January 1, 1967, exactly 364 days earlier.St. John, 2000 pg. 248 More than two years after football had become the most popular televised sport in the nation,MacCambridge, 2004–2005 pg. 267 this game featured a match up that all of America hoped for in the NFL Championship.
Landry's and Lombardi's paths 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.St. John, 2000 pg.172, 173 Landry was the known for his defensive mind and Lombardi was known for his offensive coaching chops.Gruver, 2002 pg. 212 From a personality standpoint, Landry and Lombardi were seen as opposites of each other. Lombardi was a demanding coachClaerbaut, 2004 pg. 237 who would respond with elation to success and sadness and anger to the slightest setback. Landry was stoic and calm in even the most tense situations.
The Las Vegas betting line listed the Packers as 6½-point favorites.Shropshire, 1997 pg. 159 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.Gruver, 2002 pg.208 The eight-year-old Dallas franchise was trying to win its first world championship. The Packers were on a quest to achieve what had never been done before in the modern era – three consecutive world championships (Green Bay had previously won three championships in a row, 1929–1931, when titles were determined on a won-loss percentage basis).Claerbaut, 2004 pg 212–213 To the game, Green Bay brought its renowned Packers 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.MacCambridge, 2004–2005 pg. 291 Although the Packers and the Chicago Bears were arch-rivals,Claerbaut, 2004 pg. 138–139Gruver, 1998 pg. 80Shropshire, 1997 pg. 6, 38Eisenberg, 2009 pg. 151 Lombardi's most passionate game planning was in preparing for Landry's "Flex".Shropshire, 1997 pg. 160
Saturday, on the eve of the game, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle called Jim Kensil and Don Weiss, the executive directors of the NFL,Phillips, 2001 pg. 166 for an update on the weather conditions. It is suspected that they informed him that Sunday's game time temperature of about was playable. Rozelle, who in June 1966 had seen to it that the AFL-NFL Championship game would always be in a warm weather city,Davis, 2008 pg. 330 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,Eisenberg, 2009 pg. 192 would play host to the Cowboys in a game that would mark the coldest New Year's Eve in the history of Green Bay,St. John, 2000 pg. 249 and the coldest title game in the history of the NFL,Gruver, 2002 pg. 224 a record that still stands. David Maraniss recounts in his 1999 Vince Lombardi biography When Pride Still Mattered that Packers safety Willie Wood left his home Sunday morning to find his car's battery 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."Maraniss, 1999, pg. 411 Despite the difficulties for both teams caused by the brutally cold and frozen conditions, many Packers felt they had an advantage as the Cowboys were a warm weather team.
"The Ice Bowl"
Weather The game became known as the Ice Bowl because of the brutally cold conditions. The game-time temperature at Lambeau Field was about , with an average wind chill around ; under the revised National Weather Service wind chill index implemented in 2001, the average wind chill would have been . Lambeau Field's turf-heating system malfunctioned, and when the tarpaulin was removed from the field before the game, it left moisture on the field. The field began to freeze gradually in the extreme cold, leaving an icy surface that became worse as more and more of the field fell into the shadow of the stadium.Maraniss, David (2000). When Pride still Mattered New York: Simon and Schuster The heating system, made by General Electric, cost $80,000 and was bought from the nephew of George Halas, George S. Halas. On the sidelines before the game, some Dallas players believed that Lombardi had purposely removed power to the heating coils.Gruver, 2002 pg. The heating system would eventually be given the moniker Lombardi's Folly. The prior convention to prevent the football field from icing up was to cover the field with hay.Gruver, 2002 pg. 21
The Wisconsin State University–La Crosse (now the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse) Marching Chiefs band was scheduled to perform the pre-game and half-time shows. However, during warm-ups in the brutal cold, the woodwind instruments froze and would not play; the mouthpieces of brass instruments got stuck to the players' lips; and seven members of the band were transported to local hospitals for hypothermia. The band's further performances were canceled for the day. Packer linebacker Dave Robinson recalled that the field did not get really bad until the second half, saying that since the halftime show was canceled there was no traffic on the field for an extended period to keep the surface crust broken up. During the game, an elderly spectator in the stands died from exposure.
Prior to the game, many of the Green Bay players were unable to start their cars in the freezing weather, forcing them to make alternate travel arrangements to make it to the stadium on time. Linebacker Dave Robinson had to flag down a random passing motorist for a ride. The officials for the game found they did not have sufficient clothing for the cold, and had to make an early trip to a sporting goods store for earmuffs, heavy gloves, and thermal underwear. Packers quarterback Bart Starr attended an early church service with his father, who had visited for the game, and as Starr later said, "It was so cold that neither of us talked about it. Nobody wanted to bring it up."
The officials were unable to use their whistles after the opening kick-off. As referee Norm Schachter blew his metal whistle to signal the start of play, it froze to his lips. As he attempted to free the whistle from his lips, the skin ripped off and his lips began to bleed. The conditions were so hostile that instead of forming a scab, the blood simply froze to his lip. For the rest of the game, the officials used voice commands and calls to end plays and officiate the game. Nothing was immune from the cold; at one point during the game, CBS commentator Frank Gifford remarked, "I'm going to take a bite of my coffee," as it too had frozen in the mug.Maraniss, 1999 pg. 420
Media The game was televised by CBS, with play by play being done by Ray Scott for the first half and Jack Buck for the second half, while Frank Gifford handled the color commentary for the entire game.Shropshire, 1997 pg. 173 Pat Summerall and Tom Brookshier served as sideline reporters.
Gifford and Summerall were intimately aware of the personality differences that existed between Landry and Lombardi because they had both played on the New York Giants during Landry's and Lombardi's tenure at the Giants. Over 30 million people would tune in to watch the game.
No copy of the complete telecast is known to exist. Some excerpts (such as the announcers' pre-game comments on the field and Starr's second touchdown pass to Dowler) were saved and are occasionally re-aired in retrospective features. The Cowboys' radio broadcast on KLIF, with Bill Mercer announcing, and the Packers' radio broadcast on WTMJ, with Ted Moore announcing, still exist.
Game summary Kickoff was shortly after 1 pm CST. The Packers took a 14–0 lead after two touchdown passes from Bart Starr to Boyd Dowler on their first three possessions of the game. However, despite gaining only two first downs in the first half, Dallas scored twice off Green Bay fumbles late in the half to cut the Packers' lead to 14–10.