“Old School Packers” Packers edge Cowboys for title
Dallas — The argument after Green Bay’s 34-27 victory over Dallas here Sunday was whether this was the best National Football league championship game ever played.
One man liked the “sudden death” overtime victory by Baltimore over New York in 1958, and someone else mentioned Cleveland’s 30-28 victory over Los Angeles in 1950.
Those games had great finishes, but could they compare with the 34th annual play-off for sustained action from start to finish?
“Nothing could compare with this,” said Mark Duncan, supervisor of officials for the NFL and once the defensive coach of the San Francisco 49ers. “This game had everything — tremendous execution by both offenses against two of the best defenses in football, a fast start by the Packers, a great rally by a young team like the Cowboys and then, of course, that finish.
“No one ever played a better game at quarterback than Bart Starr did today. If anyone ever did, you’d have to show me, and I wouldn’t believe it.”
Starr completed 19 out of 28 passes for four touchdowns and no interceptions. He now has thrown 118 passes in five title games, completing 69 for nine touchdowns and only one interception. Dramatic Finish
The Cowboys had 73 plays from scrimmage, to 58 for Green Bay, and the last one had everything hanging on it. If Dallas could have tied the score, perhaps the Cowboys would have had the momentum for overtime. What happened could well have been the difference of either $17,500 or $10,000 a player, depending on whether the Packers, as NFL champions, win or lose when they meet the Kansas City Chiefs, American Football league champions, in the Super bowl at Los Angeles Jan. 15.
The winners’ shares here amounted to about $8,500 and the losers’ about $6,000. In the Super bowl, it will be $15,000 and $7,500, respectively.
Dallas had the ball on Green Bay’s two yard line, fourth down and just over half a minute to go with the clock running. Quarterback Don Meredith tried to roll out to his right, bootlegging the ball on his hip, but line backer Dave Robinson of the Packers barged through the blocking convoy and wrestled him down on the eight yard line near the sideline.
Meredith, who had intended to run, somehow got away a desperation jsonline.com/oldschool pass, flipping the ball sidearm as he went down in the clutches of the 240 pound Robinson. Safety man Tom Brown intercepted deep in the end zone, but he could have batted it down if any Cowboy had been near.
Ermal Allen, who is Tom Landry’s offensive backfield coach, shook his head on the way to the Cowboy dressing room as he discussed Robinson’s play.
“He made it himself,” Allen said. “We’d never run that to the right out of a brown left formation. So he hadn’t seen it on the films or been told to watch for it. He just reacted properly and probably cost us the game.”
Meredith also shook his head in the dressing room. “He should pinch (play to the inside) in that situation,” the quarterback said. “But there he was on the outside chasing me. I knew I wasn’t fast enough to outrun him, or cut to the inside, so all I could try to do was throw the ball.”
Robinson’s explanation in the winners’ locker room went like this: “They had Bob Hayes in tight, and he tried to block me. I wasn’t going to let him do that, but from the pressure, I figured I should get to the outside. Then I saw Meredith with the ball, and on a rollout to my side, it’s my job to pressure him, I don’t know how I got past the blocker – it was a guard or tackle pulling – but I think I kind of slipped behind him, and that gave me a clear path to Meredith.”
A few minutes earlier, Brown and Robinson had been involved in the play that put the Cowboys on Green Bay’s two yard line in the first place. Pass interference was called, for a 20 yard penalty, and the official, Fritz Graf, pointed at Robinson. Whose Interference?
Afterward, Robinson said that Tom Brown had been called and Brown agreed. The official, however, said that it had been Robinson, not Brown, and that was why the ball was placed on the two yard line, where Robinson interfered. Brown had grabbed Frank Clarke, the intended receiver, past the goal, which automatically results in the ball being placed on the one.
This made a difference, for halfback Dan Reeves made a yard on first down. Meredith then decided to roll out and pass on second down. Pettis Norman dropped the easy throw in the end zone, but it didn’t matter, because the Cowboys had been called for illegal procedure. One of their linemen had lifted up to pass block before the ball had been snapped. The penalty put the ball on the six yard line. Defenses Shredded
Why Meredith chose a rollout pass with three downs to make a yard, when Reeves and fullback Don Perkins had been bending the middle of Green Bay’s defense all afternoon, will never be known. But he did, and after an incomplete pass and a