TWO MISTAKES, AND A NEW GAME

“I was in charge of the press and the problem was the press box wasn’t heated. I asked some of the press crew to go across the street to the Mobil station and had them pick up some antifreeze. We splashed that against the windows, so at least we could see out. Of course, the stuff ran down the windows and onto the tables and made a mess.”

Lea: “Every time a guy opened the damned door to the press box, it was like the Arctic Circle blowing in. Honest to God. Our typewriters froze. I moved back to the second row and had coffee there and it froze on the ledge.”

Anderson: “Lee Roy Caffey and Tommy Joe Crutcher, my Texas buddies, we were saying, ‘I wonder if they’re going to play this game?’ We kept thinking Lombardi was going to come out and say, ‘The game’s been canceled.’ (Center) Kenny Bowman and (holder) Bart Starr and (kicker) Don Chandler and Willie Wood, the return man, went outside to practice kickoffs and field goals. They came back in and Willie looked like he was frozen. Bart looked like Santa Claus; his cheeks were as red as could be. We were waiting for Vince to tell us the game was canceled and he came out and said, ‘All right, guys, let’s go get it.’ ”

THE ELECTRIC BLANKET

During the summer preceding the ’67 season, Lombardi spent $80,000 on an underground heating system, a first in the NFL. A grid of electric coils, buried inches below the surface of the Lambeau Field turf, were designed to keep the grass soft and provide a good playing surface in cold weather.

There was one problem, though. The field was covered overnight with a tarp, which trapped the heat and created condensation. When the tarp was removed before the game, the moist turf immediately started freezing.

Mercein: “No one realized when you put a tarp on top of that thing, the heat condenses and goes back into the ground. The ground was very, very moist and soft. As soon as they took the tarp off, it fast-froze. You could almost see it freezing. It was incredible.”

Packers receiver Bob Long: “Lombardi was proud of his electric field. The day before the game, he was telling everybody the field was going to be perfect. They pulled the tarpaulin off and that wind out of the west just froze it like an ice rink.”

Lane: “I’d gone out on the field that morning and I was walking around with Bob Schnelker and Ray Wietecha, two of our assistant coaches. The ground appeared to be freezing up. We said, ‘Somebody’s got to go tell the coach.’ They didn’t want to do it so they said, ‘Why don’t you?’ I did an interview with NFL Films a while ago and they said, ‘How’d it go?’ I said, ‘I’d rather have to tell Vince that his wife was cheating on him.’ He loved that electric field. He loved the gadgetry of it. He thought he was ahead of everyone else in the league. And he was. But he was real upset when I told him about the field.”

Lea: “Lombardi got mad at Chuck Lane, like he did something to the system. He swore at him: ‘What do you mean? Damnit!’ So Vince goes down to the field and, my God, it’s freezing. He looks over at (Cowboys general manager) Tex Schramm and says, ‘It’s not going to be bad.’ Schramm is shaking his head and saying, ‘This is terrible.’ ”

BATTLING THE ELEMENTS

Nothing about the game would be routine.

Metal whistles stuck to officials’ lips, pulled away skin when removed and were ditched in favor of verbal commands. Players slipped and fell in comedic fashion on the icy turf.

The halftime show, featuring the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse marching band, was canceled because instruments froze and wouldn’t play; 11 members of the band were transported to local hospitals and treated for hypothermia after a pre-game practice. One person died in the stands. Tunney: “We used a metal whistle in those days. I think it happened to (referee) Norm (Schachter) and Bill Schleibaum, the line judge. They tried to blow their whistles and the metal stuck to the their lips and pulled the skin right off their lips.”

Robinson: “The officials decided not to use whistles. The ref said, ‘When it’s ready for play we’ll say ready and when the play’s over we’ll say stop.’ In regular games, some guys hit late. In that game, Green Bay Packers receiver Boyd Dowler catches the first touchdown pass in the 1967 NFL Championship Game at Lambeau Field. The 8-yard play was the result of an audible from Bart Starr.

everybody hit late. ‘Didn’t you hear stop?’ ‘No, I’m waiting for the whistle.’ ”

Reeves: “Offensively, you had a little bit of an advantage as far as running routes, but it certainly wasn’t conducive to an offensive game. When you think about it, that’s what football ought to be. You play in all kinds of elements.”

Tunney: “I was the alternate referee. My job was to keep track of the down and distance. I stood on the Packers’ sideline and whenever there was a break in the action I was over at the bench with my fanny at the heater. Those guys on the field couldn’t really run. They kind of wobbled around.”

Long: “Our defensive backs figured out early in the game that Bob Hayes, the great speedster for the Cowboys, he was so cold that he put his hands in his pants when he wasn’t in the pattern. When he was going to receive a pass, he’d take his hands out of his pants. It was a giveaway. Our defensive backs shut down Bob Hayes that day, and Hayes was a big weapon.”

Reeves: “The field was such a factor that it was difficult to get anything done. It was hard to cut if you’re a running back, hard to throw it if you’re the quarterback, hard to fire out of your stance if you’re an offensive lineman.”

Robinson: “The field had a crust on it. When we came out for the third quarter, you had to stomp on it. By the end of the game it was frozen solid. In hindsight what they should have done — because the halftime show was canceled — they should have covered the field with a tarp. That probably would have softened it up some for the second half. With the wind blowing, the elements, it just froze solid.”

Reeves: “You can’t explain to people who haven’t been in that kind of weather how cold it was. Seeing those people in the stands … we didn’t have a choice, but what the heck were they doing out there?”

PACKERS TAKE COMMAND

The Packers jumped out to a 14-0 lead, with Dowler catching touchdown passes of 8 and 43 yards from Starr in the first and second quarters. Both times, he beat Cowboys safety Mel Renfro on post patterns.

Anderson: “We wouldn’t have been in the game if Boyd hadn’t caught those two touchdowns. He was a quarterback in college and he understood defenses. This story, which very few people know, we were in a tight formation on the weak side on Boyd’s first touchdown. Boyd was in tight and nobody was guarding him. So Bart called an audible and Boyd released from the line of scrimmage. I don’t know if Mel forgot to cover Boyd, but that was the first touchdown.”

Dowler: “The second touchdown, we were third down and about a foot. We did play-action pass a lot in that situation. That was also a post pattern from the left side, but I was split; I wasn’t in tight like I was on the first touchdown. The first word in the huddle if it was going to be a pass was ‘fire’ or ‘pass.’ Bart said, ‘Pass 36 left post.’ I left the huddle early and I was messing around with Renfro a little bit. Renfro looked like he was inching up (to the line of scrimmage). I ran at him like I was going to block him. I don’t know what happened to the corner. It was really a breakdown in the defense. When Bart threw the ball, I thought, ‘I better get moving.’ I thought he might have overthrown me but the wind was against us. The ball was perfect.”

Packers center Ken Bowman: “I do remember Boyd telling us he could beat (Renfro) on a post. The thing that Bart did great, when the receivers came back and said, ‘I can beat this guy on a square in or square out,’ he categorized that and put it in the back of his head. When he needed it, he would call the route: ‘All right, you told me you’d get open. Don’t be lying to me now.’ ”

Long: “I saw Boyd practice every day and I’m telling you, I don’t think I ever

saw him drop a pass. In my opinion, he was the Randy Moss of the ’60s – 6foot-5, long stride, great hands. But we hardly ever passed. A typical game for Bart Starr would be 12 for 15, no interceptions and one or two touchdowns. If you caught three passes, that was a lot. Now you see guys catching 10, 12 passes a game and they may have 18 thrown at them. If Boyd played today he’d be in the Hall of Fame.”

Dowler: “People have asked me, ‘How do you catch the ball when it’s that cold?’ Well, you put your hands together. When it’s thrown that well, there’s no reason to drop it, whether it’s below zero or 80 degrees.”

Bowman: “Boyd Dowler is kind of the forgotten man. He scored 14 points. They want to talk about people on that team that belong in Canton, there’s a guy who belongs in Canton. He was the prototype flanker.”

With help from the Packers, the Cowboys rallied to score 10 points before halftime.

First, left defensive end Willie Townes knocked the ball out of Starr’s hands and Andrie picked it up and ran 7 yards for a touchdown. Then the normally sure-handed Wood muffed a punt, Dallas recovered and Danny Villanueva kicked a 21-yard field goal. Suddenly, the score was 14-10. Andrie: “On my touchdown, we knew it was a passing down. I didn’t get a real good start off the ball but I recovered. Willie came in from the left and stripped the ball and it bounced right in front of me. I was thinking, ‘Do I fall on it or try to pick it up?’ But it bounced perfectly into my hands and I rumbled into the end zone. I like to say I sprinted, but the writers said I rumbled, whatever that means. It was a big play at the time. Not because I made it. It was a big uplift.”

Bowman: “George Andrie from Marquette scooped up that fumble and ran it back into the end zone. I know because I tackled him in the end zone.”

Andrie: “It was Bowman? I always thought it was Jerry Kramer who tackled me.”

Robinson: “Willie Wood had some of the surest hands on the team. He just dropped it. Just one of those things.”

Dowler: “We hurt ourselves. We had some things that didn’t go well. We got sacked and fumbled. Our pass protection broke down a little bit. … I’m glad we had 14 points in our pocket when we started screwing up. That would have been a terrible thing to go home with a loss after having a 14-point lead on a day like that.”

A STALEMATE, AND THEN …

The game devolved into a slippery, sloppy shoving match in the third quarter, with neither team doing much of anything offensively.

Then, on the first play of the fourth quarter, Reeves peeled out to his left and took a pitch from Meredith. The Packers’ defense reacted to run but Reeves suddenly stopped and threw a pass to Lance Rentzel, who had gotten behind Packers’ safety Tom Brown and was wide open.

The Packers had practiced for the option pass but the Cowboys almost always ran it with the right-handed Reeves running to his right.

The 50-yard touchdown was the longest play of the game and gave the Cowboys a 17-14 lead.

Reeves: “Coach Landry said the Packers wouldn’t expect it going to the left. We had run the running play several times in the game and their defensive back was coming up fast. Don Meredith told me he was going to call the (option). I was just trying to keep my hands warm. I actually came out of the huddle with my hands in my pants. We shifted from the I formation to what we called the green formation and I moved over to left halfback and at the last second I took my hands out of my pants. Gosh, Lance was so wide open. The safety, Tom Brown, was supposed to stay back and when I pulled back to throw he said a cuss word. I thought, ‘Gosh, don’t overthrow it.’ ”

Robinson: “The play they scored on, we practiced for it all week. Phil (Bengtson, the defensive coordinator) assumed that Reeves being right-handed, he always threw it running to his right. The guys on that side of our defense hadn’t seen it. I knew what the play was as soon as they lined up, but they ran it to the other side.”

Reeves: “We got the lead and you think, ‘We’ve got this thing won.’ Because the field was so bad.”

AN UNLIKELY HERO

After Pitts (Achilles’ tendon) and Grabowski (knee) were injured on consecutive series in a loss to the Baltimore Colts on Nov. 5, the Packers were desperate for help at running back.

Lombardi called Milwaukee native Chuck Mercein, a fullback who had been cut by the New York Giants and was about to sign with the Redskins. In fact, he and his wife had packed their car and were headed for Washington the next morning.

Mercein idolized Lombardi and jumped at the opportunity to join the defending world champion Packers. And he would play a critical role in the Ice Bowl.

Mercein: “I was completely familiar with the Packers. Great organization. Great coach. I was thrilled. (Redskins coach) Otto Graham was a little upset with me for a while. It wasn’t a hard decision. I was honored Coach Lombardi asked me to play. My life changed dramatically and forever. I got to be a part of the legendary third championship in a row and to play for the greatest coach in the history of the game. Just a wonderful experience.”

Brandt: “During the middle of the year, both the Cowboys and Packers lost running backs. We got into a (bidding war) for this young man from Yale. I lost the recruiting battle. Chuck later told me Vince called him personally, but was it really Vince? That’s the oldest trick in the book. I wasn’t smart enough to call him and say, ‘This is Tom Landry.’ I wanted to sign him.”

Lea: “Chuck was a Milwaukee kid growing up. He loved Lombardi and, my God, to play for Coach Lombardi? He came right up to Green Bay.”

68 YARDS TO HISTORY

Throughout the third quarter and most of the fourth, the Packers had gone nowhere on offense, generating just three first downs. Starr had been sacked eight times. The field was impossible. Several players had frostbite on fingers and toes.

The Packers’ dynasty was teetering on the edge of collapse.

Wood fielded Villanueva’s final punt at the Packers’ 32-yard line. There were 4 minutes 50 seconds left in the game.

To a man, the Packers knew this was their last chance.

Dowler: “I didn’t think, ‘We haven’t done anything worth a crap.’ That didn’t cross my mind at all. We had a whole team full of winners.”

Mercein: “The thing I vividly recall, the offense is running on the field and the punt return team is running off and Ray Nitschke was on the field, screaming at the offense, ‘Don’t let me down! Don’t let me down!’ He was an intimidating figure. He had no teeth, snot was coming out of his nose, there was blood and mud on his uniform.”

Robinson: “When the offense went on the field, some of us were yelling, ‘You guys have to do something.’ Subconsciously, we were thinking the offense isn’t going to get more than 10 yards. We said, ‘Listen, we have got to get ready. If we go back in there we’ve got to get a turnover.’ ”

Mercein: “Truthfully, we had enough time left. We got in the huddle and Bart stepped in and said just a few words: ‘OK, this is it. Let’s get it done.’ I looked into the eyes of the guys in the huddle and saw nothing but poise and confidence. There was no fear. We hadn’t done a damned thing in the whole second half, but that’s what we were built for. The last two minutes of a game.”

THE DRIVE

On first and 10, Starr faked a double handoff to Mercein and Anderson and then threw a swing pass to Anderson, who gained 6 yards in the right flat. Mercein then ran right for 7 yards and a first down.

Starr hit Dowler over the middle for 13 yards. Dowler suffered a concussion on the play when Cowboys cornerback Cornell Green tackled him and his helmet slammed into the frozen ground.

On the next play, Mercein missed a

chip block on Townes, who tackled Anderson for a 9-yard loss. But then Starr threw consecutive passes to Anderson in the right flat. The first went for 12 yards and the second for 9 and a first down.

Then Starr lobbed a pass to Mercein, who was alone in the left flat. Mercein eluded linebacker Dave Edwards and gained 19 yards before stumbling out of bounds at the Cowboys’ 11.

Dowler: