PLUNGE TO DAYLIGHT

“When I got my head banged on the ground, I went out of the game for a few snaps. The play after that, Donny got thrown for a loss because we missed a block. We were second and 19 and we overcame that loss. Bart threw two balls in a row to Donny. If those plays don’t work, we’re dead in the water.”

Anderson: “You couldn’t talk in Bart’s huddles. If you wanted to talk, you had to do it outside the huddle, before the play was called. I was always checking the linebacker and I told Bart, ‘I’m out here and Chuck Howley is not watching me. If you need me, I’m here.’ ”

Dowler: “Bart called the right plays at the right time. Yes, you have to execute. But he could have called any number of plays that wouldn’t have worked.”

Anderson: “It was probably a little bit of a miracle that we could do what we did. The conditions were so pitiful. The ground was frozen. People have asked me, ‘How did you run?’ You actually ran flat-footed because you couldn’t dig into the turf. I guess I had a head start on them. I knew where I was trying to go and they didn’t.”

A PERFECT CALL

On first and 10 from the 11, Starr called “54 give,” a dive to the fullback off left tackle. The Packers called it the “sucker” play.

There were two keys to making the play work. Left guard Gale Gillingham pulled to his right and had to influence the Cowboys’ great defensive tackle, Bob Lilly, to follow him. And left tackle Bob Skoronski had to keep Andrie from sliding left and covering the hole vacated by Lilly.

It worked to perfection. Lilly followed Gillingham, Skoronski sealed off Andrie and Mercein burst forward for 8 yards to make it second and 2 at the 3-yard line.

Packers right guard Jerry Kramer: “Bart comes back to the huddle and says, ‘Ski, can you make that block on Andrie?’ Instead of Skoronski saying, ‘Gee, I think I can. I’ll do my best. Let’s try it,’ Ski says, ‘Call it. On two.’ He had to get off the ball and get position on Andrie, or Andrie was going to kill Chuck in the hole.”

Anderson: “Lilly was always quick off the ball and he would follow the (pulling) guard. We called it the sucker play. Gale Gillingham pulled out and Lilly followed him and Chuck went right up the middle behind him.”

Long: “That drive made Chuck’s whole career. He’ll be forever remembered for that drive. He made those great plays.”

Mercein: “I realized that was a singular moment in my career. It means more to me because I was able to pay it forward, the faith that Vince Lombardi had in me. There were plenty of other backs he could have picked up. Seldom does it happen where you can repay someone for their faith in you.”

ANDERSON’S PHANTOM TOUCHDOWN

On the next play, Anderson took the handoff and scored. Or, at least he thought he did. Many of the Cowboys Packers halfback Donny Anderson runs for yardage during the 1967 NFL Championship Game. Anderson rushed 18 times for 35 yards and caught four passes for 44 yards in the game.

later admitted they thought Anderson had gotten in the end zone, too. But the officials ruled Anderson had come up just short and placed the ball a foot from the goal line.

Still, it was good for a first down. Robinson: “All the guys I talked to from Dallas said Donny definitely scored on the play. You see it on film. Guys throw their hands in the air and grab their helmets. They thought the game was over.”

Anderson: “There wasn’t any doubt in my mind that I scored, because I was halfway across the goal line. But they didn’t give it to us. I remember when I got up the official moved the ball back about 10 inches from the goal line. My waist was across the goal line. I said to myself, ‘How did he determine where I was?’ That’s what Lombardi said in the film (review) on Tuesday: ‘Well, it looked like they took one away from you there, kid.’ I kind of lived with that.”

Anderson got the call on first and second downs, but slipped in the backfield and barely made it back to the line of scrimmage each time.

Starr called the Packers’ final timeout with 16 seconds left and trotted to the sideline to confer with Lombardi. He told the coach that if he called a wedge play — a handoff to Mercein — he thought he could keep the ball, shuffle his feet and dive into the end zone behind the blocks of Bowman and Kramer. Lombardi’s response?

“Then run it, and let’s get the hell out of here.”

Because it was third down and Green Bay was out of timeouts, Landry reportedly told his defense to be ready for Starr to throw a pass. If no one was open, he would throw it away and the Packers would attempt to send the game into overtime with a field goal.

Lea: “The Packers didn’t even have a quarterback sneak in their playbook. They had never run it. Ever.”

Dowler: “Bart didn’t tell us he was going to keep it in the huddle. Now, there are a couple guys who will tell you they knew. It doesn’t matter. Maybe Bart felt he’d get a better action from Mercein by not telling anybody. All I know is it worked.”

Mercein: “I was convinced I would be getting the ball. We didn’t have a whole lot of plays for short yardage. We had a couple dives and we had a wedge play. Bart said, ‘Brown 32, wedge right.’ I never heard him say, ‘I’m keeping the

ball.’ I had 34 of the 68 yards on that drive. I thought that was going to be the cherry on the cake.”

Kramer: “I got up to my position on the line and when I put my left foot down, it was in a little bit of a divot and I kind of wiggled my foot back and forth and it was like a starting block. It was a perfect thing. It gave me tremendous traction. If you watch Ski at left tackle, his feet slip out from under him and he goes flat on the ground. He doesn’t hardly get out of his stance.”

Bowman: “We broke the huddle and Jerry was out there trying to dig a trench. I’ve often thought that was a mistake. (The defense) has got the upper hand if they know it’s a pass play or a run. And you don’t try to dig a trench if you’re pass-blocking. I’ve always thought that almost gave it away.”

Kramer: “I anticipated (left defensive tackle) Jethro Pugh being high. I watched him on film in short-yardage situations. On every play, Jethro was high. So I believed strongly he was going to be high. You look at Lilly, he’s got his nose about 8 or 9 inches from the dirt and he stays down. Jethro flat came up.”

Mercein: “As soon as I saw I wasn’t getting the ball my next worry was, ‘Don’t assist Bart. Don’t push him.’ It was very hard to stop so I just raised my hands in the air to show I didn’t push him because that would have been a penalty. It would have been catastrophic.”

Anderson: “I didn’t even know it was Bart who scored. I was on the weak side. I thought Chuck threw up his hands because he scored. I didn’t find out Bart scored until I got to the sideline.”

Bowman: “I talked to Jethro about 20 years ago and I told him, ‘You had 13 years with the Cowboys and it’s a damned shame the only play they’re going to remember you for is the Ice Bowl play.’ I tried to give him some kudos and tell him he was a great player. I told him, ‘The one thing that always bothered me, I couldn’t believe when I came off the ball how high you were.’ I came off the ball and all I saw was ribcage. I’m licking my chops. Jethro said, ‘When you guys called that timeout and Bart went over to the sideline, Tom Landry told us the only thing that made sense was Bart was going to call a quick slant and if it wasn’t there he was going to throw it away and play for overtime.’ I don’t know how truthful that was, but Jethro’s excuse for being high was he was going to pass rush.”

Robinson: “Landry said the only thing Bart Starr can do is run a bootleg or roll out and pass because if they run it and don’t get in, they won’t have time for another play. The Cowboys I talked to said that came from Landry. They were favoring the outside. They weren’t looking for anything up the middle.”

Andrie: “I really thought (Lombardi) was going to kick the field goal and we were going to go into overtime. I’ll say this: Bart Starr took it on his shoulders and he performed.”

Dowler: “I talked to a person who played for the Cowboys — I’m not going to say his name — at a function a number of years ago. He said the sneak was not a good call because if Bart wouldn’t have gotten in we wouldn’t have enough time for another play. Well, who knows that? It’s subjective. I told him, ‘I was in the huddle for nine years with Bart and in all those games I don’t think he ever made a bad call. So that’s so much for your opinion.’ ”

Lea: “Afterwards, Landry said it was a stupid play because if it didn’t work time would have run out and the Cowboys would have won the game. Landry said, ‘Lombardi’s not a gambler. He took a hell of a gamble and won.’ ”

A CONTROVERSY LINGERS

Though Bowman and Kramer executed a double-team block on Pugh on the winning touchdown, Kramer always has received the bulk of the credit. All these years later, it still rankles Bowman.

Bowman: “I came in after the game and basically my toes were all white and frostbit. Domenic Gentile, our trainer, he had me and Nitschke put our feet in ice water. That’s the way they treated it. It took about 45 minutes and by the time I got out of the training room and had my toes all nice and pink again the place had pretty much cleared out. But I heard Jerry got up on the podium and took the bows.”

Kramer: “You know, I’ve watched that play 1,000 times and I can’t see Kenny make contact. I got into Jethro and I moved him back. Kenny may have hit his elbow, but I can’t tell. But I know that I got into Jethro’s chest with my head up and my legs moving. Jethro was going to do one thing: he was going to move backwards. If Kenny had gone out and gotten a hot dog, the same thing would have happened. There’s no pride of ownership here. That’s just the way it was.”

Bowman: “I remember Lombardi calling Jerry to the podium before I went into the training room. He passed my locker as I’m getting undressed and I told him, ‘Don’t forget to tell them it was a double-team.’ I didn’t think I had to remind him. He said, ‘You’ve got 10 more years to make another block like that. Let an old guy get the glory.’ I guess that’s what he did. He took the credit in his book, ‘Instant Replay.’ Somebody interviewed Jethro and he actually said I got a better block on him than Jerry. I didn’t write a book. Jerry did.”

Long: “I think Kenny, in looking back, should have gotten more credit on his assistance of the block that Jerry Kramer made. Kenny was kind of frustrated at not getting more credit for the block.”

‘THE ESSENCE OF LOMBARDI’

The Packers had won their third consecutive NFL title with a 68-yard drive in the harshest conditions imaginable, after stalling for much of the second half.

It neatly summed up the Lombardi era. Somehow, the players reached deep within themselves and found the strength and determination to move almost unerringly down the field.

As they had done so many times un-

der Lombardi, when the Packers needed to make plays, that’s exactly what they did.

Lane: “I always contended that was the essence of Lombardi, that he willed victory with his strength of character and all he stood for — precision, hard work, the simplification of roles. The Cowboys were kind of a high-tech team and the Packers were a sledgehammer operation, highly disciplined. It was a reaffirmation of Lombardi’s values and his influence. That final drive was the hallmark of Vince Lombardi.”

Lea: “It was the greatest drive I saw in Packer history. And I covered a lot of games. Less than 5 minutes to play, they’re losing 17-14 and they go 68 yards. There were no mistakes, no fumbles, no dropped passes. Nothing. Nobody is ever going to have a drive like that in those conditions.”

Dowler: “I don’t know if I had these real big thoughts of, ‘This is why we came here,’ or, ‘We’re going for our third straight championship.’ I didn’t have time to think about that stuff. I thought about doing what I was supposed to do. Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t make mistakes. Do what you’ve been trained to do. In hindsight, you can make it bigger than it was.”

Andrie: “How they did it? Well, you know, that’s a question I guess we’re still living with. They just kept throwing those short passes, making 8 yards, 10 yards. They had big backs. Our speed in that particular situation was nullified and their methodical power was the difference. … The clock wasn’t ticking fast enough.”

Dowler: “When it’s crunch time and it’s time to make plays, some teams do and some don’t, some players do and some don’t.”

Anderson: “That drive was what Vince and his players were all about. We never had a thought about losing the game. He had taught us how to be extraordinary when the chips were down.”

Kramer: “It’s really an amazing thing, that final drive. We had not had much success before that. Something turned on inside of us and all of a sudden everybody is doing their job and we’re moving down the field. I’ve wondered for years how to define and explain that. I use the analogy of the lady lifting a car off her baby. It’s impossible. It can’t happen. But something happens in her body and her mind. She has to lift that car to save her baby and somehow she does it.”

Robinson: “Some of the Cowboys said they lost because of the field. That is the biggest bunch of bull there is. When the game started the field was muddy. We were winning at halftime, before the field got really bad. We scored 14 points. We dominated. So it wasn’t the field.”

Kramer: “I don’t think it was the field. It was their mistakes that made the difference. They were a damned good team but they were an inexperienced

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team playing an experienced team.”

Dowler: “We were an unusual group of people. A bunch of winners, I know that. I guess you learn how to win, and we did. We learned it pretty quickly and we learned it well. We knew what we were doing and we knew how to do it. And that’s just what we did.”

EPILOGUE

Of the 44 starters for the Packers and Cowboys in the Ice Bowl, only 29 are still living. The average age of the 15 remaining Packers is 78.3; the average age of the 14 surviving Cowboys is 76.5.

Two players declined to participate in this oral history, saying they had been diagnosed with dementia. A handful of others, including Starr, would not have been able to contribute much, if anything, because of cognitive issues.

Andrie said he was still bothered by the lingering effects of frostbite.

“I am affected when it gets real cold,” he said. “My hands get numb.”

Reeves has a scar in his upper lip, the forever reminder of a collision with Packers defensive tackle Ron Kostelnik.

“He busted my facemask,” Reeves said. “I had a tooth knocked through my upper lip. I see that scar every time I shave.”

The Packers went on to win Super Bowl II. It would take three more years for the Cowboys to get to the Super Bowl and four before they would finally win it.

As the years have gone by, the Ice Bowl has taken on near-mythic status. The attendance at Lambeau Field was 50,861, but players say they still run into people who claim to have been in the stands that day. Those who really were there will never forget it.

“Obviously, if we’re still talking about it after 50 years,” Anderson said, “it must have been a pretty good game.”