San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Inside: Steve Young recalls Lambeau snow.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will play the Green Bay Packers on Sunday at Lambeau Field and snow is in the weekend forecast.
That sentence does not bring back fond memories for Steve Young.
On Dec. 1, 1985, the 49ers quarterback was part of a Lambeau game featuring the same two teams and a frozen scene that made for a hellish experience.
Young, making his second NFL start, and first on the road, was Tampa Bay’s quarterback in a 210 loss to the Packers in the “Snow Bowl,” a contest between goingnowhere teams that has its own Wikipedia page because it was played in blizzardlike conditions.
Twelve inches of snow fell before the game, and 5 inches dropped during the contest. Winds gusted up to 40 mph, the wind chill hovered around 0 and a severeweather warning was in effect.
On Sunday, Tampa Bay’s Tom Brady and Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers, two future Hall of Famers, will play in the NFC Championship Game with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line.
In 1985, a future Hall of Fame QB put his life on the line at Lambeau: Young, perhaps only halfjokingly, says he nearly suffocated after defensive end Alphonso Carreker sacked him facefirst into an onfield snowbank.
“The snow got jammed in (my helmet) and (Carreker) was on top of me and my next breath, well, there was no breath,” Young said. “I was like, ‘Get off me! Get off me!’ I was clawing at my face, trying to get an air hole. That’s when the referee saw me and asked if I was all right. I was like, ‘I can’t breathe!’ ”
The elements were historically awful, even at a stadium synonymous with “frozen tundra” and the “Ice Bowl,” less commonly known as the 1967 NFL Championship Game.
The conditions led to the lowestattended, prepandemic game (19,856) at Lambeau thanks to a record 36,586 noshows. But the Buccaneers, whose bus from their hotel to the stadium was led by a snowplow, had to show up, some rather reluctantly.
After Bucs head coach Leeman Bennett told his players that warmups were optional, Young says a voice from the back of the locker room responded: “How about the game?”
There were no cheerleaders on the sideline or, Young recalls, cars in the parking lot.
“The only people in the stands were people that snowshoed, skied or snowmobiled in,” Young said. “I went out for warmups and it was just pathetic. Every 5 yards they piled up the snow, so it was like I had to be (Olympic hurdler) Edwin Moses. You had jump over each pile. So a guy would run a route, jump over that thing, run, jump over that thing.”
Young led an offense that managed five first downs, 65 yards and 11 net passing yards. He completed 8 of 17 passes for 53 yards with an interception and had the fourthlowest passer rating (29.8) of his 143start career.
“That was the most unproductive football experience of my life,” Young said.
In the second quarter, when Young had yet to complete a pass and feared he never would, he pulled running back James Wilder aside. He asked Wilder to step in front of him after the snap. Young then flicked the ball a few feet to Wilder for a completion, avoiding NFL ignominy.
The low visibility was a reason for his low totals. And Young’s problems identifying teammates were exacerbated by Tampa Bay’s jerseys and pants: The Bucs wore allwhite uniforms, save for orange numerals and trim, causing his passcatchers to be camouflaged by the conditions.
“There was the pass rush, and the wind and snow in your face and you kind of had to look sideways because your eyes are stinging,” Young said. “And then you look out and I couldn’t see anybody because we’re all in white. So literally, I’d look out there and go, ‘I don’t see anybody! Who am I throwing it to?’ ”
Young, whose selfdeprecation belies his stardom, laughed while noting his counterpart, Green Bay’s Lynn Dickey, looked elite while throwing for 299 yards in the elements.
But the warmweather, bumbling Bucs, who were in the middle of a 214 season and a 19game road losing streak, were uniquely unsuited for the conditions. Consider: Their equipment staff failed to pack thermal underwear before trekking to Wisconsin in December.
Young improvised. He wore his suit jacket and dress slacks, part of the team’s businesstravel attire, under his uniform in a futile attempt to stay warm.
“On our sideline it was ‘March of the Penguins,’ ” Young said. “We had one heater, so it was the inside penguins who were the guys closest to the heater and they were the warmest. And there were outside rings. And the guys that just came off the field, they’d be the penguins furthest away. And then you’d hear ‘Punt!” And you’d hear all these guys go, ‘Oh, no punt.’ And all the inside guys had to give up their spot to go on the punt team.”
On Sunday, Packers vs. Bucs figures to be a far better battle than Packers vs. penguins. A year ago, when Green Bay lost 3720 to the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game, Young was surprised by how lifeless Rodgers and his teammates looked. This season, his second in head coach Matt LaFleur’s offense, Rodgers is expected to be named the NFL’s MVP after throwing 48 touchdown passes and five interceptions in the regular season.
“He looks energized,” Young said. “You know how Aaron breaks from the pocket and starts to wave at his receivers? Last year, he’d wave and it was like, ‘Wait a minute, what are you guys doing here?’ It felt like there was some coming together between that group of guys and they now understand what Aaron’s looking for.”
As for Brady, 43, he’s looking for his seventh Super Bowl title. And Young, who isn’t impressed with Green Bay’s defense, says Brady could reach his 10th Super Bowl with a performance that, well, would be the opposite of what Young offered 36 years ago.
“I think he wants to get after it,” Young said. “And if he doesn’t, he’s going to get beat. Because you’re not going to beat Aaron Rodgers 2117.”