Super Bowl II

• 1. Introduction

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  Super Bowl II was played on the 14th of January, 1968, at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, and before a single snap had been taken, most observers had already decided the game was over. The Green Bay Packers were 14-point favorites. Sportswriters and fans alike were convinced that any NFL team could beat any AFL team on any given day. But that consensus obscured something more interesting happening beneath the surface. The Packers were not the invincible machine they had once been. Their two best running backs from the previous season, future Hall of Famers Paul Hornung and Jim Taylor, were gone. Their quarterback, Bart Starr, had thrown nearly twice as many interceptions as touchdown passes during the regular season. And yet Green Bay arrived in Miami having just survived the Ice Bowl, one of the most brutal games in NFL history, played in temperatures that dropped to minus thirteen degrees in Green Bay. The questions swirling around this game were not really about the final score. They were about whether Vince Lombardi would walk away from coaching after it was over, and whether this Packers team, held together with free agents and rookies, could win a third consecutive championship.

• 2. Two Leagues, One Stage

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  Miami had been chosen to host the game on the 25th of May, 1967, at the NFL owners meetings in New York City. Five cities competed for the privilege: Miami, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, and New Orleans. Los Angeles had hosted the first AFL-NFL Championship Game, but lackluster attendance at the Coliseum worked against it. The Miami Orange Bowl won out on a combination of factors: weather, hotel accommodations, capacity, and the stadium's experience hosting the Playoff Bowl. NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle made clear his preference for moving the game around rather than anchoring it to one location each year. The choice of Miami carried an added dimension. Miami was an AFL city, and hosting the championship there was a deliberate signal of competitive parity between the two leagues. Mayor Robert King High led the city's delegation, alongside Joe Robbie, and they had just under eight months to prepare. It would be the first of eleven Super Bowls the Miami area would eventually host.

• 3. Green Bay's Patched Roster

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  With Hornung and Jim Taylor gone, coach Vince Lombardi built the Packers' backfield from whoever was left. Donny Anderson was a second-year reserve. Travis Williams was a rookie. Elijah Pitts and Jim Grabowski, who were supposed to be the replacements, both suffered season-ending injuries before the year was out. Chuck Mercein and Ben Wilson were signed as free agents after other teams had discarded them. Starr himself missed four games that season. Despite all of this, Williams returned 18 kickoffs for 749 yards and an NFL-record four touchdowns, averaging 41.1 yards per return. Carroll Dale averaged 21.1 yards per catch, with 35 receptions for 738 yards. Boyd Dowler caught 54 passes for 846 yards. The defense, led by Ray Nitschke at linebacker and a secondary that included Willie Wood, Herb Adderley, and Bob Jeter, allowed only 209 points all season. That number was itself misleading: in the first 11 games, when Green Bay clinched its division, the Packers had surrendered only 131 points, the lowest total in professional football. Lombardi's team had ranked just ninth in scoring during the regular season, yet was about to defend a championship.

• 4. Oakland's 13-1 Season

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  Head coach John Rauch had built the Oakland Raiders into the best team the AFL had ever produced. Their 13-1 regular season record stood as the finest in AFL history. Their only defeat came on the 7th of October, a 27-14 loss to the New York Jets. Oakland outscored every team in both leagues with 468 points. Quarterback Daryle Lamonica threw for 3,228 yards and 30 touchdown passes, the best total in the AFL that year. The offensive line was built around center Jim Otto and rookie guard Gene Upshaw. Wide receiver Fred Biletnikoff led the team with 40 receptions for 876 yards, averaging 21.3 yards per catch. Tight end Billy Cannon caught 32 passes for 629 yards and scored 10 touchdowns. Three running backs, Clem Daniels, Hewritt Dixon, and Pete Banaszak, shared the workload and combined for 1,510 yards and 10 touchdowns. Oakland's defense called itself "The 11 Angry Men." Defensive end Ben Davidson was a former Packer who had been on Green Bay's 1961 championship team, and he had demonstrated his aggression during the regular season by breaking Jets quarterback Joe Namath's jaw while sacking him. Safety Warren Powers recorded six interceptions and returned them for 154 yards and two touchdowns. The Raiders came into Miami having crushed Houston 40-7 in the AFL Championship Game.

• 5. The Game Itself

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  The game kicked off at 3:05 p.m. EST, and on Oakland's very first offensive play, Ray Nitschke shot through a gap and upended fullback Hewritt Dixon all by himself. A Detroit News columnist sitting in the press box said, in a flat, deadpan voice, that the game was already over. Don Chandler kicked a 39-yard field goal on the Packers' first drive, and two more in the second quarter. Boyd Dowler scored on a 62-yard reception after Raiders cornerback Kent McCloughan misjudged a coverage assignment, convinced a safety would pick up the route. Oakland answered with a 23-yard touchdown pass from Lamonica to wide receiver Bill Miller, cutting the deficit to 13-7. But with just seconds left in the first half, punter Donny Anderson's twisting left-footed kick caused returner Rodger Bird to fumble, and the Packers recovered. Chandler's third field goal made it 16-7 at halftime. At that break, guard Jerry Kramer addressed his teammates: "Let's play the last 30 minutes for the old man," meaning Lombardi. In the third quarter, Starr connected with Max McGee on a 35-yard pass. It was the only reception McGee made all day, and the final one of his career. Anderson scored on a 2-yard run, stretching the lead to 23-7. Chandler's fourth field goal, which struck the crossbar from 31 yards and bounced over, made it 26-7. Then Herb Adderley intercepted a pass intended for Biletnikoff and returned it 60 yards for a touchdown, making the score 33-7. A late Oakland touchdown pass from Lamonica to Miller made the final score 33-14. The Packers held Oakland to three turnovers, committed none themselves, and were penalized only once.

• 6. Records and Aftermath

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  Chandler finished with four field goals, setting Super Bowl records for most field goals made and attempted in a single game. His career point total of 20 in two Super Bowls was also a record. Bart Starr's 13 completions on 24 attempts for 202 yards and one touchdown earned him the MVP for the second straight year, making him the first back-to-back Super Bowl MVP in the game's history. Ben Wilson led all rushers with 62 yards, despite spending part of the fourth quarter on the sideline searching for a lost contact lens. Oakland's Bill Miller caught five passes for 84 yards and two touchdowns, the top receiving performance of the day. Lombardi was carried off the field by his players at the final whistle. It was his ninth consecutive playoff victory and his last game as Green Bay's head coach. For his players Max McGee, Fuzzy Thurston, and Don Chandler, it was also their final game. The victory gave the Packers their third consecutive world championship, matching the 1929-31 Green Bay teams as the only franchise to accomplish that in NFL history. No team has done it since. The CBS broadcast of the game was considered lost for decades; by 2016, the NFL reported it no longer had a copy of the telecast. Approximately 39.12 million people watched the game, with a rating of 36.8 and a market share of 68. Nearly 80 percent of the country lost the video feed briefly during the second quarter and halftime, after a breakdown in AT&T cable lines disrupted a broadcast CBS had paid $2.5 million to air.