thependulumswings

And then there were four.  And after Sunday there will be two.  San Francisco, Green Bay, Kansas City, and Tennessee remain in the chase for the Vince Lombardi Trophy for winning Super Bowl LIV (54). Who might be those two?

SF is a 7 1/2 point pick over GB while KC is favored by 7 over Tenn.  If GB and KC were to advance it would be a rematch of Super Bowl I way, way back in 1967.

Did you know that the first Super Bowl wasn’t called a Super Bowl?  It was known as The AFL-NFL World Championship Game.  It carried that moniker because two bitterly rival leagues had not yet merged to form the NFL.

It was played in the LA Coliseum and the Packers rode a strong second half to win going away 35-10.  The game was awarded to the LA market a mere seven weeks prior to kickoff.  The date of the game was only agreed to three weeks prior to kickoff.

Hank Stram coached the Chiefs.  The man who has the trophy named after him coached the Packers.  That would be one Vince Lombardi.

It remains the only Super Bowl to have been simulcast in the United States by two networks. NBC had the rights to nationally televise AFL games, while CBS held the rights to broadcast NFL games.  Both were allowed to televise the game accordingly.

The players’ shares were $15,000 each for the winning team(GB) and $7,500 each for the losing team (KC).  Many playing in the game had regular season salaries that paled by comparison.

The Packers were led by veteran quarterback Bart Starr who was the top-rated quarterback in the NFL for 1966, and won the NFL Most Valuable Player Award.  He completed156 of 251 (62.2%) passes for 2257 yards, 14 touchdowns, and only three interceptions.  A good QB in today’s game has double those pass attempts, completions, yards, TD’s, and interceptions.

This is also the only Super Bowl where the numeric yard markers were five yards apart, rather than 10 as is customary today.

Super Bowl I was the only Super Bowl that was not a sellout, despite the TV blackout in Los Angeles. Of the 94,000-seat capacity in the Coliseum, 33,000 went unsold.  Tickets were a whopping $12 ($92.18 in 2019 money) for the average seat.

So much for the adage the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Although one does.   Fifty four years later LA still doesn’t support the NFL.