Super Bowl II
The second AFL–NFL World Championship Game was an American football game played on January 14, 1968, at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida. The National Football League 's defending champion Green Bay Packers defeated American Football League champion Oakland Raiders by the score of 33–14, winning their eleventh championship and capping off their second three-peat. This game and the following year's are the only two Super Bowls played in the same stadium in consecutive seasons.
Coming into the game, much like during the first Super Bowl, many sports writers and fans believed that any team in the NFL was vastly superior to any club in the AFL. The Packers, the defending champions, posted a 9–4–1 record during the NFL season before defeating the Los Angeles Rams 28–7 in the first round of the playoffs, then outlasted the Dallas Cowboys 21–17 in the frigid NFL Championship Game. The Raiders finished the regular season at 13–1, then defeated the Houston Oilers 40–7 in the AFL Championship Game.
As expected, the Packers dominated the Raiders throughout the majority of Super Bowl II. The Raiders could only score two touchdown passes from quarterback Daryle Lamonica. Meanwhile, Packers kicker Don Chandler made four field goals, including three in the first half, while cornerback Herb Adderley had a 60-yard interception return for a touchdown that put the game away. Packers quarterback Bart Starr was named the MVP for the second straight time, becoming the first back-to-back Super Bowl MVP for his 13 of 24 passes for 202 yards and one touchdown.
The Packers won their third consecutive World Championship, the second such occasion in NFL history. The 1965–67 Packers became the first and only team to win three consecutive championship games, as there were no NFL playoff games from 1920 to 1932. No NFL team has accomplished this feat since.
Background
Host selection process
The NFL awarded Super Bowl II to Miami on May 25, 1967, at the owners meetings in New York City. It marked the first of eleven Super Bowls in the Miami area, and the first of two consecutive. A total of five cities were considered to host the second edition: Miami, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, and New Orleans. After lackluster attendance for Super Bowl I at the Coliseum, Los Angeles was eliminated by the owners. The Miami Orange Bowl was selected for the game, based on weather, hotel accommodations, capacity, and the stadium's previous experience in hosting the Playoff Bowl. The local Orange Bowl committee had even once lobbied to host the NFL Championship Game, which was not normally a neutral field contest. Furthermore, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle opined that it was "helpful to move the game around a little", and not play it in the same city every year. Playing the game in an AFL town also established a precedent for maintaining competitive balance between the two leagues. The city's contingent, led by mayor Robert King High, Joe Robbie, and others, would have just under eight months to prepare for the event.Green Bay Packers
The Packers advanced to their second straight AFL–NFL World Championship Game, but had a much more difficult time than in the previous season. Both of their starting running backs from the previous year, future Pro Football Hall of Famers Paul Hornung and Jim Taylor, had left the team. Their replacements, Elijah Pitts and Jim Grabowski, both went down with season-ending injuries, forcing Green Bay coach Vince Lombardi to use second-year reserve running back Donny Anderson and rookie Travis Williams. Fullbacks Chuck Mercein and Ben Wilson, who were signed as free agents after being discarded by many other teams, were also used to help compensate for the loss of Hornung and Taylor. Meanwhile, the team's 33-year-old veteran quarterback Bart Starr had missed 4 games during the season with injuries, and finished the season with nearly twice as many interceptions as touchdown passes.The team's deep threat was provided by veteran receivers Carroll Dale, who recorded 35 receptions for 738 yards, and 5 touchdowns; and Pro Bowler Boyd Dowler, who had 54 catches for 846 yards and 4 touchdowns. The Packers still had the superb blocking of guard Jerry Kramer, Fred Thurston and Forrest Gregg. Grabowski was the team's leading rusher with 466 yards, while Wilson had 453. Anderson had 733 yards from scrimmage and 9 total touchdowns, while also gaining another 324 yards returning kicks. On special teams, Williams returned 18 kickoffs for 749 yards and an NFL record 4 touchdowns, giving him a whopping 41.1 yards per return average. The team ranked just 9th out of 16 NFL teams in scoring with 332 points.
The Packers defense, however, allowed only 209 points, the 3rd best in the NFL. Even this figure was misleading, since Green Bay had yielded only 131 points in the first 11 games, the lowest total in professional football. Three members of Green Bay's secondary, the strongest aspect of their defense, were named to the Pro Bowl: Willie Wood, Herb Adderley, and Bob Jeter. The Packers also had a superb defensive line led by Henry Jordan and Willie Davis. Behind them, the Packers linebacking corps was led by Ray Nitschke.
The Packers won the NFL's Central Division with a 9–4–1 regular season record, clinching the division in the 11th week of the season. During the last three weeks, the Packers gave up an uncharacteristic total of 78 points, after having yielded only about a dozen points per game in their first 11 contests. In the playoffs, Green Bay returned to its dominant form, blowing away their first playoff opponent, the Los Angeles Rams, in the Western Conference Championship Game, 28–7. The next week, Green Bay then came from behind to defeat the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL championship game for the second year in a row, in one of the most famous games in NFL lore: The Ice Bowl.
Oakland Raiders
The Raiders, led by head coach John Rauch, had stormed to the top of the AFL with a 13–1 regular season record, the best record in AFL history, and went on to crush the Houston Oilers, 40–7, in the AFL Championship game. They had led all AFL and NFL teams in scoring with 468 points. Starting quarterback Daryle Lamonica had thrown for 3,228 yards and an AFL-best 30 touchdown passes.The offensive line was anchored by center Jim Otto and rookie guard Gene Upshaw, along with AFL All-Stars Harry Schuh and Wayne Hawkins. Wide receiver Fred Biletnikoff led the team with 40 receptions for 876 yards, an average of 21.3 yards per catch. On the other side of the field, tight end Billy Cannon caught 32 passes for 629 yards and scored 10 touchdowns. In the backfield, the Raiders had three running backs, Clem Daniels, Hewritt Dixon, and Pete Banaszak, who carried the ball equally and combined for 1,510 yards and 10 touchdowns. On special teams, defensive back Rodger Bird led the AFL with 612 punt return yards and added another 148 yards returning kickoffs.
The main strength of the Raiders was their defense, nicknamed "The 11 Angry Men". The defensive line was anchored by AFL All-Stars Tom Keating and Ben Davidson, a former Packer who played on Green Bay's 1961 championship team. Davidson was an extremely effective pass rusher who had demonstrated his aggressiveness in a regular season game against the New York Jets by breaking the jaw of Jets quarterback Joe Namath while sacking him. Behind them, All AFL linebacker Dan Conners excelled at blitzing and pass coverage, recording 3 interceptions. The Raiders also had two All AFL defensive backs: Willie Brown, who led the team with 7 interceptions, and Kent McCloughan, who had 2 interceptions. Safety Warren Powers recorded 6 interceptions, returning them for 154 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Super Bowl pregame news and notes
Despite Oakland's accomplishments, and expert consensus that this was the weakest of all the Packer NFL championship teams, Green Bay was a 14-point favorite to win the Super Bowl. Like the previous year, most fans and sports writers believed that the top NFL teams were superior to the best AFL teams.Thus, most of the drama and discussions surrounding the game focused not on which team would win, but on the rumors that Lombardi might retire from coaching after the game. The game also proved to be the final one for Packers wide receiver Max McGee, one of the heroes of Super Bowl I, and place kicker Don Chandler.
This was the first Super Bowl to use the "tuning fork" or "slingshot" goalposts invented by Jim Trimble and Joel Rottman; they had made their debut at the start of the season for both the AFL and NFL, and first appeared at the pro level in Canada.
Broadcasting
The game was televised in the United States by CBS. This was the first of seventeen Super Bowls in which the game was rotated annually between CBS and NBC. Ray Scott handled the play-by-play duties, and was joined by color commentators Pat Summerall and Jack Kemp in the broadcast booth. Kemp was the first Super Bowl commentator who was still an active player at the time of the broadcast. The CBS telecast of this game was considered lost; all that survived were in-game photos, most of which were shown in the January 8, 1969, edition of Sports Illustrated. Not even NFL Films, the league's official filmmaker, had a copy of the full game available; however, they did have game footage that they used for their game highlight film. Super Bowl II was aired exclusively by CBS and was long believed to have been erased, but it was later found that the entire telecast fully exists and rests in the vaults of NFL Films.While the Orange Bowl was sold out for the game, the NFL's unconditional blackout rules in place then prevented the live telecast from being shown in the Miami area.
During the latter part of the second quarter, and again for three minutes of halftime, almost 80 percent of the country lost the video feed of the CBS broadcast. CBS, who had paid $2.5 million for broadcast rights, blamed the glitch on a breakdown in AT&T cable lines.
39.12 million people in the US watched the game on television, resulting in a rating of 36.8 and a market share of 68. The overnight Arbitron rating was 43.