The pivotal moment in National Football League history that we shall explore today is the remarkable 1961 season of the Green Bay Packers, a year that heralded the inception of a formidable dynasty under the esteemed guidance of Vince Lombardi. Following a narrow defeat in the previous championship game against the Philadelphia Eagles, the Packers rebounded spectacularly, culminating in a resounding victory over the New York Giants with a score of 37 to 0. This victory not only secured their championship but also marked the dawn of Lombardi's legendary tenure as one of the greatest coaches in the annals of football. We shall delve into the strategies employed by the Packers, examining the contributions of key players such as Bart Starr and Jimmy Taylor, alongside a discussion of the defensive prowess that stifled the Giants' offense throughout the game. Join us as we engage with Bob Swick, a distinguished expert from Gridiron Grades magazine, to gain deeper insights into this historic season and its lasting impact on the NFL.

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It was the birth of a dynasty coming up as Vince Lombardi and his packers, who had lost the previous season's championship game to the Philadelphia Eagles, were on the rise, and a start of a dynasty would come.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes, is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to our NFL Championship series before the Super Bowls.

And, boy, it's a great time learning from experts and historians of the winning teams of those seasons, what happened in that year and what happened with their teams and some of the great players.

And we have our friend from Gridiron Grades magazine, Bob Swick.

Bob, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Thanks, Darren.

Thanks for having me back.

Yeah.

We are so glad that you're able to join us again with this very historic season for the packers, and they're back on a roll again here in winning the NFL championship.

So we're glad to have you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And there's a famous Lombardi quote, which I have to paraphrase, that he said after the game in the locker room to the players of the Packers.

He said, gentlemen, we are never going to lose another championship game as long as we play together.

And sure enough, he never did.

And it's an amazing.

Yeah, that's really kicks off the.

The second great dynasty of the packers.

And we've talked about the earlier ones with you on a couple of the episodes in these championship series, and definitely the 60s, that's the team you think about is the Green Bay Packers.

And again, that's what I grew up.

You know, I grew up in that time frame.

It was such a great time for football.

You had two separate leagues, the American Football League, the National Football League.

So it was really the beginnings of the Lombardi dynasty as a coach in which everything that he did and the practice over and over again of certain plays, of certain routines all came together in that season.

And it paid off.

And how did it pay off?

They got their first championship ring in a long time.

It was phenomenal.

Phenomenal.

Yeah.

And he, as we've talked about before, back in the 56 season, where he was a coordinator for the Giants.

Giants who won the championship.

So he sort of got his feet wet with that, you know, knowing, at least in the NFL stance of championship games and, you know, great coaching staff with Tom Lombardi, who.

Or I'm sorry, Tom Landry.

Right.

You know, be a nemesis to him throughout these 60 seasons with the Cowboys is exactly later.

But what an interesting pairing them as offensive and defensive coordinators of the Giants and to.

To come to this deck, new decades as head coaches.

Exactly.

And Lombardi didn't want to play second fiddle to anybody.

He.

He wanted the championship on his own.

He wanted to be the head coach who called those plays, who called the championship, who.

Who made the team what they were.

And he did it so eloquent.

Eloquently.

He did it so perfectly.

In my opinion, to me, it should be just a case study in football history and in football coaching at the same time.

And then I know you can.

You can say all you want about Bill Belichick, you can say all you want about modern day coaching, what he did in his time frame.

I mean, you know, you got to think about five championship teams in less than basically eight years.

I mean, it's just incredible what he did.

Truly incredible.

And in that championship game, he did not hold back at all.

I mean, they.

They really beat up on the Giants and defeated them 30, 37 to 0 in Green Bay at the, at the New City Stadium.

So that makes it even more amazing.

Yeah, it was a new start in many ways coming out of that game.

You know, the packers dynasty starting a new year, getting ready to start and really whitewashing the Giants who had high hopes that season.

So why don't you tell us a little bit about what was going on in the season before the championship game.

Well, The packers went 11 and three.

They only had three losses through the course of the season.

And what was interesting in this season, one area I got to point out immediately, on December 3rd, the packers defeated the Giants 27, 20 to 17.

And in doing so, everybody kind of thought that was going to be the prelude to the championship game coming up because packers clinched the western division.

The Giants were on the verge of clinching the eastern division.

And a lot of people said, well, we're watching a pre championship game before we get started.

And the Giants had a relatively good team that year.

They went 10, 3 and 1 with one tied game, Packers 11 and 3.

Packers really only got beat up once during the season when they lost two.

The Colts by, I believe it was 45 to 17 toward the middle of the season.

But other than that, they played paid very strongly through the whole season.

One key statistic between the two teams, and this is one area that I, I really think is should be noted.

You know, I mean you get some ridiculous figure of yardage.

But back then the amount of yardage he got for a 14 game season was really very, very strong.

That's almost 100 yards a game.

So the packers are picking up on the ground, killing time making first downs.

They're getting almost 100 yards game from Jimmy Taylor on the opposite side on receiving they got Max McGee who catches for over 883 receiving yards.

So between those two guys, you're looking at over 20, 100 yards picked up just between two players with Bart Starr throwing, being the quarterback and throwing those passes and handed that ball off to Taylor.

So it was a very, very strong combo rushing wise and receiving rise for the packers, which I think helped propel them to such a successful season.

That's not to say the Giants didn't have A good team because they had.

Y.A.

tittle was their quarterback with the exception of four games that Charlie Connerly filling in.

But T Y.A.

tittle was a good quarterback and he did have a strong running back in Alex Webster, who ran for 928 yards for the season.

So there is some parity between the quarterbacks, between the running backs.

Not so much the receiving game, but yeah, between the running games, between the two teams.

And again, their, their records were very, very close one way or the other.

You know, 11, 11, three against a 10, three and one team, you know, you can't get a better matchup than that, you know, now and as such, I think a lot of people felt it was going to be a much closer game for the championship game, but it was just, basically just a total, total, total annihilation of the New York Giants in that game.

They, they were tired.

The.

Their defense show showed their age.

And I, I, you know, people say they could never believe that the packers would roll 37 to nothing.

And the Giants and that game, I believe, only got six first downs the entire game.

So that really speaks a lot, right?

Yeah.

Six first downs and they were, they only only had 130 yards total.

And that's it.

So.

So, I mean, it was all Green Bay the whole game.

Yeah.

That is amazing.

Now, do you think some of that, you know, the, the score and having his team prepped, you know, for this game, you know, we know it's a championship game.

He wants to win, but there had to be a little bit of added drama with being the Giants, you know, his former employer.

And, you know, a lot of people thought that either Lombardi or Landry would be the head coach of the Giants someday when Jim Lee Howell was there, 56, as, as their boss, and one of them would replace him, and neither did.

Now, could that be some extra fuel for the fire?

Most definitely.

I mean, you know, Lombardi wanted, wanted to take his revenge against the Giants.

I don't think he ever forgave them for not getting the head coaching job.

I mean, again, look who ended up being the head coach for the Giants, Ali Sherman.

I mean, so, you know, he was of anybody to get a head coaching job like that.

It's very surprising that he wouldn't.

They would go to an Ali Sherman.

And again, I don't understand why they didn't either suffice, Landry or Lombardi, two equally, you know, brilliant coaches to take over the Giants team.

And just think if one of them did take over, what kind of dynasty the Giants might have had through the 60s, instead of the packers having that.

Dynasty, it would have rewrote NFL history, that's for sure.

Exactly.

Exactly.

But I think you're right in your observation that Lombardi did want to take revenge on the Giants.

He had it.

You know, he wants to win.

He wants to show them that he's a good coach.

He's a.

He's a coach that wins.

And that was his first.

First ring of the five that he got.

And again, it's a powerful season.

And Lombardi was from the New York area, too, wasn't he?

Correct, correct.

Grew up in there.

So that's probably his team that he watched as a.

As a youngster.

I'm sure it was.

I'm sure it was.

I mean, and Lombardi, again, you know, was West Point coach, assistant coach at West Point, assistant coach at New York for the Giants.

You know, he played second fiddle for a big part of his career, and that has to be, you know, very frustrating.

You know, again, I hate to compare it to today's game, but you got guys in their late 20s, early 30s, they're.

They're head coaches of NFL teams, which back in the 60s was unheard of.

You know, if you were in your early 40s and you got a coaching job, you're fortunate.

You know, that type of situation.

So it did play into Lombardi's mind, and I'm sure, I am confident that he really told his players, off the record, we're going to win this, and we're going to win it big.

And I don't care what the score is, I don't care if it's 70 to nothing.

We're still going to be playing hard, so on and so forth.

So what do you think was the main strategic difference that the packers did?

You know, we.

You mentioned earlier they played, you know, a few weeks before this game, and it was a three point game or earlier in the season anyway, it was a three point game.

Right now we have, you know, seven touchdown game.

What do you think was the difference in that?

Well, I think.

I think two.

Two.

Two areas that played into the game itself.

It was played in Green Bay, so you had a home team advantage.

And number two, the Giants.

And reading some of the.

The reviews of the game and reports of the game, the Giants were tired for whatever reason.

The Giants look like a very old, tired team, especially on defense.

So what did Lombardi do?

Well, we're gonna grind it out.

Just run it out.

Run it out.

Go three yards, Go three yards, go four yards.

Get the first out, you stay on the field most of the game.

The third quarter, the, basically the packers were on the field.

Packers offense was on the field the entire quarter.

So the Giants just couldn't keep up with them and they were exhausted, you know, and again, if, you know, hindsight's everything, but if you're a coach, you start pulling some players and let them get their, you know, breath for a couple plays, you got to have a good or some halfway decent players on your bench to spell your regulars.

Giants really didn't have that.

So they kept playing their, their number one guys and, and that was the end result.

Nothing happened.

You know, they, they got ruled one way or the other.

So I think that was, those were the two biggest reasons.

And again, Green Bay was literally unbeatable at home that season.

So it really, it showed a lot because they did the first game of the season, I believe they lost to Detroit and they lost to Baltimore and Baltimore and they lost to San Francisco and San Francisco on their usual California December trip.

And that was a given because they, they just played flat out there one way or the other.

Yeah.

Okay, so you talked a little bit about the, the packers with their offensive weapons, you know, with McGee and Taylor, Bart Starr.

Well, who were some of the defensive players?

Because when you have a shutout, you know, you have two, two phases of your team working in unison.

Exactly.

Well, again, you really, you had, you had Fuzzy Thurston, you had Nitschke, all right, you had, you had Dan Curry, Willie Davis, who was the key to that, to that defense.

You, you had guys that were very much, you know, strong defensive linemen out there, and you had a strong defensive line.

You had good say.

Willie Davis was exceptional for defense for the packers.

So they had a strong defense.

But to me, the offense was their key.

That was their, that was their big key.

And the Giants on the other hand, supposedly did have a strong defense and they, but again, they got old.

That was the problem.

You know, those guys started getting old on the line and it just, it just did not come together for him, you know, one way or the other.

So sort of the age old story.

When you control the, the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, you're going to win the game.

So it sounds like that's what the packers were doing to the Giants.

Exactly, exactly.

And then that's what it really, what it really came down to more than anything else.

An offense that could not be stopped by the Giants and a Giants offense that could just not get started whatsoever with the packers defense and that really just rolled them one way or the other with regards to the way they played and how they played at the same time.

And again, you had Henry Jordan, you had Norm Masters, you had a lot of guys that were very much strong players for.

For the Packers.

And, and again, they.

They played to win and they.

They followed the Lombardi rule on defense, which was basically, you don't want to let any yard, you don't want to give up yardage, and more importantly, you don't want to give up points.

And that's what it comes down to.

So.

Yeah, pretty.

Pretty fundamental, right?

Exactly.

The other team you're going to win.

Right.

Can't get any more basic than that.

Yeah.

You know, there was nothing, in a way, there was nothing spectacular as far as the offense or the defense was concerned with something new, something innovative.

It was just very, very basic offensive running, offensive passing, strong defense, man to man coverages, so on and so forth.

That's what won games back then.

That's what it comes down to.

You know, matter of our guys are going to beat your guys.

Exactly, exactly.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Now, you were telling me before we came on, you've got some pieces of your collection that I do came to this.

Would you like to share?

And this was the infamous rigor photograph of Forest Greg caked in mud.

And it was a classic cover.

And it was so, so perfectly out.

Showed how strong the packers were as far as the team was concerned, that here's somebody completely caked in mud and he's still ready to play and go out and the rest, you know, for the rest of the game type of thing.

It looks like he's getting ready to yell like the.

The jungle roar or something.

And again, for his great, you know, classic defense player for the Packers.

Oh, wow.

Another iconic image.

Exactly.

And this, the interesting part of this yearbook, they do a great job of reviewing the 61 season and talk about the.

The game itself, the championship game itself.

They do an excellent job of the review of the season before.

Do a fantastic job of talking about the upcoming season.

And they, you know, strong interview, strong analysis.

It's just you don't find it Today in sports journalism in any.

In any way, shape or form.

Paul Hornig was on the front cover in his classic running pose.

And it's a very interesting magazine which talked about different players and different teams, so on and so forth.

They did a review of each team and the Green Bay Packer review was very interesting for them.

And they did say it's going to be tough to beat the packers this season.

And I have a few of them.

And this is actually of one of Dan Curry, who was a linebacker for the Packers.

And they were great.

They were simple, green and white, and on the back they had a little write up for Packer fans which talked about it.

And this is a pretty rare card set.

There's several cards that were short printed, quote unquote, and they're literally impossible to find.

You said that was from a dairy up there?

Yeah, 19 the Lake to Lake Dairy Company.

Interesting.

And this was classic and classic poses.

And also you could not show the NFL logo anywhere.

So we got a photo of Jim Taylor.

Okay.

Yeah.

A headshot.

We got Paul Hornig again in his classic hair, the golden boy, and then Max McGee, the partier wide receiver for the Packers.

But it's interesting, he looks a little.

Angry that he was getting his photo taken that day.

Yeah, I don't think.

Or he had a little too much the night before, one or the other.

That could be so.

But it was interesting.

There were no helmets in that, in that set.

It was all headshots of the players and really nothing to.

To show that it was actual.

The actual logo of the team on any of the teams.

Even.

Even on the team's yearbook.

They.

They went for the logo, huh?

Right.

That's interesting.

Why.

Why was that so.

And when did that all.

All stop?

I think.

Well, I think it did change relatively quick because I know the 62 yearbook from the photo.

They actually had the, the helmet.

Okay.

So I think it, it did start to change.

I want to say in the mid-60s.

I could be wrong, but the, the football cards especially, they were constantly airbrushing out the helmet logos.

I know there was never any.

Yeah, some of these either were Definitely out.

And I think, I want to say 82, 83, they started coming back with them the actual helmets.

So that's probably a good move on the NFL's part too, by letting them.

Because that's.

Yeah.

I made a lot of money off those logos.

Yeah.

And I never understood why.

You know, I, I read several things about it, and it really never made sense to me one way or the other.

White tops that they airbrush it on them.

It's kind of ridiculous, but whatever.

My football cards, excuse me, are basically found with the, with the logos or without the logos.

And I.

Back then, I had no clue one way or the other as to why until I got older and understood it more one way or the other.

Well, I think, you know, I think back then, I think we appreciated, you know, at least when we were younger and collecting football cards in the 70s and before, we appreciated the players a.

A lot more.

Oh, yeah, more.

Because you really didn't.

You weren't really advertising the team as much.

You know, you're.

It was a tribute to that player who was on that card.

Exactly.

Logo would sort of maybe took it away from it.

So maybe it was sort of a blessing in disguise for that to appreciate that's possible.

And again, by seeing the player's face, it was interesting to see what they actually look like because you really never saw them, you know, face up on a game because they had obviously had their helmets on, their uniforms on, so on and so forth.

You would catch, you know, the, the sideline views every once in a while with the players with their helmets off, so on and so forth, or in the magazines.

I would always be fascinated, you know, reading a sport magazine and see a player's face.

So I could actually, you know, put the face to the.

To the player type of thing.

So, I mean, stuff we take for granted today.

I mean, it was, it was a whole different world back in the 60s as far as trying to, you know, even under.

Even see what color the uniform was.

Because you have black and white tv, you didn't have color tv.

You know, I was always fascinated when I started buying cards.

And I had no right and no realization that those uniforms were those colors, because I'm watching them on a black and white tv, I'm reading a newspaper that's in black and white.

And it was always.

Until I got my football, football cards and I started reading like a sports illustrator sport magazine, I actually started understanding the color schemes of the players, of the players, teams and so on and so forth.

Or you see the Covers of those yearbooks that you just showed us with the, you know, those bright colors, very vibrant pictures for 60 some years ago.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, they're.

It's just classic vintage football photos and football history, to say the least.

You know, you got some projects going on all the time, you know, concerning football history and collecting.

So why don't you tell us what's going on with Gridiron?

Great.

So both the magazine and the podcast, what do you have coming up?

Well, we're, we're working on our starting.

We're going to start to work on our next issue, which is the summer issue.

It should be out around July 15th to 20th.

We got some very interesting articles coming up, including some discussion of Reggie White from Memphis, from the Memphis showboats.

And we also have a good.

We're going to have some interesting articles on, or an interesting article on where the 49ers logo actually came from and why it was named the 49ers, which might be, uh, interesting to some people who have a preconceived notion of what it is.

Because I was fascinated when I, when I read that.

Oh, I can't wait to see that.

If folks don't get the magazine currently, how can they get a copy or subscribe to the magazine?

Just check out our website, which is gridirongreatsmagazine.com and has all the subscription back issue information on it.

Or you can just drop me a line directly through the website and I'll be more than happy to help you with any back issues or a subscription on it itself.

And folks, if you're driving a car or you don't have a pen and pencil, don't worry.

The show notes of the podcast you're listening to or the YouTube show notes that you're watching, you can go to there and we'll have a link to take you right to Bob's site to get connected to him.

And our podcast, we're actually going to have our super collector being interviewed over the next week or two who's going to be featured in the magazine.

He has an incredible, incredible collection of football rookie cards and a few football sets that are exceptionally rare at the same time.

So he's going to be a guest upcoming on our podcast and again our podcast, we normally run two shows a month and he's going to be one of our guests this coming months in June.

And we're working on a few other people to come on to the show.

Well, awesome, I guess, you know, can't wait to see, to hear the podcast that you have going on and see the magazine edition when it comes out.

They're always exciting and thrilling and you learn a lot from them.

And we appreciate you doing this and everybody's working with you.

Thank you.

Yeah, we, you know, we share a love of preserving football history, which I think is very critical in this time and age, that, you know, the voices of the past, especially on the gridiron, have to be preserved.

They have.

Their story has to be told.

And it's up to us, guys like us and others to keep it going.

And we're going to do it as long as we can, I'm sure.

Bob, you do a terrific job and so does everybody on your team over at Gridiron Gates.

And we appreciate you helping us with this series.

You're welcome.

And it was great being on and talk about them.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.

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