This podcast episode explores the remarkable and historic run of the Green Bay Packers during the 1965 NFL season, culminating in their championship victory. Our esteemed guest, Bob Swick of Gridiron Greats magazine, provides invaluable insights into the intricacies of that season, highlighting the pivotal playoff game against the Baltimore Colts that ultimately secured the Packers a place in the championship. We delve into the nuances of the Packers' formidable defense, which, despite a less impressive offensive performance, managed to dominate the league with an outstanding record of sacks and interceptions. Furthermore, we reflect on the cultural significance of the season as it marked the end of an era in professional football, with the impending merger between the NFL and AFL on the horizon. Join us as we dissect this pivotal moment in football history, examining both the triumphs and challenges faced by a team that would go on to define a legacy.

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Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Green Bay Packers
• National Football League
• Gridiron Greats magazine
• Cleveland Browns
• Atlanta Falcons
• Washington Redskins

Guest tonight is Bob Swick from Gridiron Greats magazine.

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, the games before the super bowl that claimed the title for the National Football League.

And as always, we have guest experts from the team that won the championship that year coming on to tell us about their teams in the seasons that they defeated everybody else in the National Football League.

And we have our guest that's been with us all the way through here, talking multiple times about the packers.

And that's Bob Swick of the Gridiron Greats Magazine and Gridiron Grates podcast.

Bob, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Thanks, Darren.

Thanks for having me on, Bob.

65 is just such an exciting season, not only in being a Packers fan, but in a National Football League because it's sort of the end of an era, you know, the National Football League standing on its own and the next year they're starting to merge in with the afl.

So really a milestone moment for pro football.

Very much so.

It's a classic NFL season in the sense of what you stated and also with the traditional east west conferences of the league and the last championship where the east and west winners will actually claim the NFL title.

So it is truly the end of an era, the true end of pure football, as I call it, when you didn't have AFL teams or AFC teams playing, NFC teams, NFL teams, so on and so forth.

What made this season, in my opinion, so spectacular, especially for the packers, is a little known fact is there was a playoff game for the west championship because the Baltimore Colts and the Green Bay packers both ended up in the season 10 wins, three losses and one time.

So they were forced to play a playoff game in Green Bay the day after Christmas and that game actually went into overtime where the Packers, Don Chandler at the time, who had taken over the kicking duties for the packers in the 65 season kicked the field goals, and the packers won the west title in that game.

So it's something that is sometimes forgotten, but the packers had a rough time that season.

Their offense wasn't at full throttle, meaning that they weren't top five in offense.

They were number 12 in offense.

But for defense, they were the number three defense in the NFL.

And there's one statistic to me that really always astounded me as far as the defense was concerned, that The packers had 44 sacks in the season and 27 interceptions.

So they were number three in the league in sacks, but they were number one in the league with interceptions.

And that's truly a testimony to the great defense that the packers had in 65 over their offense, in which Bart Starr had didn't have a bad year, but he didn't have one of his best years either at the same time.

So that's kind of the scenario we have going into that championship game that year.

And the.

I always found it ironic, as I studied this season years later, is how the Colts and the packers could end up tying on the last game of the season, because the packers, on the last game of the season, ended up tying the 49ers on December 19, 24 to 24.

And I just found that amazing.

And for whatever reason, the packers had a rough time on the West Coast.

I think it was because they were out of their element.

They're out of the cold, they're in the warm weather.

I think it just had a.

For whatever reason, they had a rough, rough time playing out there toward the end of the season.

Now, the 49ers weren't, you know, slouches.

They weren't gimme games either.

So they were.

They were team, so.

And maybe there's just a little bit of letdown, you know, the end of the season and you're anticipating, you know, going into the postseason, but that's not a given when you're.

You're tied with the Colts, you know, going into that, you know, you're.

That you could.

You can get knocked out in regular season and not never make it to the postseason.

But back then when there was only one team from each conference going in.

Correct.

And Lombardi was very upset, you know, in reading over the years, he was very upset that they tied that game.

If they had only won the game, they would have Won the conference.

There was no need for that playoff game.

So they had to get themselves ready the next week for the playoff game.

And that was a rough game for them because they were losing at halftime, 10 to nothing.

And then they basically came back in the second half, the Colts started to fade and they tied the game up and Chandler kicked the field goal in overtime so they could win that playoff game to get the West Conference title.

So it was a little, you know, trying to re reading some of the articles from that time frame and reading some of the quotes of Lombardi.

Although Lombardi always remained positive no matter what the situation was, he did realize that this team had issues.

And they did come together though, and they did when they did win, when they needed to win.

And that's, that's what it was all about back then in a 14 game season.

So Lombardi, you know, was able, in my opinion, you know, use the defense to his advantage over an offense that was, that really, it wasn't a bad offense.

It was just an offense that was not typical of the packers and their, their powerful running game.

Jimmy Taylor, first year, I believe he didn't run for a thousand yards that season, which was unheard of.

Hornig was slightly off.

They did do much better with the field goals because Chandler took over the kicking of the field goals.

After Hornig's very poor season in 64, I believe he missed either 23 or 26 field goals in 64.

And Lombardi couldn't have it anymore, so he went with Chandler on that.

But still, they were a strong team.

There's no doubt about it.

And again, 63, they were 11, 2 and 1, they were in second place.

64, they were 8, 5 and 1, they were in second Place.

So, you know, that's, that's a powerful statement.

And again, you know, looking ahead, which we, we really shouldn't, but we do.

66 and 67, the treat the, the three in a row deal.

The three in a row crowns.

So it's incredible statement to the, to the packers and to the, to Lombardi's coaching ability and the players themselves.

Yeah, it's, it's interesting what you said earlier.

You know, you're talking about how the defenses and talking about, you know, they were near the top of the league in pressure.

Near the top of the league and takeaways and those sort of go hand in hand.

You put pressure on the opposing quarterback, they're going to make some mistakes.

Or throw some balls or be.

Maybe normally, if they weren't under pressure, they wouldn't put them in places like that.

Just trying to get it out of their hands so they don't get slaughtered by some big behemoth coming in to take their head off.

Exactly.

And again, turnover.

You know, as much as turnovers have been part of football since the beginning of football in the 60s, the packers, to me, really, their defense understood the value of a turnover.

They.

The value of a fumble, the value of holding, you know, three downs and making them punt, the value of an interception and trying to get some yardage on it.

You know, just.

Just don't catch the ball and kneel down right away type of thing.

You know, trying to.

Trying to build some presence in yardage to get better field position, get the.

Get the points, get the touchdown, get the.

Get the field goal.

So, you know, they played an aggressive defense, which I think was a norm for many teams in the 60s, much more prevalent than what we see today, but at the same time, they.

They literally perfected it.

And again, you had guys like Herb Adderley, Lionel Aldridge, Tom Brown, Willie Davis, Henry Jordan, Willie Wooden.

You had some classic defensive players for that team.

And as such, you know, they really gelled that season, 66 and 67, and really helped the packers, you know, be as successful as they were for that time frame.

Okay.

Yeah.

So let's talk about the opponents in the championship game.

The Browns.

How was their season and what did they have to overcome?

Well, the Cleveland Browns were led by a gentleman by the name of Jim Brown, which I think we all know pretty well.

And Brown basically retired after that season, which was a shock to NFL, to football, so on and so forth.

He got tired of the game.

He had outside interest.

He didn't like getting beat up anymore.

Whatever.

Whatever.

You want to look at why he.

He left.

When he left, he left and he was done.

So the Browns really thought that they would have an opportunity for Brown to go out, Jim Brown to go out on top, because they really felt they could beat the Packers.

They had a belief that Jim Brown was the best running back for the NFL.

And his actual playing and his actual picking above yardage, scoring touchdowns, so on and so forth, would be, you know, the key to that particular game.

Now, Jim Brown that year had 1,544 rushing yards, which is incredible for four, if you think about it.

And he had 17 rushing touchdowns, but he also had four receiving touchdowns at the same time.

So Brown was part of the reason why the Cleveland Browns had 11 wins and three losses that year.

They had a good quarterback and Frank Ryan, I wouldn't say Ryan was one of the best in the NFL.

He wasn't one of the worst.

But Frank Ryan handed the ball off to Jim Brown and let handle, you know, running up fields and running rampant and getting scoring and so on and so forth.

So again, if you're putting it in context, the Browns had a relatively good team going into the championship game.

My gut feeling, and again, trying to, you know, reading a lot of the information of that time, going over a lot of articles at the time, I think they were overconfident when they went into Green Bay for the game.

I really felt they really thought they were going to win and that was it.

So what happens?

They get to the game, you got four inches of snow on the ground.

They got to sweep the ground off.

So now, as the day progressed, it became a mud bowl because the conditions were so bad.

I guess they had rain, there was melting, so on and so forth.

So the Green Bay defense basically throttled Brown the entire game.

He became a non entity in the game.

He became a non factor.

Yeah, he ran a few, and he didn't even score a touchdown in the game, but he.

He was really limited in what damage he could do with the Packers.

And I think Lombardi understood the key to winning this game was to stop Jim Brown.

And they, they were successful with it.

And there's one interesting statistic that, that really amazed.

Amazed me when I actually found it today.

There were 69 plays for Green Bay in that game.

Cleveland only had 39.

Wow.

And the score was 23 for Green Bay, 12 for the Browns.

You would think it was a much closer game than what's indicated by the number of plays and the score itself.

But realistically, the second half of the game, Cleveland was stymied.

They couldn't do anything, you know, it was all.

It was all Green Bay from that point on.

Green Bay scored 10 more points in the second half.

They were leading at halftime, 13 to 12.

Cleveland never scored again in the second half.

Green Bay rolled and they got championship number one of three at that game.

And again, the only touchdown for the Browns was not to Jim Brown was Frank Ryan threw to Gary Collins and Lou Groza kicked two field goals.

And that was the extent of their scoring for the game.

So it was a very lopsided second half.

It was a competitive first half, but the second half just.

The packers defense took over completely and Green Bay went into a little ball control with the bad Weather and to try to stay on the field, wear down the Browns defense, which was a relatively good defense, but it wasn't again, one of the best in the NFL either.

So it turned out well for Green Bay, it turned out well for the packers with regards to staying or.

I'm sorry, it turned out well for the defense of the packers because it's the.

They just played their game and that was it.

They had confidence in themselves.

They knew they could shut down Jimmy Brown and they did.

And I think that was the key to that entire championship game.

Getting to Brown, making him a non entity in the game, caused the packers or helped the packers to win the game with ease.

Yeah, when you, when you're sort of a one dimensional team and somebody takes away that, you know, that star player or that, you know, that star, that big play, it really makes teams, you know, wilt or sometimes it makes them find themselves and find other weapons and other ways to score.

Looks like the Browns maybe wanted to try to do that with Ryan a little bit.

They knew they had to put the ball in here and that's how they maybe scored, but had definitely taken away the best weapon.

I was one of the.

Belichick's famous line, his philosophy, every game you can take away their, whatever their, their key player is, then it makes your life a lot easier for your defense.

Oh, exactly, exactly.

And I think Lombardi was just so far ahead in his concept of that back in the early 60s or even in the 50s when he was with the Giants and handling them, you know, he understood that and he carried over that philosophy as a head coach to both the offense and the defense.

With regards, you know, you got to focus in on where their strong points are.

Let's take out those strong points and we're going to be more successful winning.

Which is why I, you know, I know I'm prejudiced.

Vince Lombardi to me was, was such a great coach.

He was so brilliant in his decision making and he understood what 22 men were on that field.

He understood what all 22 men were doing simultaneously.

And I've always said that because I really believe again, he was a genius in coaching for what he did.

He was so focused on understanding what the strengths were of that other team and to eliminate those strengths in the game so you could win type of thing.

And again, his entire career, you know, sadly, so short with the packers, he only had a couple of bad, if you want to call it bad seasons.

He really had a couple losing, not even have a losing season.

He had a season that he didn't win the championship.

Let's.

Let's put it that way.

So he had a couple of seasons, he didn't win the championship, but he was consistently winning games by all means, using that strategy of, you know, let's eliminate this, let's eliminate that, we'll go forward, we're going to win the game.

And that, to me, that was classic for that 65 championship game.

Yeah, very fascinating.

Now, I'm going to ask you a question because, I mean, this game was played a year before I was born, so I can't appreciate what the way the 65 season goes.

But we know through history that, you know, a year later the merger starts to happen.

You know, they're playing a world championship game.

It's not the super bowl yet, but we call it Super Bowl 1.

But what was the feeling like in that era was.

Was there feeling that, hey, these, this AFL and NFL, they're going to merge at some point, or was it sort of people kind of satisfied with having these two different leagues playing two different styles of ball and just enjoying football?

So it was fascinating to me that there were two separate leagues.

And I kind of liked the idea there were two separate leagues.

And there was some talk that going back to 63 and 64, you know, maybe the two.

Two leagues should merge and.

Or the two leagues should play a championship game against one another and have a championship of the world type of thing.

So what was happening in 65, which was interesting, a lot of cities wanted AFL franchises.

So the AFL was still only eight teams and they were hesitant to expand anymore.

And the NFL was saying to themselves, okay, so maybe we should start bringing in more teams to try to suffice and eliminate the AFL threat of two teams, so on and so forth in the same city.

For example, Milwaukee wanted an AFL team because Green Bay was only playing a few games a year there.

They were still considered the Green Bay Packers.

And eventually they.

And this didn't take place until the 90s.

They got rid of all their games in Milwaukee and played all the games in Green Bay.

But they, at one time, they split their time.

They played games in Milwaukee because they had a bigger stadium, and then they played games in Green Bay even though they were still the Green Bay Packers.

And they talked to AFL commissioner Joe Foss at the time.

And, you know, he was receptive to a lot of things, to listening to, try to, you know, maybe we'll do this, maybe we'll do that.

So the NFL, don't forget, jumped a gun and brought in the Atlanta Falcons.

And the Falcons, believe it or not.

And I just.

I just discovered this the last week in doing research for those.

The Falcons asked Lombardi if he would be interested in taking over the head coaching and GM position of the new franchise.

And Lombardi said no.

So he recommended, I believe his name was.

Was Norm Heckler from his staff to be the coach.

And he ended up being, I believe, the first coach for the Falcons at the time.

But Lombardi was loyal to the Packers.

He was also hit up by the Redskins at the time to take a position.

And Lombardi ended up taking that Washington position because he wanted financial security.

He never felt secure enough financially in Green Bay.

Give us a figure.

We'll figure out a way to get it to you, and that's it.

Whatever you want to do, so on and so forth.

I mean, the man is like a God in Green Bay.

I mean, I personally was so shocked when I heard he was taking over the Redskins.

I just.

I was in just total disbelief that he would leave the Packers.

So, you know, that, you know, created a whole brouha at that time.

But getting back to your original question, there was a lot of purists.

You know what I mean?

But back then, it was pure football.

And I'll tell you, I. I watched on a Sunday.

I had the opportunity to watch, if I was lucky, three games because there was an AFL and NFL game at the same time.

And then I.

The second game of the league of the day was either an AFL or NFL, depending on what was going on.

I lived at that time in North Brantford, Connecticut, so I only got the Patriots, the Jets, the Giants.

Those are the three Teams that I saw, basically.

So if somebody was, if the jets were on the West Coast, I would normally get that on NBC television.

If the Giants were on the West Coast, I would get that on CBS television.

So I was very limited.

And many times I would have the game on TV and I would have my little radio, transistor radio in my ear because I could pick up one of the other game that wasn't on tv.

So I would be listening to both games.

And my father always was astounded me doing that.

But he left me alone because he knew I, I thoroughly enjoyed football and Saturday, the same thing.

I would watch any college game that was on tv, I would watch it.

I mean, I was just fascinated with, with the game.

So.

But again, I'm off on different tangents here.

No, no, it was fascinating because what you said, you know, just what you said between having the Patriots and Jets being AFL teams and the Giants NFL, and you're sort of in the middle of their markets there in Connecticut.

Exactly.

Very similar to what people here, you know, in Yuri.

We're, we're 100 miles away from Cleveland, Buffalo and Pittsburgh and we had a very similar thing and some, some older gentlemen than, than I have told me before, hey, you know, there you were either either an allegiant to the AFL if you were a Bills fan, or you were an NFL guy because, you know, Browns and Steelers, it wasn't.

You had your team patriotism and philosophies, you know, supporting your teams, but you also had, you know, league pride.

You had to, you know, carried the, the shield or you carried the banner of the afl.

Right.

Kind of interesting dynamic.

And that's why a lot of people never couldn't, could never understand.

How did you become a Packers fan in North Brantford, Connecticut?

Well, I used to read the New Haven Register and New Haven Journal Courier, the morning paper, the night paper, and Bob Sironski, who played for the packers, was from Derby, Connecticut.

So the Register and the Journal Courier would, would, you know, really literally once a week have a nice Packer feature on Saransky, the family, so on and so forth.

And long story short, they were winning and I thought it was fascinating.

In their football cards they had green and yellow uniforms, which again, I had black and white tv.

I had no clue what anybody's colors were or anything like that, unless they got like a sports illustrator or sports magazine and I could see a color photo of the game.

So I said, well, the packers are winning.

I like it.

I like Bob Swansky.

I've read so much about him.

So let me, you know, I'll root for the Packers a point later on in my life, which, and this was kind of weird, I worked at a transit district in Milford, Connecticut.

My boss was from Derby.

And we got to talking.

Long story short, he was a Packer shareholder, I was a Packer shareholder.

We had a lot of similarities in our lives.

And he says, I know the Swaranski family very well.

And he said, let's write to Bob and see if he'll send us some photos with his autograph on it.

And we got in the mail like a week later.

You know, he wrote a letter to my boss, who he knew, and he sent us a bunch of photos and he autographed mine to Bob, Bob Sharanski.

And it was just really incredible to think about reading about him when I was 7 years old and then fast forward 40 plus years later when I'm working and I got an affiliation with him at the time, the same time.

So truly amazing.

But I, I love the two.

I love the two league, the pureness of two leagues.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I was sad when they merged.

I didn't know what was going to happen.

1970, I was kind of disappointed watching football because there weren't two leagues anymore.

It was a conference now.

Well, that's different than a league type of thing.

And again, as you said, And I agree 100%, I knew I had friends who were jets fans and friends who were Giants fans.

I had friends who were Patriots fans.

And then I had a few people in between like myself, who were Packer fans.

I had a couple, I knew a couple of guys who were Cardinal fans because their parents were from St. Louis and they followed the team when they were in St. Louis, so on and so forth.

So.

But that's the fun of football.

You know, that, you know, you're not a homer all the time.

You're you, you follow a team because you like them and they don't have to be necessarily in your location, in your geographical location.

Yeah, most definitely.

But Bob, you know, going back into this 65 season earlier, you had told us that you have some memorabilia from that league.

I do.

From that era and that, that team and that year.

Maybe you could share those with us.

First thing I'd like to show is a Los Angeles Rams at Green Bay Packer game program.

Their game programs at their time were basically, they were pictures of the players and the teams and there was tr There was always usually a Coca Cola ad which was in color, which was part of the centerfold of it.

And basically he talked about the game and it had a lot of ads, so on and so forth.

So it's a very classic 50 cent program, believe it or not.

Yeah, that's.

That's kind of expensive for a program back then.

Exactly.

It was two quarters.

That is.

That is actually, you know, a good chunk of change.

But they must have been doing well, that people paying that much to get a program.

That's great.

Well, they were selling a lot of them too, at the same time.

Now I also have the 65 packers media guide, they called it back then a press guide.

And these are not at all like what the media guys turned out to be today, which are like two, 300 page, you know, literally small bibles of.

Of the team with all the information.

These were very, very minimal in information.

64 pages.

They would show usually rosters, draft picks, players, team players, so on and so forth.

Very short write up.

But the one thing that was very interesting, if you can see it on the front page, these were issued in the 60s, after the preseason, because they have all the preseason scores of what the packers did that year.

And then.

Yeah, so that.

That was the interesting part of these.

And I see they played the Browns second to last preseason game, too.

A little precursor.

And it was a Cleveland.

And Cleveland had double headers at that time.

So there were two.

Two games at Cleveland Stadium.

And the packers that year won every.

I'm sorry, they won four out of the five preseason games.

And Lombardi didn't like losing preseason games either, as he still felt it was a game and you were playing it.

And it's the same thing.

It's interesting.

Wow.

Believe it or not.

So this was.

This was very historical.

Looking at it, they still do it.

But back, you know, back then, it was like four pages of the media guy.

I'm gonna imagine that the COVID that's missing off that was probably hanging on somebody's wall somewhere.

Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say that.

And I. I got that in a trade years ago on the.

The guy said, do you mind?

I don't have a cover on it.

Yeah, I said, I just want the inside information so I can read it.

And Lombardi is congratulating Lambo.

So that's why they used it as a tribute to Lambeau on the yearbook itself.

And then two last things I want to show.

When I was a kid, I used to love reading paperback books of sports.

And one of my favorite of all time runs was Football Stars for the Year.

And they would do little biographies of each player.

And then they would have like a little section of photos, action photos.

Notice how they're all black and white, though, so I still didn't know what the colors were.

Okay.

Last year he played, don't forget, for the NFL.

And we got number 31.

Jimmy Taylor brought in the ball, so he took over the shoes of Brown.

A lot of people said Taylor is going to be the best running back in the league since Jim Brown retired.

So it was very interesting.

I loved.

I. I can't tell you how many times I read and reread those books when I was a kid.

They were either 35 cents or 50 cents.

And I remember bugging my parents for two quarters so I could buy the book.

My mother would give in after a while and she said, just give me the book.

I'll check it out.

And then I would wait patiently after she checked out.

And by the time we got to the car, I took the book out and I was trying to read it in the.

By the light of the cars behind me while we were driving home from the store there.

They probably told you, Bob, we'll give you 35 cents for the book, but we're not paying 50 cents for a program, darn it.

Right.

We're draw the line somewhere.

I had an uncle who he.

He knew I. I had a great love of sports books and stuff.

So he would, he would pick up a sport magazine for me or sports illustrating and give it to me when I went go over their house.

But just another quick story with him.

He drove a bus for a living, so he would get all the newspapers during the day and he would get the New York Daily News and the New York Post, and he would bring them home and save them.

And then back in those days, you just handed down in the family.

So we would get them, and my mother and my father would read them.

So I would pour over the sports.

And it was classic, you know, Joe Namath jets articles so on and so forth.

And it was just so fascinating to me to read, you know, about New York football because it was just a great time for football back then.

Yeah, great memories.

Absolutely.

Well, Bob, I really, I want to thank you for not only this episode coming on, telling us about the packers, but the other.

I think you did what, three or four other packers episodes all the way stretching back to the, the 30s, I think.

And, you know, we really appreciate you being a part of this series and helping to make this series such a special thing that hopefully people can enjoy for, for years to come and try to pay attention to what, what was going on in pro football, especially in the National Football League in their championship games from 33 to 65.

I hope they do because it's, you know, great, great football history.

I'm glad you're able to preserve it and have the full gamut of individuals who follow football, study it, so on and so forth.

I think it's great for the history of the game, and that's what it's all about.

We want to preserve the history of this great game.

All right, Bob.

So thanks again and we will talk to you again real soon on maybe a different subject.

Okay, thanks.

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