PACKERVILLE, U.S.A.: The Playoff Bowl

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The Playoff Bowl — 1965

Packers Victims of Card Tricks

By TOMMY FITZGERALD

Miami News Sports Writer

The Eastern Division has been graduated at the top of the National Professional Football League class with complete honors for the first time in eight years. They'll be awarding St. Louis Cardinal Coach Wally Lemm a foxskin instead of a sheepskin, though. He won his doctorate in trickery in the Orange Bowl yesterday before a record crowd of 56,218 as the Cards upset the touchdown-favored Green Bay Packers, 24-17, in the fifth annual Playoff (Runner-up) Bowl.

He did it with the help of his scholarly quarterback, Charley Johnson, whose erudition seems to be catching; with the help of a split end from pro football's kindergarten, Billy Gambrell; and with a confusing and incomparably effective pass rush and defense that had Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr more on his back than those lyrical stars that fall on Alabama.

The “strange” defenses uncovered by St. Louis held baffled Green Bay, top offensive club in the league, to its fewest yards rushing (52) and fewest overall (131) in the six years Vince Lombardi has been coaching the Packers. This was the first time the East had ever beaten the West in this annual spectace between the divisional runners-up. This year, for only the second time in the last eight years and in another upset, the East, Cleveland, also conquered the West, Baltimore, 27-0, for the league playoff championship.

Thus this first sweep of the two playoffs ever by the league stilled talk of an imbalance in quality between the two. Gambrell, the 165-pound, 5-10 University of South Carolina product, who is only in his sophomore year as a pro, was one of two surprises Dr. Lemm pull on that great brain of football, Lombardi. The other was the flexible, fluent, ever-changing, unscouted nature of his pass-rush defenses in this first meeting of the clubs since a preseason exhibition. Gambrell caught two Johnson touchdown passes- one for 80 yards in the second quarter and the other for 10 in the third- to tie a Playoff Bowl record and set a record for the event with a total of 184 yards on his six receptions.

“This is the first time Gambrell has been successful going deep.” Dr. Lemm noted. “He has good moves. We've always passed to him short. The films Green Bay have show him going only short. Maybe that's why Jesse Whittenton and Doug Hart were playing him so close. When we saw they were playing him close, we had him go deep.”

Gambrell was only Johnson's fourth favorite target all season, catching only 24 passes, but defensive coach Chuck Drullis said Bobby Joe Conrad, No. 1 St. Louis receiver, had a bad shoulder (“we were trying to keep it quiet”) and that the secret game plan was to throw more to Gambrell. Dr. Lemm did his homework. “We’ve always blitzed the passer- but from a 4-3 defense,” he said after yesterday’s game in explaining his strategy. “Sitting home between the end of the season (three weeks ago) and coming down here (a week ago), I got the idea of showing all different types of defenses we hadn't used during the season and stunting and changing alignments almost every play. We didn't use the 4-3 one-eighth of the time. Every team has few audibles for its quarterback to call when he finds a shift to an odd defense. But when the defenses are all different from what a team has shown all year, you run out of audibles and the offense is stymied.”

Starr, the top passer in the National League with a 59.9 completion average and only four interceptions all year, completed 13 of 28 for only 46.4 percent, had one pass intercepted for a touchdown and was thrown five times for losses totaling 50 yards in attempting to pass. It was a grimly-defensive 7-3 first half, in which St. Louis scored the only time it got past Green Bay's 49. That was that second quarter 80-yard pass (longest of the year for St. Louis) on which Gambrell faked Whittenton to slip by him. Green Bay was able to penetrate only once into Cardinal’s territory to the St. Louis 35 in the first period. This ended with Paul Hornung kicking a 40-yard field goal.

From the second half kickoff, St. Louis moved to a fourth down on the Green Bay one in a dozen plays. Jim Bakken kicked an eight-yard field goal and it was 10-3. With about five minutes to go in the third period, Gambrell maneuvered past Hart to catch a 10-yard touchdown pass. Bakken kicked this point- as he did the one after the first touchdown. St. Louis seemed snugly in at 17-3 the way the Green Bay offense was being tied in knots. But Green Bay got a break when Jimmy Burson muffed a fair catch and Green Bay got the ball on the St. Louis 16 at the start of the fourth period. Jim Taylor had it across in two bursts and Hornung kicked the point.

St Louis got to the Green Bay six, but lost the ball when it was kicked out of Johnson's hand while he was trying to pass. Green Bay, however, immediately threw an interception to Jerry Stovall, who ran it over from the Green Bay 29. Bakken kicked and it was 24-10 with 8:27 left. A 48-yard pass from Starr to Taylor, and a 15-yard personal foul penalty on St. Louis helped to take Green Bay to the St. Louis 12. Hornung shot through the middle to the two. Taylor rammed over from the one two plays later. Hornung kicked and Green Bay was just a touchdown and a point from a tie.

It looked as if Green Bay might luckily pull this one out when, with 2:52 remaining, Ray Nitschke intercepted a Johnson pass at the St. Louis 48 and ran it to the St. Louis 23. On the next play St Louis got it back on an interception, Burson grabbing a halfback pass from Hornung that the Cards had been alerted from the bench and were waiting. The Cards then ran out the clock.Gambrell's second touchdown was on a 10 yard pass from Johnson in the third period.