NFL Championship
NFL Championship
1966 - Packers vs. Cowboys

NFL Championship

"The 'Ice Bowl' is the one that everyone talks about, but the game in Dallas before then was one of those watershed moments too." - Kevin Harlan

At the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, on New Year's Day of 1967, Tom Landry’s Cowboys faced Vince Lombardi’s defending champion Packers in what would become a classic NFL title game. The Packers went ahead, 14-0 after a touchdown pass by Bart Starr and the TD return of a fumbled kickoff. But the Cowboys stormed back to tie the game on a pair of rushing touchdowns by the end of the opening quarter. Starr threw a 51-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter, and Green Bay led, 21-17 at halftime. Starr tossed a 16-yard TD in the third and a 28-yard touchdown in the fourth for a 34-20 Packers lead. Dallas wouldn’t go away, though, as quarterback Don Meredith and Frank Clarke connected on a 68-yard touchdown to cut the Packers lead in half late. With under two minutes left, Dallas advanced the ball to the Green Bay 2, with a chance to tie it. But after three straight Packer stops, on fourth down a Meredith pass was intercepted in the end zone by Tom Brown, and the Packers prevailed, 34-27. The winning players hoisted Lombardi up over their shoulders; the player of the game was Starr, who threw for 304 yards and four touchdowns. Two weeks later, the Packers beat the AFL’s Chiefs in the first Super Bowl.