Lombardi Exits in Style

Super Bowl II was memorable for two key reasons: It was the Oakland Raiders’ first Super Bowl appearance, and Vince Lombardi’s last.

Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers carried him out of Miami’s Orange Bowl on a winning note. They had won three consecutive NFL championships and dominated the American Football League champion Raiders, 33-14, on Jan. 14, 1968 to win their second Super Bowl. In nine years, Lombardi led the Packers to six Western Conference championships, five NFL championships and two Super Bowl titles.

“The Raiders came to play, there’s no question about that,” Bud Lea wrote in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “But they didn’t have the quarterback or the overall defense to slug it out with the best team in pro football.”

The Raiders, 13-1 against AFL foes, figured to challenge the Packers but rarely threatened. Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr and kicker Don Chandler emerged as the standouts, with Starr completing 13 of 24 passes for 202 yards and Chandler kicking field goals of 39, 20, 43 and 31 yards. Herb Adderley’s 60-yard return of an interception early in the fourth quarter broke the game open.

Starr, voted the game’s most valuable player for the second year in a row, moved the Packers efficiently. Green Bay’s first two possessions ended with a field goal.

They pierced the Raiders’ defense for their first touchdown in the second quarter, when Starr found Boyd Dowler for a 62-yard pass play. Trailing, 13-0, the Raiders responded before the half ended on a 23-yard passing play from Daryle Lamonica to Bill Miller. But Chandler found his target again, this time a 43-yard kick, to give the Packers a 16-7 lead.

Green Bay put the game away in the third quarter. Starr threw passes of 35 yards to Max McGee and 23 yards to Donny Anderson to set up a two-yard touchdown run by Anderson, who got room thanks to great blocks from Jerry Kramer and Ben Wilson.

After the Raiders punted, Starr engineered a drive that moved the Packers from their 30-yard line to Oakland’s 24. Chandler capped it with a 31-yard kick that barely cleared the crossbar.

The Raiders’ comeback hopes were quashed when Adderley intercepted a pass Lamonica had intended for Fred Biletnikoff and rumbled 60 yards for a touchdown thanks to some good blocks.