The 1/5 Is Important, But Not ’67 Rams/Colts

Tomorrow night’s 1 seed or 5 seed clash matching (14-2) teams, visiting Minnesota (Vikings) and Detroit (Lions) is important, however, “slow it down” those who are calling it the most important NFL “reg” game ever (at this point it is not close) and also making the same claim about what obviously are the great records of each team (by the way, Kansas City is (15-1) in this favorites strewn season).

The reason this tilt is nowhere near as important as say the Giants/Steelers battle for the NFL Eastern Conference, won by the Giants on December 15, 1963 is that unlike that game, the losing team in tomorrow night’s game will not be eliminated.

Concerning records, how about and try to top the 1967 game for the NFL Coastal Division crown contested at the still viable and venerable Los Angeles Coliseum, built for the L.A. hosted 1932 Olympic Games.

In that December 17, 1967 game, the home team, Rams finished (11-1-2), by defeating the Baltimore Colts, who also finished with that great record, but were eliminated from 4 teams NFL ‘offs competition (first year of more than 2 and the second year that the team winning the NFL crown still had a subsequent game, then the NFL/AFL Championship Game, now and for many years, starting not long after, known as the Super Bowl.

When there was only the NFL Championship Game to be contested (1933-1966), with all but the ’66 season having no subsequent game, if two teams finished tied a playoff game was held to determine which of the two teams would be a title game participant. (Example is 2 years earlier the Green Bay Packers and Baltimore Colts tied for the Western Conference crown and met in a playoff game at Green bay won by the homestanding Packers, the first of 3 consecutive NFL titles all won in a game, something no other team has accomplished with this year’s Chiefs a viable but still pretty big underdogs “threat” to match.

It turned out the Rams went (1-1-1) vs the Colts in ’67 but if it had been (1-1) the tiebreaking procedure and no game would have given the Coastal to the team with more points scored in the head to head games.

Having the somewhat legitimate tiebreaker, the Rams advanced the Western Conference Title game played at the Packers then sometime Milwaukee venue, County Stadium despite the Rams’ (11-1-2) record being a great deal better than that of the “Pack.” (9-4-1).

Green Bay won the game (28-7) on their way to those still unprecedented 3 straight crowns. Tomorrow night’s winner will be afforded a wild card round bye and any NFC ‘offs tilt as a home such while the team with less points or if a tie the Vikings, will face a road wild card round game and be the 5 seed.

Again an important but nowhere near the most important NFL regular season game ever.

Above a classic photo, quite possibly from the ’67 Coastal showdown won at home by the Rams (34-10) vs the Colts.

Left to right #74 Merlin Olsen, partially hidden #76 Lamar Lundy, #75 David “Deacon” Jones and #78 Roger Brown, who was picked up from Detroit (yes the same franchise hosting tomorrow night’s game and in his autobiography, “Out of Bounds,” co written with Steve Delsohn, another Brown, the great Jim Brown wrote he knew it was a business when big market L.A. got a great player like Roger Brown to replace another great, Roosevelt Grier who was injured), known as “The Fearsome Foursome” are pictured.