Old Skool » Brats & Beer

January 16, 2008
posted under: Giants, NFC Championship, Packers, Vince Lombardi

When the Packers and Giants take the field in Green Bay for the NFC Championship on Sunday, it will renew an age-old NFL rivalry that stretches back to the leather helmet days of the 1930s. New York has played for the league championship a record 17 times, and five of those games were against the Green Bay Packers.

Their first championship meeting was in 1938 when the Giants beat the Packers 23-17 at the Polo Grounds in New York. The following year, though, Curly Lambeau’s team won the title 27-0 in Milwaukee. Green Bay won it’s sixth NFL championship in 1944 by beating New York on the road 14-7.

The most famous of the Packers-Giants title matches came in the 1960s, though. In 1961 Vince Lombardi’s Packers were looking for redemption after losing the championship to the Eagles the previous year and whooped up on the Giants 37-0 at City Stadium in Green Bay. The rematch the next year wasn’t so lopsided, but the result was the same with Green Bay winning its eighth NFL title with a 16-7 win in New York.

The New York Times has a pretty good article on those Lombardi era games and what they meant to the sport at the time. Having the small-town Packers defeating the big city Giants twice in a row and establishing a new football dynasty in the Midwest caught nationwide attention and helped the NFL become the dominant league that it is today.

This Sunday’s NFC title game should also produce some pretty high ratings for FOX. The Giants represent the #1 TV market, of course, and the Packers are one of the most popular NFL franchises in the country. You’ve got the beloved veteran and three-time MVP Brett Favre on one side and the up and coming Eli Manning (he’s a Manning, anyway) on the other. Not to mention the fact that the game is taking place within the frozen confines of historic Lambeau Field.

The hype should reach a fever pitch by kickoff.