And Still Champions

"They didn't keep the time right," said Owner Lamar Hunt of the Kansas City Chiefs. "The first half didn't run long enough, and the second half ran too long." Looking back, it is easy to understand why Hunt wished he had been manning the stop watch at last week's Super Bowl game between the A.F.L. champion Chiefs and the N.F.L. champion Green Bay Packers.

The Chiefs came storming out in the first half with their scalping knives flashing. They lined up in weird formations, blitzed wildly on defense, caught Green Bay's own defenders napping with "play action" passes that looked at first glance like handoffs into the line. Green Bay scored two touchdowns, but one of them was a fluke--a twice-deflected pass that Packer Flanker Max McGee somehow managed to catch one-handed, behind his back. The Chiefs outgained the Packers by 181 yds. to 164 yds., out-first-downed them by 11-9. Twice they tackled Green Bay Quarterback Bart Starr for losses when he faded back to pass. They scored a touchdown and a field goal of their own. And at half time they trooped off the field trailing by only four points, 14-10.

College Stuff. As far as the Packers are concerned, a first half is just a patrol action. Contact the enemy, draw his fire, test his strengths, probe his weaknesses. In the locker room at half time, Coach Vince Lombardi wasted no time on pep talks. "Stop grabbing and start tackling," he growled, and then he got down to specifics. Fact One: the Chiefs, on the average, were younger, bigger and probably stronger than the Packers --whose ground game had not been much to brag about all year, anyhow. That led naturally to Fact Two: Packer Quarterback Bart Starr, who completed 62% of his passes during the regular season, was the No. 1 passer in pro football. So Green Bay was going to the air. Fact Three: the Chiefs' cornerbacks on defense were vulnerable; they were "gambling," trying to cover Green Bay's wide receivers too tightly--mostly because they were forced into single man-on-man coverage by the blitzing tactics of the Kansas City linebackers. Fact Four: Kansas City's own "play action" passes were "college stuff" that could be countered by crashing a linebacker now and then--to hit Chiefs Quarterback Len Dawson before he could com plete his fake and set up to throw.

Out for the second half came the Packers, the ultimate professionals, cool, competent, computerized--and more than a little mad. When Lenny Dawson tried to pass, he found himself staring at three onrushing Green Bay defenders--and threw the ball away, straight into the arms of Packer Safety-man Willie Wood, who ran it all the way back to the Kansas City five.

"That was the key play," Dawson said later. "I should never have thrown the ball." Considering the way the Packers methodically carried out Lombardi's instructions, the Chiefs should never even have come back to the field. Not once in the second half did they get past Green Bay's 45-yd. line--while Starr picked Kansas City's defense apart. Throwing mostly to Flanker McGee, a 34-year-old veteran who caught only four passes during the regular season but wound up with seven completions and two touchdowns last week, Starr hit 16 out of 23 attempts for 250 yds. Things were tough on the ground, too. Chiefs Cornerback Fred Williamson, who had bragged about what he was going to do to Packer ball carriers with his "hammer blow"--a kind of karate chop--was curiously quiet after he was knocked cold trying to tackle Halfback Donny Anderson with three minutes left on the clock. At the end it was the Packers 35-10, and only mathematicians would have been interested if it had gone on any longer.

All Right, O.K., You Win. Richer by $15,000 per man, the Packers were inclined to be gracious toward the Chiefs --who pocketed their losers' shares of $7,500 and promised to do better next time. "They're a real tough team," said Coach Lombardi. But that was not what the sportswriters came to hear. Crowding close, they badgered him until he blurted: "All right. Kansas City doesn't compare with the top teams in the National Football League. That's what you wanted me to say--and now I've said it." A.F.L. supporters were too chastened to say "wait till next year," but they might say "wait a few years." The whole American Football League, after all, has been in existence for only seven seasons--while the Packers have been playing in the N.F.L. since 1921.

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