Pro Football, Pop Culture and the Winter of 1965-66

What if you're a Packer Fan of certain age.  Maybe you'd remember the Lombardi Packers.  Maybe you'd remember those back to back play-off games at newly named Lambeau Field.  Maybe you might remember the "mud bowl" Championship game.  It was the year before the first Super Bowl. You remember right?  Yeah probably not.  You see Earl Lambeau died in 1965 and Packer Stadium was renamed.
   It was a typical season until December arrived.  The defending champion Cleveland Browns were winning the east behind League MVP Jim Brown while the west was a three-way fight between Don Shula's Colts, Lombardi's Packers and George Halas's Bears.  Bear super rookie Gale Sayers scored a league record Six TD's in one game.  The Colts lost John Unitas and his back-up -  so halfback Tom Matte had to play QB.  With plays taped to his wrist - the Colts rallied to tie Green Bay on the final weekend and force a play-off game.  Matte and the Colts lost in the NFL's second ever sudden death play-off game 13-10 but Matte's wrist notes are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
  The following weekend in the slop and mud, Vince Lombardi's Packers won the first of a record three Championship Games in a row by beating Cleveland's Browns 23-12.  It was the last great game of Paul Hornung and Jim Taylor together and it ended up being Jim Brown's last game period. It was January 1966.  In the shadow of early Vietnam, Gemini 7, the Beatles Rubber Soul, Peanuts first Christmas and the Box Office epic Dr Zhivago, a year ended and a new one began.