It was a tale of two leagues; the long established NFL and the upstart AFL. Two leagues that dominated the football world to such a degree that a merger was inevitable and in June of 1966, that inevitability became a reality.
Initially called the World Championship Game, the first Super Bowl took place on January 8th, 1967, and featured the AFL Champion, the Kansas City Chiefs, versus the NFL's champ, the Green Bay Packers.
Heavily favored, the Chiefs entered the game confident but that confidence took an early hit as Packer legend Bart Starr hit reserve wideout Max McGee for a 37 yard touchdown to put the NFL up 7 early.
The Chiefs responded early in the second with a 66 yard touchdown drive of their own but was soon upstaged again as Green Bay came back with a 73 yard touchdown drive capped by a 14 yard gallop by full back Jim Taylor.
At halftime, the Pack was up 14-10 but you couldn't tell that by the Chiefs locker room. They were still cocky and upbeat and felt the game was in theirs to have after out gaining Green Bay 181 yds to 164 in the first half.
Their confidence soon proved unfounded as Green Bay came out and flat out dominated the Chiefs the rest of the game. Their defense smothered the Kansas City offense, only allowing them to cross midfield once for one play while the Packer offense carved up the Chiefs defense for three second half scores on route to a 35-10 beatdown of the AFL representative.
The surprise player of the game had to be Packers receiver Max McGee, who had only 91 yds and one touchdown for the season coming into the game but put up 138 yds and 2 tds that day.
The first SuperBowl was an exciting masterpiece and a rousing success but I believe nobody could have predicted the money monster it has become today. Speaking of which, here's some food for thought before I end this article, the Green Bay Packers were each paid a salary of $15,000 as the winning team while the Chiefs were paid $7,500 each.
My, how the game has changed.
