Just had to post on something I learned new today that I'm sure some here were well aware of and that is the Playoff Bowl. I never realized that in the 60's they had a game for third place played at the Orange Bowl after the NFL championship. Pro Football Reference doesn't even count these games as part of a players post-season stats. I can't find them anyway. Found it while watching youtube on the 1968 Cowboys losing in the playoffs but then winning against the Vikings in the Playoff Bowl. Anybody else unaware of this as I was?
Playoff Bowl
- Thread starter Kaptain
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Yes now that you mentioned it I remember reading about this when I was reading up on Vince Lombardi and heard it mentioned by older folks but it mever really crossed my mind when looking up stats for players during that era, in fact its never crossed my mind unless someone mentioned it. Apparently it was to help with pensions for retired players?
This is what Lombardi had to say:
Vince Lombardi detested the Playoff Bowl, coaching in the games following the 1963 and 1964 seasons, after winning NFL titles in 1961 and 1962. To his players, he called it "the '**** Bowl', ...a losers' bowl for losers." This lack of motivation may explain his Packers' rare postseason defeat in the 1964 game (January 1965) to the St. Louis Cardinals. After that loss, he fumed about "a hinky-dink football game, held in a hinky-dink town, played by hinky-dink players. That's all second place is – hinky dink."[SUP][1][/SUP]
Using the Playoff Bowl (and loss) as motivation in 1965, the Packers won the first of three consecutive NFL championships from 1965-67.
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sport historian
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I watched this game every year. The NFL decided years ago to classify the Playoff Bowl games as "exhibitions."