The wind didn't just blow at Yankee Stadium on December 30, 1962. It screamed. It was the kind of cold that turns skin purple and makes a football feel like a frozen brick of granite. Most people look back at the NFL championship game 1962 and talk about the score, but the score is the least interesting thing about it. This was a war of attrition between the Green Bay Packers and the New York Giants. It was ugly. It was violent. It was arguably the peak of the Lombardi era, but it wasn't pretty.
You’ve probably seen the grainy footage. Ray Nitschke, the Packers' middle linebacker, looks like a man possessed, his face mask caked in dirt and his eyes wild. He was the MVP of the game, which is wild when you think about it. How often does a linebacker get the MVP in a championship game? That tells you everything you need to know about the conditions. The temperature at kickoff was 13°F, but with gusts hitting 40 miles per hour, the wind chill plummeted to somewhere around -15°F.
The Frozen Battleground of the NFL Championship Game 1962
New York wasn't ready. Well, the Giants were ready, but the elements were a different story. The wind was so fierce that it actually blew the cameras off their mounts. It knocked over a television tower. In the stands, fans were huddled together, some literally lighting small fires in the concrete aisles to stay warm, which is something you’d never see today without a massive security intervention.
Green Bay came in as the juggernaut. They were 13-1. They had Vince Lombardi. They had Bart Starr. But the Giants were the only team that had really challenged them during the dynasty years. New York had a ferocious defense led by Sam Huff, and they wanted revenge for the 37-0 blowout the Packers handed them the year before.
If you like high-flying offenses, this wasn't your game. The NFL championship game 1962 was a slog. The ball was slippery, hard, and unpredictable. Passing was a death sentence. Bart Starr only threw the ball 21 times, completing 9. Y.A. Tittle, the Giants' legendary quarterback, went 18 for 41. It was a day for the ground game, for the "Packer Power Sweep," and for sheer, unadulterated grit.
Jerry Kramer, the legendary Packers guard, wasn't just blocking that day; he was kicking. Because of the wind, the kicking game was a nightmare. Kramer missed three field goals, but he made three others. In a game that ended 16-7, those nine points were the margin. Imagine that. A guard winning the game with his toe because the regular kickers couldn't handle the swirling gales of the Bronx.
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Why the Giants Couldn't Close the Gap
The Giants had their chances. They really did. There’s a misconception that Green Bay just steamrolled everyone in the 60s. Not this time. New York’s defense played out of their skins. They held Jim Taylor—who was basically a human bowling ball—to 85 yards on 31 carries. That’s less than three yards a pop. Taylor was coughing up blood by the end of the game. Literally. He had a gash on his tongue and kept swallowing blood so he wouldn't have to leave the field.
The turning point was Nitschke. He recovered two fumbles. He deflected a pass that led to an interception. He was everywhere. On one particular play, he hit New York's Frank Gifford so hard that Gifford later said it was the hardest he'd ever been struck in his entire Hall of Fame career.
New York’s only touchdown didn't even come from the offense. It was a blocked punt recovered in the end zone by Erich Barnes. That’s how hard it was to move the ball. Tittle was trying to find Del Shofner and Gifford, but the wind would just snatch the ball and sail it into the third row. It was frustrating to watch, and even more frustrating to play.
The Myth of the "Easy" Packers Dynasty
A lot of modern fans think the Lombardi Packers just showed up and won. They think it was all discipline and simple plays. But the NFL championship game 1962 proves it was about suffering. Lombardi famously told his players they had to be "willing to pay the price." In the locker room after the game, the Packers didn't look like champions. They looked like they’d been in a car wreck.
Jim Taylor’s performance is the stuff of legend. He was the league MVP that year, and he ran like he hated the ground he was stepping on. He took hit after hit from Sam Huff and the Giants' front four. It was personal. There was a genuine animosity between these two teams. The Giants felt the Packers were arrogant; the Packers felt the Giants were soft "city slickers." Neither was true, but it made for a hell of a fight.
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Breaking Down the Statistics (The Non-Boring Way)
If you look at the box score, it looks like a typo.
- Total yards for Green Bay: 244.
- Total yards for New York: 204.
- Turnovers: The Giants gave it up 3 times.
In today’s NFL, a team with 204 yards of offense usually loses by 30 points. But in 1962, in those conditions, it was a miracle they got that much. The Packers' offensive line—guys like Forrest Gregg and Fuzzy Thurston—were the real stars. They created just enough of a crease for Taylor and Tom Moore to move the chains.
It's also worth noting that this was the last time the NFL Championship was played at the old Yankee Stadium. There’s a certain ghostliness to the footage. The shadows are long, the grass is dead and brown, and the breath of the players looks like smoke. It was the end of an era for New York sports and the definitive beginning of the Green Bay era of dominance.
Misconceptions About the 1962 Season
One thing people get wrong is thinking the Giants were pushovers. They weren't. They had the #1 scoring offense in the league that year. Tittle had thrown 33 touchdown passes, which was an insane number for 1962. They averaged over 28 points a game. To hold that offense to zero offensive touchdowns is one of the greatest defensive feats in the history of the sport.
Phil Bengtson, the Packers' defensive coordinator, drew up a masterpiece. He dared Tittle to throw into the wind. He bunched the line to stop the run. He knew that in that weather, the Giants couldn't use their finesse. They had to out-tough the Packers, and nobody out-toughed a Lombardi team.
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How to Study This Game Today
If you’re a student of the game, you shouldn't just watch the highlights. You need to look at the full game film—which is available in various archives—to see the footwork. Watch how the players struggled just to stay upright on the frozen sod.
- Analyze the Line Play: Look at Jerry Kramer (#64). Notice his leverage. Even on a field that was essentially an ice rink, his base was perfect.
- Observe the Defensive Rotations: The Packers used a very specific "keying" system on Frank Gifford that neutralized him as a dual-threat option.
- The Punting Game: Study the trajectory of the balls. It’s a lesson in physics. You can see the wind literally stop the ball in mid-air.
The NFL championship game 1962 wasn't just a football game; it was a survival test. It solidified the Green Bay Packers as the team of the decade. It proved that Bart Starr didn't need to throw for 300 yards to control a game. And it showed that sometimes, the MVP isn't the guy scoring the touchdowns, but the guy making sure the other team never gets the chance to.
To truly understand the history of the league, you have to sit with this game. You have to appreciate the blood on Jim Taylor’s jersey and the frost on Lombardi’s coat. It was the last of the truly "primitive" championships before the Super Bowl era turned everything into a spectacle. This was just football, raw and freezing and perfect.
Take Action: Exploring the 1962 Legacy
If you want to dive deeper into this specific era, your next steps are simple but rewarding. Start by reading Jerry Kramer's "Instant Replay." It is arguably the best sports book ever written and gives a play-by-play internal monologue of what it was like to block in that 1962 cold.
Next, check out the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s digital archives specifically for the 1962 All-Pro team. Seeing how many players from this single game ended up in Canton (it’s a staggering amount, including Starr, Taylor, Gregg, Nitschke, Herb Adderley, and Willie Wood for the Packers; Tittle, Gifford, Huff, and Roosevelt Brown for the Giants) puts the talent level into perspective.
Finally, compare the 1962 championship to the 1967 "Ice Bowl." While the Ice Bowl is more famous because of the -13°F (actual temp) and the dramatic finish, many players who played in both will tell you that the 1962 wind made the Yankee Stadium game much harder to play. Understanding that nuance is what separates a casual fan from a true historian of the gridiron.