TimesFour

…1979: The Monday Night lights shone on Lambeau Field for the first time, and the Packers made the most of it.

Facing a New England Patriots team that had been favored by some to win the Super Bowl, a previously lackluster Packers team rose to the occasion with a shocking 27-14 win.

The night was extra special for Packer backers considering that ABC’s motley trio of announcers — Frank Gifford, Don Meredith, and Howard Cosell — was making its debut appearance in Titletown, following three previous MNF games originating from Milwaukee’s County Stadium.

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…1955: Packer fans were bracing for a beating. Green Bay had finished the previous year in 5th place with a 4-8 record under first-year coach Lisle Blackbourn, losing their last four games in the process. Prospects didn’t look much better for 1955 with the Detroit Lions as the Packers’ opening-day opponent.

Though it’s hard to believe now, the Lions were an NFL power at the time, having won the last three Western Conference championships, and two of the last three NFL championships. What’s more, they had beaten the Packers 11 straight times. Led by future Hall-of-Famers Bobby Layne,

Doak Walker, Jack Christianson, Lou Creekmur and Joe Schmidt, the Lions had little reason to believe they wouldn’t maul the Pack in front of a less-than-capacity City Stadium crowd.

The Lions roared to a first-quarter lead on a Layne touchdown pass, but the Packers fought back with two field goals. By the midway mark of the third quarter, Green Bay found itself behind by 11, but behind the running of Howie Ferguson and Floyd “Breezy” Reid, mounted a drive ending with a Reid score that made it 17-13 Detroit.

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…1971: All the breaks were bad for the Packers. In his first game as head coach, Dan Devine suffered a fractured leg in a freak sideline collision, and his team reached extraordinary depths of bumbling incompetence in a drizzling rainstorm — and yet, they still almost beat the New York Giants.

The game began its bizarre course midway through the first quarter when an errant 45-yard field goal try by the Giants’ Pete Gogolak was fielded by Packer CB Ken Ellis at the goal line and returned for a winding 100-yard touchdown. After Giants QB Fran Tarkenton struck back with a pair of scoring passes, two weird plays in the space of six seconds netted two TDs for the Giants while their offense rested.

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…1966: The Baltimore Colts had revenge on their minds. The Packers had beaten them in a Western Conference playoff the previous December thanks in part to a Don Chandler field goal that the Colts insisted had been wide. With a rematch scheduled for the opening Saturday night of the 1966 NFL season, Baltimore had a chance to show the football world that the overtime loss was a fluke.

The Colts never got the chance to show much of anything. Thanks largely to a stifling defense, the Packers trounced the Colts, 24-3, in front of a national TV audience and a record County Stadium crowd.

Baltimore began the scoring with a short Lou Michaels field goal, but could do little more on offense, as the great John Unitas was held to just 101 yards passing. A pair of errors by Unitas broke the game open in the second quarter as LB Lee Roy Caffey and — only 40 seconds later — CB Bob Jeter both scored on interception returns.

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