Football: And Now the Super Bowl

Jimmy ("the Greek") Snyder never played pro football. He has only seen one game this year, and if he so much as said hello to a pro coach or player, somebody would probably call a cop. Jimmy the Greek is an oddsmaker—one of those faceless fellows who set a betting line on pro games for bookies and their clients.

Last week Jimmy announced his line for next Sunday's Super Bowl between the N.F.L.'s Green Bay Packers and the A.F.L.'s Oakland Raiders. The Packers—by 14. He gave Green Bay two points each for superior quarterbacking, pass receiving, line play and linebacking, plus four points for pass defense and three for "intangibles" (meaning Coach Vinnie Lombardi), minus one for inferior place-kicking. "The Packers will play a conservative first quarter," predicted Jimmy. "But Lombardi's game plan for the second half should be something. That's when the Raiders will be in real trouble."

Pretty Cool at 49 Below. Some experts would argue that 14 points is an awful lot against an Oakland club that bulldozed to a 13-1 record and clobbered Houston 40-7 to win the A.F.L. championship. Particularly since the aging Packers were anything but invincible (record: 9-4-1) during the regular season. Ah, but when the money is on the line, there is still no tougher team in all of sport. Two weeks ago, the Packers whipped a young, aggressive Los Angeles Rams club 28-7 to win the N.F.L.'s Western Conference title, and last week they subdued the stubborn Dallas Cowboys 21-17 to capture their third straight league championship.

The victory over Dallas was a typical Packer production fashioned out of both guts and guile. The thermometer in Green Bay stood at 13 below zero, and a 15-m.p.h. wind created a "chill factor" equivalent to 49 below. Packer Quarterback Bart Starr was forced to eat the ball eight times because his receivers were unable to cut properly on the icy field (something the CBS TV cameras never showed). Yet in thelast 5 min., as Dallas led 17-14, Starr coolly, carefully marched his team 69 yds., then took the ball across himself in the final 16 sec. for the touchdown that earned the Packers nearly $10,000 a man and a crack at still another $15,000 in the Super Bowl.

That kind of money is no less an incentive for the Oakland Raiders, of course—and in their techniques, talent and toughness, Coach Johnny Rauch's Raiders bear a strong resemblance to those fellows the Packers see when they shave in the morning. Like the Packers, the Raiders are essentially a running ballclub; in Halfback Pete Banaszak and Fullback Hewritt Dixon, Oakland has two long-striding, flat-footed runners who closely resemble Green Bay's Donny Anderson and Chuck Mercein. Against Houston, Dixon rambled for 144 yds., and Banaszak gained 116.

Since they are unlikely to find much outside running room against Green Bay's rugged corner linebackers, Dave Robinson and Lee Roy Caffey, the Raiders are expected to concentrate on trap plays up the middle—hoping to catch the Packers' hard-charging defensive linemen out of position. Key man in the success or failure of Oakland's running game is Gene Upshaw, a 6-ft. 5-in., 255-lb. rookie from Texas A. & I. who is already regarded as one of the best running guards in pro ball.