Vincent Lombardi was an American football player, coach and executive in the NFL…..who is best known as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers during the 1960’s….when he led the team to three straight and five total NFL Championships in seven years….plus, he led his Packers to winning the first two Super Bowls at the conclusion of the 1966 and 1967 NFL seasons.
In his second year….Green Bay won the NFL Western Conference for the first time since 1944….as this victory….along with his well-known religious convictions led the Green Bay community to anointing him with the nickname “The Pope”. Lombardi led the Packers to the 1960 NFL Championship Game against the Philadelphia Eagles….when in the final play of the game in a drive that would have won it….the Packers were stopped a few yards from the goal line….and Lombardi had suffered his first, and only, championship game loss. After the game….and after the press corps had left the locker room….Lombardi told his team, “This will never happen again. You will never lose another championship.” He would coach the Packers to win their next nine post-season games….which was a record streak that was not matched or broken until Bill Belichick of the N E Patriots won 10 in a row from 2002 to 2006. The Packers defeated the Giants for the NFL title in 1961 by a score of 37 – 0…..and then again in 1962 by a scor of 16 – 7 at at Yankee Stadium…thus marking the first two of their five titles in Lombardi’s seven years.
Including postseason but excluding exhibition games….Lombardi went on to compile a 105–35–6 record ….which amounts to a .740 winning percentage as head coach….as his teams never suffered a losing season…..while he led the Packers to three consecutive NFL championships in 1965, 1966 and 1967.
