1967 Los Angeles Rams season

1967 Los Angeles Rams season
Head coach	George Allen
Home field	Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
Results
Record	11–1–2
Division place	1st Western Coastal
Playoff finish	Lost Conference

The 1967 Los Angeles Rams season was the team's 30th year with the National Football League and the 22nd season in Los Angeles.

Offseason

NFL Draft

Main article: 1967 NFL Draft

Round	Pick	Player	Position	School/Club Team

Regular season

Season Recap

The Rams came into the 1967 season with renewed optimism. For years they had been a poor team, but the hiring of coach George Allen helped turn things around. In 1966, the Rams finished strong to go 8-6, their first winning season in 7 years.

The Rams won their first two games but faced a big test in Dallas against the powerful Cowboys. It was no contest, as the Rams won 35-13 against the 1966 NFL championship runner-up. They came home and stumbled in a 27-24 loss to the 49ers and fell one game behind the 4-0 Baltimore Colts. Then they went to Baltimore and played a 24-24 tie. Remarkably, both teams tied their next game as well; the Rams tied the Redskins while the Colts tied the Vikings. From then on, both teams kept winning. With 2 games remaining, the Rams were 9-1-2 and the Colts were 10-0-2. But before finishing the season against the Colts in L.A. in a possible division title deciding game, the Rams had to face the champion Green Bay Packers. The Packers had clinched their division, so a reporter had asked Packer coach Vince Lombardi if he would be resting his starters in (what for them was) a meaningless game, Lombardi roared "the Packers have never played a meaningless game and, as long as I am the coach, they never will!" The game was a classic see-saw affair that saw the Packers leading 24-20 with less than a minute to play and the Rams out of time outs. Facing 4th down, the Packers lined up to punt, but Tony Guillory blocked the punt and Claude Crabbe returned it to the Packer 5 yard line. On second and goal, Quarterback Roman Gabriel hit flanker Bernie Casey in the end zone for a 27-24 Rams victory.

In the season finale, the Rams sacked Johnny Unitas seven times and intercepted two of his passes in a 34-10 win. Both teams finished 11-1-2 and tiebreaker rules at the time dictated that the results of the teams' head to head meetings was the tiebreaker. The Rams were awarded the division title based on their 1-0-1 record vs. the Colts, outscoring them in the two games by a combined 58-34.

Schedule

Week	Date	Opponent	Result	Attendance
1	September 17, 1967	at New Orleans Saints	W 27–13	80,879
2	September 22, 1967	Minnesota Vikings	W 39–3	52,255
3	October 1, 1967	at Dallas Cowboys	W 35–13	75,229
4	October 8, 1967	San Francisco 49ers	L 24-27	60,424
5	October 15, 1967	at Baltimore Colts	T 24–24	60,238
6	October 22, 1967	Washington Redskins	T 28–28	55,381
7	October 29, 1967	at Chicago Bears	W 28–17	46,073
8	November 5, 1967	at San Francisco 49ers	W 17–7	53,194
9	November 12, 1967	Philadelphia Eagles	W 33–17	57,628
10	November 19, 1967	at Atlanta Falcons	W 31–3	56,871
11	November 23, 1967	at Detroit Lions	W 31–7	54,389
12	December 3, 1967	Atlanta Falcons	W 20–3	40,395
13	December 9, 1967	Green Bay Packers	W 27–24	76,637
14	December 17, 1967	Baltimore Colts	W 34–10	77,277

Standings

NFL Coastal
	W	L	T	PCT	DIV	CONF	PF	PA	STK
Los Angeles Rams	11	1	2	.917	4–1–1	8–1–1	398	196	W8
Baltimore Colts	11	1	2	.917	4–1–1	7–1–2	394	198	L1
San Francisco 49ers	7	7	0	.500	3–3	4–6	273	337	W2
Atlanta Falcons	1	12	1	.077	0–6	1–9	175	422	L7

Note: Tie games were not officially counted in the standings until 1972.

Game summaries

Week 14

1 2 3 4 Total Colts 7 0 0 3 10 • Rams 3 14 3 14 34 Date: December 17 Location: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

Playoffs

In 1967, home field in the playoffs was rotated by division vs. being awarded to the team with the better record. So even though the Rams were 11-1-2 and the Packers were 9-4-1, the Packers were the host team. The game was played in Milwaukee (the Packers regularly played some of their home games in Milwaukee in the 60s and early 70s) in unusually balmy conditions for December (temperature was in the high 30s with no precipitation). The two teams had played a classic game just two weeks earlier (won by the Rams in the final seconds). In this game, the Rams jumped out to a 7-0 lead but the Packers postseason experience began to show as they took a 14-7 lead into halftime. The Rams could not get anything going offensively and the Packers went on to a methodical 28-7 win. The following week, the Packers won the famed "Ice Bowl" game against the Cowboys.

Round	Date	Opponent	Result	Attendance
Western Conference Championship	December 23, 1967	at Green Bay Packers	L 7-28	49,861
Playoff Bowl	January 7, 1968	Cleveland Browns	W 30–6	37,102

External links

• (VIDEO) 1967 Los Angeles Rams yearbook: NFL Films on YouTube

References

Preceded by < 1966

Los Angeles Rams seasons 1967

Succeeded by 1968 >