How a Hungover Backup Became the Super Bowl’s First Hero
Max McGee’s Pro Bowl days were long gone, but he had a magical performance in a historic game for the sport.
It’s 6:30 a.m. when 34-year-old Max McGee finally arrives at his hotel following a night of partying in Los Angeles with a pair of female flight attendants he had met earlier in the hotel’s bar.
He’s drunk and will hardly get any sleep. This was not a great idea. McGee went overboard and he knows it.
But it’s Sunday. For most people, this wouldn’t be a huge deal. You’re not working today anyway, so you end up with a hangover and a fun story.
There’s only one problem — Max McGee isn’t most people, and today isn’t just any Sunday. The date is January 15, 1967. In fewer than seven hours, McGee’s Green Bay Packers will face the Kansas City Chiefs in the first World Championship Game between the NFL and AFL.
Nowadays, we call it Super Bowl I.
Over the decades, there have been many surprise heroes in the Super Bowl. David Tyree was primarily a special teams player for the Giants who caught just four passes in the 2007 regular season.
Yet, in Super Bowl XLII, he reeled in a touchdown early in the fourth quarter to give the Giants a 10–7 lead over the undefeated Patriots. That play was later overshadowed by his “helmet catch,” one of the most famous moments in the history of the sport and ultimately his final career reception.
20 years earlier, rookie running back Timmy Smith rushed for 204 yards (still a Super Bowl record) and 2 TD in Washington’s dominant victory over the Broncos in Super Bowl XXII. He would play just two more seasons and retire with 602 rushing yards and 3 TD.
These and other stories are almost unbelievable. But there’s something special about McGee’s. In the very first edition of the “Big Game,” a champion on the last legs of his career who wasn’t even supposed to play delivered a legendary performance that deserves to be remembered as long as the sport survives.
McGee’s journey to that day began at White Oak High School in northeast Texas, where in 1949, he’s believed to have been the first high school player to ever rush for 3,000 yards in a single season.
He played college ball at Tulane, and by the time McGee was selected by the Packers in the 1954 NFL Draft, he played both end and punter.
McGee’s rookie season saw him excel at both positions. He led the NFL in total punt yardage while also recording nine of the Packers’ 14 receiving TD, the highest percentage (64.3%) of a team’s receiving TD by any individual player that season.
His most notable outing of the year came in a Week 6 win at the Eagles when McGee hauled in three passes for 104 yards and 3 TD.
It’s one of 11 times since 1950 that a player finished with at least 100 receiving yards and 3 TD with every catch resulting in a touchdown. The most famous of these, of course, is Randy Moss’ 1998 Thanksgiving Day game against the Cowboys.
Just when it seemed McGee might be primed to take over the NFL, he decided to spend the next two years as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force.
After returning to the Packers, it took McGee a season to regain his footing, but he would become a centerpiece of Vince Lombardi’s teams that returned the Packers to NFL royalty after failing to win more than six games in a season post-World War II.
From 1958–63, McGee was one of only three players to finish with at least 600 receiving yards in each season. The others, Raymond Berry and Tommy McDonald, are both enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
In the final year of that run, McGee recorded another 3 TD game, this time against the Rams, a full nine seasons after his previous such effort.
The list of other players to catch 3 TD in a game at least nine seasons from one another is a who’s who of some of the greatest receivers in NFL history: Jerry Rice, Marvin Harrison, Randy Moss, Shannon Sharpe, and Antonio Gates.
McGee was the only one to accomplish the feat in the 20th century. Again, he did so in 1954 and 1963.
Entering the 1966 season, McGee was a three-time NFL champion who had enjoyed a lengthy career. However, his best days on the field were long behind him.
Relegated to a backup in 1965, McGee caught just 10 passes for 154 yards and one score behind starters Boyd Dowler and Carroll Dale and was held without a catch in the postseason as the Packers would defeat the Browns in the NFL Championship Game.
McGee’s role was further reduced in 1966, finishing the regular season with four receptions for 91 yards and one touchdown. Despite catching another TD in the NFL Championship Game against the Cowboys, McGee wasn’t expecting to play in the Super Bowl.
He may not have if the notoriously strict Lombardi, who threatened to fine his players $5,000 should they miss curfew before the game, had found out about the previous night’s activities.
In the state he was in, McGee didn’t particularly want to play in the game either, telling Dowler beforehand “Whatever you do, don’t go down today.”
But sure enough, Dowler reaggravated a shoulder injury on the game’s third play from scrimmage, forcing McGee, who had mistakenly left his helmet in the locker room, into action.
Donning a lineman’s helmet, the hungover McGee entered the game. The following drive, he made a tremendous, one-handed catch off a Bart Starr pass and took it 37 yards to the house. Max McGee had just scored the first touchdown in Super Bowl history, and he was far from done.
Already leading 21–10 late in the third quarter, McGee caught another TD from Starr, his third reception of that drive alone. The Packers would win 35–10. Max McGee’s final stat line was seven catches for 138 receiving yards and two touchdowns.
The man who had barely played all season and barely slept the previous night torched the Chiefs’ secondary and cemented his legacy as a postseason great. To this day, Ricky Sanders and Jerry Rice (twice) are the only other players to record at least 130 receiving yards and two receiving TD in a Super Bowl.
Starr was named the inaugural Super Bowl MVP, but it was McGee’s performance that accounted for the majority of Starr’s passing yards and both scores.
The following season would be the last for both Max McGee and Vince Lombardi as Packers head coach. McGee didn’t tally a single catch until the final week of the regular season when the Packers had already clinched the NFL’s Central Division.
However, McGee still managed to pick up 35 yards on a reception in Super Bowl II against the Raiders which exceeded his regular season yardage total by itself and helped give him a fifth title in 12 seasons.
Despite not playing in a Super Bowl until age 34 and never starting one, McGee still ranks in the top 25 in receiving yards in the game’s history.
His heroic effort in Super Bowl I despite the circumstances remains just as memorable a tale more than half a century later. So while this Sunday’s rematch between the Chiefs and 49ers might see a pivotal play come from an unexpected source, it’s unlikely to touch the story of Max McGee in the game that started it all.
