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“DIARY OF A WINNER”
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THE PATRIOTS' FIRST TITLE January 5, 1964 ... The American Football League Championship is not coming to Boston this year. The Patriots endured the worst beating in their franchise history in front of a nationwide TV audience. The Chargers took away the Patriots most important defensive weapon, the blitz and rolled to an easy 51-10 triumph. Only three times did the Chargers fail to score when they had the ball. The old veteran, Tobin Rote called a perfect game and neutralized the Patriots’ defense from the opening whistle and then continued to humiliate the defense that was rated as the league’s best coming into the game. His favorite target, Keith Lincoln ran for 206 yards and caught 123 yards of passes. He scored twice and to further make things worse completed a 20 yard option pass. The Chargers had beaten the Patriots twice this season by a total of five points, but it was evident this game was not going to be close right from the beginning.
A three play 73 yard jaunt, with Lincoln gaining 71 yards on two attempts, led to the first San Diego touchdown on their first drive. Rote beat the blitz with simple pitchouts to his speed boys and Boston never had a counter. On their second score Rote moved out to his right and Lincoln came back to the left and went 67 yards for a score. He repeated that on the next series with Paul Lowe going 58 yards for a touchdown. By the time the first quarter was over, Lincoln had 200 yards all by himself and the Patriots had just one touchdown on a Larry Garron plunge, set up by a 47 yard pass play to Gino Cappelletti. Larry Garron was then knocked out of the game, with a concussion. Without him, Babe Parilli used a combination of Harry Crump, Jim Colclough and Gino Cappelletti to get the ball down the San Diego’s seven yard line, but had to settle for three points. A pass interference on Bob Suci set up another Charger touchdown that gave them a 31-10 halftime lead. Lance Alworth then got on the board, stealing the ball out of Suci’s hands on the five and scampered in for a 48 yard scoring play. Midway through the fourth, Rote was taken out of the game and given a huge ovation by the San Diego crowd. In came their good young quarterback, John Hadl who drove the Chargers 70 yards, notching another score to Keith Lincoln. Hadl then closed out the scoring by adding another touchdown himself. The San Diego Chargers were a better team than the Patriots. They had 328 yards rushing to Boston’s 77 and total yardage amounting to 610 to 263 by the Patriots. |
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1963 AFL
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
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