1981 AFC Championship Game: Chargers vs. Bengals | "The Freezer Bowl" | NFL Full Game
1981 AFC Championship Game: Chargers vs. Bengals | "The Freezer Bowl" | NFL Full Game
The NFL presents the 1981 “The Freezer Bowl” between the San Diego Chargers & Cincinnati Bengals!
16:48 Bengals Force Fumble on Kickoff
18:26 K. Anderson 8-yard TD Pass to Harris
33:46 D. Fouts 33-yard TD Pass to K. Winslow
40:23 P. Johnson 1-yard TD Run
46:38 D. Fouts Intercepted by Breeden
53:23 D. Fouts Intercepted by Kemp
1:01:57 Chargers Fumble in Bengal Territory
1:17:54 Bengals Fumble in Chargers Territory
1:36:44 K. Anderson 3-yard TD Pass to D. Bass
1:47:21 Chargers Stop Bengals on Fourth Down to Ice the Freezer Bowl
The 1981 AFC Championship, better known as “The Freezer Bowl”, was played at -9 degree temperatures and 35 miles-per-hour wind gusts. The weather and the Bengals defense proved to be too tough an obstacle for the San Diego Charger’s powerful “Air Coryell” offense, being held to just six points. The victory also sent Cincinnati to their first ever Super Bowl appearance.
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Was there with my dad. We brought sleeping bags to sit in. It was windy up where we were sitting. My dad’s face was covered in ice. Nobody was getting beers and going to the toilet. Too cold to move.
I miss those old games I was a freshman in high school that season. Back when it was allowed to smoke cigarettes in the sidelines and as a fan in the seats😂👌🏽
Gregg played in Green Bay and coached in the Canadian Football League. Gregg had the Bengals much better prepared for the cold.
amazing that they don’t use any 3 or 4 wide receiver sets?
Rip olsen enberg muncie coryell etc
The 1981 NFL post season was fantastic.
I believe Dan Fouts had gotten frost bite on one hand.
This game alone should have been the Entrance to the Pro Football Hall of Fame for Ken Anderson. I’d love to see current QBs play in horrendous conditions like this game was.
Go from scorching heat, double overtime, to the frozen tundra!
The Chargers smoked the Bengals the following season on Monday Night Football
the year b4 a California team went to Ohio in January and won
A team from southern California travels to South Beach to play in the humidity of Miami…. then travel to an ICE BOX
I remember wathing this game wondering how they could possibly play
Bengals came so close to beating the 49rs in the super bowl
The following Sunday January 17, 1982 is known as “Cold Sunday” because it was the coldest day in North America in recorded history. 1982 was a very cold winter.
The day I had to move out of my home in Cincinnati
Bolts were at their best when Gene Klein was owner and Coryell was coach. Spanos SUCKED!
can we see the superbowl of the 49ers vs bengals great game,Montana and Clark.
Cincinnati isn’t exactly a warm weather locale but when you think of conditions like this usually a place like Green Bay, Buffalo, or Minnesota(before the dome was built) comes to mind before Cincinnati does. Minus 59 degrees is to the point of being dangerously cold temperatures. Alot of the snowflake primadonnas in the league nowadays would probably refuse to play in these conditions
Lets see the lingerie league women top these conditions!
Chuck Muncie fumbled? Nah…..
Those Chargers always were numb nuts in big games.
The thing said -59 degrees!!! That’s damn cold!!
The chargers would have won this game in better weather. The super bowl would have been better against the niners
Forrest Gregg played in the Ice Bowl and coached in the Freezer Bowl. What a life.
LOOKS COLD
16:48 Bengals Force Fumble on Kickoff
18:26 K. Anderson 8-yard TD Pass to Harris
33:46 D. Fouts 33-yard TD Pass to K. Winslow
40:23 P. Johnson 1-yard TD Run
46:38 D. Fouts Intercepted by Breeden
53:23 D. Fouts Intercepted by Kemp
1:01:57 Chargers Fumble in Bengal Territory
1:17:54 Bengals Fumble in Chargers Territory
1:36:44 K. Anderson 3-yard TD Pass to D. Bass
1:47:21 Chargers Stop Bengals on Fourth Down to Ice the Freezer Bowl
The Bengals (12-4) beat the Chargers (10-6) 40-17 in the regular season that gave the Bengals that head to head tiebreaker giving them the right to host this game.
The Chargers went from summer (in Miami) to winter (in Cincinnati–and the fact that it was Astroturf at Riverfront Stadium didn’t help), which is probably one of the reasons they lost…
Dan Fouts looks like a rookie throwing into triple coverage on the outside.
Don Coryell – an offensive genius, but very lax at teaching discipline and execution. Whether it was with the Cardinals (1973-1977) or the Chargers (1978 – 1984,) his teams turned the ball over way too much and took many stupid penalties.
I was 10 when I watched this game .
A game that had Rolf Benirshcke, who later would take over from Pat Sajak as host of the daytime version of "Wheel of Fortune" for its final year or so on NBC before that version moved to CBS in 1989.
Who Dey!!!
Back when football players died at 35 from head injuries
Would love to watch this game narrated by the great John facenda just hear him say "the frozen tundra"
Bobby Kemp #26 was a beast. RIP
I can’t fathom going to regular season games anymore…last one I went to was the Ravens at the 49ers, December 03. I can’t even imagine how this one must have been!
What few know is had a delay of game penalty on 4th down against the Bills the week before in the AFC Divisional Playoff game against the Bengals gone the Bills way this game would have been in San Diego instead of being what in many ways was a game in many ways far worse than "The Ice Bowl" in terms of brutal conditions (while the temperature at kickoff of the 1967 Cowboys-Packers classic was -15F and the temp at kickoff of this game was -8F, the wind chill was not much different in Green Bay whereas for this game it was -59F with at its worst -70F or worse). The only games this bad since there were the 2007 NFC Championship between the Giants and Packers (+1F at kickoff in the coldest night game in NFL history) at Lambeau and the 2015 NFC Wild Card game between the Seahawks and Vikings in TCF Bank Stadium on the University of Minnesota campus (last outdoor game for the Vikings who were using it temporarily while US Bank Stadium was being built) where the temp at kickoff was -6F.
Cincy destroyed the chargers heaters
The 1981 AFC Championship game between the San Diego Chargers and the Cincinnati Bengals should have been postponed by the NFL until the temperature in Cincinnati had at least gotten warmer to the point where the players would not have experienced any long-term damage to their health from the cold weather. That game was played during bitter cold conditions in which the temperature (with the wind chill factor) was 59 degrees below zero ! Some of the players after the game sadly had to later have some of their toes amputated from frostbite damage.
boggles the mind that the Coryell Fouts Chargers never won a Super Bowl, they had a really good team in 1981 but had the misfortune of playing in the freezer bowl. men are men and they’re going to play hard but still Cincy has a psychological advantage. side note – funny how Merlin mentioned the criticism of the Bengals uniform change at the time, but they went from the crappiest helmet to one of the best I always thought.
San Diego lost the game the moment they walked out of the locker room.
Couldn’t even beat the Ben-gay Ben-gals.
Time machine plz. I was 10 watching this at my grandmas
Nothing like playing on a concrete rug when it’s -59 below outside wind chill.
If the Dolphins would’ve beaten the Chargers the prior week, would this game have been played in Cincinnati or Miami?
Had the weather not been so hostile towards the team from Southern California I think we might have had a Chargers-49ers Super Bowl.
Winslow is a baby @ 54:20.
Well, Due To The Temperature Being At -9 & The Wind Chill At -59, The Astroturf Feels Like Concrete & If Ya Try To Catch A Football In These Conditions, It’ll Feel Like You’re Catching A Brick!!!