The Packers opened the season in Green Bay with a promising win over the rival Chicago Bears, the defending NFL champions.
The first three losses were by a total of five points, but the fourth on October 25, to the Los Angeles Rams in Milwaukee, was by ten and came after building a 17–0 lead.
Green Bay had played in the previous season's Playoff Bowl and won decisively,[7][8] which followed consecutive league titles in 1961 and 1962, and three straight appearances in the championship game.
In the previous thirteen seasons they had played the Detroit Lions at Tiger Stadium, and went 3–9–1 (.269); with Lombardi as head coach, the record was 2–2–1 (.500), which included the sole loss in 1962.
After multiple surgeries, it was rectified in May 1965 after sizable wood fragments from a teenage accident a dozen years earlier were removed.