by Jerry Kramer
When a reporter asked Bill Austin, the Pittsburgh head coach, why he picked up Nix, Bill, who used to be our offensive-line coach, said, “Well, you know damn good and well that he's been properly trained, that he's got a great mental approach to the game.” Most of our players fall into that category. We've all been disciplined and indoctrinated and brainwashed.
AUGUST 12
I tried to take it easy today before the game with Pittsburgh, but I had to spend a couple of hours this morning with my income-tax man, an attorney who's been working on my deal with Kraft Foods. If the response to the portrait program is anything like the Kraft people expect, I could make more than a hundred thousand dollars from it this year. My attorney and I are trying to figure out how I should take the income.
We also discussed a chain of steak houses here in Wisconsin that Willie Davis and I are investigating. Some people approached Willie and me about investing in the operation and promoting it. They gave us brochures, outlining their plans for franchises, and my attorney's going to look over the brochure and check out some of the people in the organization. I'm not sure whether I want to get involved in the restaurant business right now.
Donny Chandler and I spent most of the afternoon just lying around the room, listening to music and trying to sleep. I drove over to the stadium at 6 o'clock, two hours before game time, and Ron Kostelnik was already fully dressed, ready for the game. Each player has his own ritual, and this is Ron's: Two hours before a game, he's dressed and taped, and he lies down and tries to sleep.
Pretty soon, the rest of the guys began running in and out of the training room, grabbing handfuls of vitamin pills and wheat-germ pills and dextrose pills and salt pills. I guess Jacqueline Susann would have a ball in our training room.
I lay down on a table and had Bud Jorgensen, who's been a Green Bay trainer for about forty years, tape my ankles. That's one of my superstitions. Only Bud tapes me, never anybody else. We were kidding each other—I always accuse him of keeping a bottle hidden in the training room—and I happened to look over at the next table and Max McGee was sitting there with his foot up. I could see his high sock, a green sock with gold piping; it comes up to the knee and it has a stirrup that goes under the foot. Max had the stirrup off, the sock pulled up to his knee, and the doc was getting ready to give him a shot of novocaine.
I was a little surprised. Max's been playing in the NFL for twelve years, and it's kind of unusual that he'd be taking novocaine for an exhibition game. You save that for big games. But Max had a bruised heel and some problems with his ankle, so he decided to get a shot. When the doc stuck in the needle, Max's face grew a little red, and he clenched his teeth, and I looked just over his head and saw a rookie named Stan Kemp standing there staring. As the needle went into Max's ankle, Kemp kept getting paler and paler, and his baby face kept getting younger and younger, and at the same time Max kept getting darker and darker, and his face kept getting older and older. It was a strange contrast. I found out later that Stan Kemp was in the third grade the year Max started playing professional football. (Incidentally, when Donny Chandler started playing for the New York Giants in 1956, Tommy Brown, who plays regular safety for us now, was the visiting team's clubhouse boy for the Washington Redskins;Tommy used to clean Donny's cleats.)
Max is an amazing athlete. He's got so much ability it's unbelievable, more than anybody I've ever known, and he's never, in twelve years, used all his ability. He's operated on about a quarter of it, really. One of the reasons that he's such a great clutch performer—he scored two touchdowns in the Super Bowl last year, at the age of thirty-four—is that he has all of this excess natural ability. When the circumstances call for it, he can reach down and come up with the big play. He's a rare athlete. Show him any sport—from golf to Ping Pong to pool—and he'll excel at it.
After I got into my uniform, I looked at the program for the game and saw a list of the 1966 All-Pro Packers, eight of us. Six of the eight made all three major All-Pro teams, Associated Press, United Press, and Newspaper Enterprises Association. I made only the AP and UP teams; I missed the NEA team, which is chosen by a vote of all the players in the NFL.
I felt badly about not being on the NEA team, and I think I know why I didn't make it. I have a habit of letting down against a weak team. I just couldn't get excited, for example, about playing Atlanta last year. Their coach, Norb Hecker, is a good friend of mine, and so is Johnny Symank, their defensive-backfield coach; in fact, Symank's wife had been visiting my wife the week before the game. We beat Atlanta, 56-3, and I didn't do a thing. When the Atlanta players voted for the All-Pro team, they left me out.
I began thinking to myself, I really better play well against Ken Kortas, the Pittsburgh tackle, if I want to make the NEA All-Pro team this year. I've got to impress him. I've got to get his vote. I've got to knock him on his ass. That's the best way to impress a guy in this game. I really wanted to have a good game, partly for Kortas and partly for Bill Austin, my old coach, the guy I almost punched during my contract fight in 1963.
Bill and I were actually close friends. When he was here, one of my pregame rituals was to walk up to him about five minutes before we went on the field and to say, “Bill, any words of wisdom?” He'd always say, “Keep your head up, move your feet, and be alert.” So tonight, before the game, I passed Austin on the field and I said, “Any words of wisdom?” And he said, “Keep your head down, don't move your feet, and don't be alert.”
I must have been overeager, because I didn't have a good game. I looked terrible in the opening series. We opened with a 42-trap, a running play through the middle. I'm supposed to pull out from right guard, cut across the field and trap the right end. I missed the guy completely. Later on, I got caught offside, a real dumb-ass play; I can count the penalties I've had in ten years on one hand.
We played sloppy, but we still won 31-20. I'd just as soon forget the game, but I won't forget one play. I blocked the middle linebacker, kept him out of the play, and when the play was over, he started to fall. As he did, he grabbed my shoulder pads, swung me around and threw me to the ground. No reason at all. I got up and looked him in the eye, and he was grinning and giggling like a damn fool. I don't know his name, but he was number 50. We play the Steelers again in December, and it's an easy number to remember.
Bart Starr raised his voice tonight, which is very, very rare. The only time he ever raised his voice to me in a game was five years ago, and then he said, “C'mon, Jerry, let's go.” After that game, he apologized, “Gee, I didn't mean to holler at you.” But tonight Steve Wright, our reserve tackle, was blocking Lloyd Voss, the Steelers' defensive end, and on one play Voss got through to Bart late, just after Bart had released a pass, and slammed an open hand into Bart's face, hitting him in the mouth, not vicious, but hard. When we got back to the huddle, Bart looked at Steve very sternly and said, “Steve Wright, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, letting Lloyd Voss in here. I'll tell you one thing. If I see that guy in here once more tonight, I'm not going to kick him in the can. I'm going to kick you in the can, right in front of 52,000 people.” For Bart that was very strong talk. Lloyd Voss never got through again.
There usually isn't too much talk in the huddle. Bart calls all the plays himself—I can't remember Vince ever sending in a play with a substitute—and he just doesn't have any time for discussion. Once in a while, when we need long yardage on third down, Bart'll ask the receivers if they've got a maneuver they think'll work, if they've set up any particular pattern. He'll listen to a suggestion from a veteran receiver, from Boyd Dowler or Carroll Dale or Max McGee. The rest of us, if we've got something to tell Bart, we generally wait and tell him on the sidelines, when the other team's got the ball.
Kent Nix got into the ball game tonight for Pittsburgh, when we were leading 24-13, and on his first play from scrimmage, he threw a 72-yard touchdown pass. I was glad to see him do it. I wouldn't have been so happy if it had been a league game, but it was just an exhibition and we wer
e winning, anyway. I think Kent'll be playing a lot for the Steelers this year.
We had our usual buffet after the game, and I invited a few friends over for the meal, three or four of them, which reminded me of the first buffet we had, back in 1959, Lombardi's first year as head coach. We played an exhibition game in Portland, Oregon, and my relatives came in from Idaho and from Seattle, a total of sixteen of them, and none of them had ever seen me play professional football before. I was a little leery about bringing all the aunts and uncles to the buffet. I went up to Vince and I said, “Coach, I've got a lot of my relatives here and—” Before I could finish, he said, “Well, bring 'em all in. Bring 'em all in.” And he took them all and led them up to the head of the buffet line and filled their plates and sat down at a table. Some brewing company had donated half a dozen bottles of champagne, and, naturally, the veterans had confiscated the champagne. Coach Lombardi went over and took back a couple of bottles, popped the corks and poured champagne for my folks and all my aunts and uncles. He made them feel like a million dollars, and, as for me, suddenly I was no longer bothered by how hard he had been driving us all through training camp.
AUGUST 13
Before the offense watched the movies tonight of the Pittsburgh game, Vince gave us a little lecture. He started off with a few words of praise, then got himself worked up. Coach said we blocked well and hustled well, but we made five big mistakes. We gave the ball away three times on fumbles, twice on interceptions. “We had two fumbles between the center and the quarterback,” he said, “and that's really a dumb play That's worse than high school. There's no place around here for fumblers and bumblers and stumblers. If you fumble, forget it. You're going to be gone.” Travis Williams, the rookie halfback, looked a little nervous. He fumbled once against the Steelers. He's got a world of speed, but he has trouble holding on to the ball.
Lombardi told Donny Anderson to stop trying to jump over the line of scrimmage or he'd get killed, and he yelled at the de- fense for jumping offside on a fourth-and-four play. “That's just plain stupidity,” he said. “Out-and-out ignorance.”
We're trying to put a new look in our offense, trying to use the extra speed we've got this year. We're using a back in motion and some pitchout plays, which tend to draw the defense offside. But they can confuse the offensive line, too. The time I was offside last night, I heard footsteps behind me and I jumped. “If we don't have the intelligence and poise and maturity to go with this motion offense,” Vince said, “then we'll just stop it and go back to what the hell we've always done. We've made a living here by not making mistakes. We're a team that's noted for not making mistakes.” His voice went up a few decibels. “And we will not make mistakes.” I believe he means it.
Then we watched the Pittsburgh movie, and I think I would've rather seen a good Western. I especially didn't enjoy the opening scene. The movie began with that 42-trap play, the one in which I missed the Steeler right end. I thought it was a pretty terrible way to start a movie, but, apparently, Vince didn't agree with me. He liked that scene so much he showed it to us nineteen times, and nineteen times I saw myself miss that block. The next time we run a 42-trap, I suspect I'll block a little better.
AUGUST 14
We had a light workout this morning, and both ZaSu Pitts and Ron Kostelnik—we call him “The Culligan Man,” or just “Culligan,” because he's always searching for water—brought their little sons to the locker room. The boys are both around three or four years old, but they're certainly different types. Ronnie Pitts is an extrovert, full of pep, jumping around, and Mike Kostelnik is very shy and quiet. They were standing around while we got dressed, and Jim Weatherwax, our big reserve tackle from Los Angeles, went over to Ronnie Pitts and said, “Come on over here and say hello to Mike Kostelnik.” Ronnie bounced over and stuck out his hand to shake hands, but little Mike sort of shrunk away. He didn't know what was going on. And Elijah said, “See, Kos, your kid won't shake hands with mine. You're prejudicing him at a real early age.”
Vince gave us the afternoon off, and the regular fearless foursome went off to play golf again. I started off horribly, 5-7-7, and after that, even though I drove all the way to a 319-yard green and just missed my putt for an eagle, I wasn't scoring well.
My short game, in particular, was atrocious, and on the back nine, Zeke gave me a few lessons with the pitching wedge. We were playing for cash—the match can easily run $25, $30 a man— and it's pretty competitive. But still Zeke wanted to help me improve my game, even if it might cost him money. It did cost him money, as a matter of fact. Chandler and I got hot on the last few holes and made back a little of the money we've been contributing to Zeke and Max.
After the golf match, we went over to the Century Bowling Alley for some cold pop, and there were about a dozen of the guys there, mostly veterans and a couple of rookies, including Don Horn, the quarterback from San Diego State. He's a little hard to figure out. He's a bachelor, drives a Jaguar, dresses flashy, seems like a cocky kid, not in the Bart Starr-Zeke Bratkowski quiet, unassuming mold. But the other day he walked up to one of the veterans and said he'd heard that some of the veterans thought he was cocky and he didn't want them to get that idea. He's starting to come around.
When we entered the Century, Horn asked Max to be his partner in a pool game. On most teams, from what I hear, a rookie would just get chased away from the table. But we don't haze our rookies; we don't try to treat them badly. Maybe we just figure that all of us get treated badly enough by Lombardi. Anyway, Max agreed to take Horn as his partner, and they played a game together, and lost, and then we went back to the dorm for dinner and for our first meeting on the Chicago Bears, who'll be our opponents this Friday in Milwaukee.
Lombardi spent forty minutes tonight telling the whole offense about the Chicago defenses, mostly their special defenses against our passing plays. He kept talking about the Sarah and the Mabel and the Frank, all defensive-backfield maneuvers, and I couldn't give a care less. In the offensive line, we're just concerned with those linemen up against us, and we don't care what the defensive backs are doing. We don't care if they run to the john in the middle of a play
The fans get excited about code words like Sarah and Mabel, but we don't pay much attention to them, not even to the defensive line's code. They use signal words, like Indiana, when they want the defensive tackles to come inside, or Ohio, when they want them to go outside, but there's a million things to do up there on the line without worrying about what the defense is saying. They're calling their signals at the same time you're calling your offensive plays, and you've got to listen to your quarterback. You can't listen for Indiana or Ohio or Mabel or Frank or anything like that.
If you pick up any tips at all, you pick them up from the man in front of you. The defensive left tackle, in my case. Maybe his right foot is back two or three inches if he's going to charge to the right, to the inside. Or if he wants to go to the outside, he may bring his right foot up a little bit. He really doesn't have much choice; he can only charge inside or outside. Once in a while, when you've got a long count, say a three or a four—which means the ball will be centered on the third or fourth “hut” from the quarterback—the tackle'll lean on two, on the second “hut,” showing you which way he's going to go. But, still, even if you know which way he's going, the big job is to stop the man.
I was reading George Plimpton's book tonight, Paper Lion, and he wrote about the friction between Detroit's offensive and defensive units, the rivalries within the team, something which we make a conscious effort to avoid. It's very, very easy for the offense to get mad at the defense, and vice versa. When Dan Currie played with us, he used to get very emotional during a game, and he'd come off the field cussing the offense. But to minimize the friction—and we do minimize it—Lombardi deliberately makes us think of ourselves as a unit, as a group of forty men, not as an offense and a defense.
AUGUST 15
I've got a big kid by the name of Frank Cornish playing agains
t me this week. He's about 6′6″, maybe 285 pounds. He was a rookie last year, didn't play too much, kind of a humpty He didn't move too well laterally, and I popped him a few times, put my head right in his chest and I bounced him around a little. I was able to pop him and move away from him without too much difficulty. You can't do that against the great tackles, like Merlin Olsen of the Rams or Alex Karras of the Lions; they've got so much agility and speed they'll slip past you.
Right now, I'm planning to play Cornish the same way I did last year, popping him, blocking aggressively, but I may have to adjust in the game. Most men improve quite a bit when they're playing regularly. Cornish may have picked up some new moves. He may be quicker. I like to think every man I'm going to play against is terrific. It makes me play harder. Besides, I hate to say anything unkind about an oponent, not because I'm such a nice guy, but because I don't want to upset him. I don't want to give him any extra incentive against me. Our whole team feels this way; the worst thing we'll generally say about an opponent is that he's a fine football player. We always say so-and-so is very tough. We always say so-and-so is a real competitor. We always sweet-talk our opponents—usually to death.
Tonight we got the list of plays we'll be running against the Bears. We've got a total of about sixty or seventy-five running plays, and an equal number of passing plays. But for each game, the coaches pick out twenty-five or thirty plays that they think will work well against the particular defenses the opposition uses.
For example, one of our favorite plays is our 49, our sweep to the right. In the huddle, Bart'll call, “Red right, 49 on two.” The color indicates the position of our running backs; we have red, brown, and blue formations, and in the red formation the running backs are split, one behind each tackle. “Right” indicates the strong side, the side on which our tight end will line up. “Forty-nine” means that the “four” back, the running back on the left, will take the ball into the “nine” hole, the area outside the right end. “On two” means that the ball will be snapped the second time Bart says “hut.” On this play, I pull out to my right and go after the left cornerback.
