by Jerry Kramer
We've got something to prove tomorrow. We lost some respect around the league by getting tied last Sunday, and we want to get it back.
SEPTEMBER 24
When I got to the locker room today before the game, Max and Ron Kostelnik were resting, lying down, almost completely dressed, and Tommy Joe Crutcher was playing his Ernest Tubb records on the stereo. We let Tommy Joe hear his country music till the dressing room began to fill up. Then we put on some popular stuff. When I went in to get taped, Fuzzy and Don Horn were lying on the tables, and Bud Jorgensen, our trainer, was taping Horn's knee. “What the hell you wasting all that tape for, Horn?” Fuzzy said, needling the kid. “You've been in here half an hour getting taped, and there ain't no way you're gonna get to play, unless Bart and Zeke and three other guys get hurt.” Horn laughed. He's coming around. He's lost a little of his cocky attitude, and he's starting to fit the Green Bay Packer mold.
After he finished with Horn, Jorgy began taping me. Right after he got started, Jorgy put the roll of tape down for a second, and Ben Wilson reached over, grabbed it and took a couple of inches off. I got shook up. I have that superstition about nobody else using my tape. So I made Jorgy throw the roll away and start over with a fresh roll.
Dave Hanner wandered around, checking all the men on the special units, the kickoff teams, the punt teams, the extra-point teams. Hawg was mostly reminding the men on the kicking teams about Gale Sayers, about how tough he is on returns.
I checked with Gilly on our assignments, checked with Coach Wietecha, then had a little talk with myself. I wanted very much to have a good game, especially after last week.
I got the hell beat out of me in the game, somewhere in the first quarter or the second, I don't know which, I got kicked or something, and I got a slight concussion. I remember very little about the game. I have a vague recollection of half-time, of trying to get some plays straightened out. I couldn't remember the plays. I mean I could remember the real old plays, the ones we've used for six, seven years, but the new plays, the ones we put in during the last two years, I just couldn't remember. I drew a complete blank. I don't even know how long I played today. I don't have any idea, and I won't till I see the movies.
We won the ball game, 13-10, and the first time I recall looking at the scoreboard we were winning 3-0. We went ahead 10-0, and they tied it up 10-10, and then Don Chandler won the game in the last minute or so with a 46-yard field goal. It's funny the way I remember the field goal was 46 yards long.
We couldn't have looked very good. I know Bart had another bad afternoon, and I know it was a rough game. When I finally woke up a little in the second half, I saw two or three Bears carried off the field, knocked cold. After the game, I showered and shaved quickly, and Doug and Marilyn Hart and Barbara and I took off for the north country to go deer hunting. I had a terrible headache all the way up. I took three or four Emperin-codeine pills, but they didn't help much. My stomach was hurting, too.
I'm going to go to sleep now, but I still feel pretty screwed up.
SEPTEMBER 25
I woke up at 5:30 this morning to go deer hunting, and my first thought was, 53-drive, which is a new play, and I said to myself, 53-drive, get the middle linebacker, if the tackle closes, take him with you. Then I thought, 53, take the tackle all the way, and then 47-drive, drive the tackle or drive the linebacker, 46-pull, and all the new plays just came to me one after the other, snap, snap, snap.
We spent most of the day hunting, and none of us got a deer, but it was good fun. My headache wouldn't go away, but I guess I'm going to be all right.
SEPTEMBER 26
I woke up this morning feeling fine and went to the stadium to see the movies, and we were all sitting there waiting for the roof to fall in. We expected Coach Lombardi to start screaming and ranting and having convulsions, and once again Kenny Bowman and Gilly and I huddled together, the three sheep.
Right before the movies, Vince came over to me, patted me on the head, roughed up my hair and said, “Boy, you came out of there on one block and knocked the halfback down and went on and knocked the end down. You were just great. One of the greatest plays I've ever seen.” Of course, I didn't even remember the play
Lombardi surprised everyone by saying that we showed him the best line blocking he had seen since 1961. He said the offensive line was great, and all through the movies, he kept yelling, “Beautiful block … fantastic … great job … way to go.” He was using a new brand of psychology.
On one play, a 42, Gilly turned to me and whispered, “Oh God, watch this. Oh, watch this. I'm really going to get chewed here.” On the screen, Gilly pulled the trap, and the defensive end closed down real tight so he couldn't take him outside, and Gilly tried to take him inside and slipped and fell down. Gilly cringed, watching the play, and Lombardi shouted out, “OK, Gilly, way to try. That's a good effort. Way to try.”
Gilly stared at me in disbelief. “Well, hell,” he said, “if he didn't chew me for that, I ain't ever gonna get chewed out.”
I saw the play that gave me the concussion. I cut down the defensive end, Ed O'Bradovich, and I rolled over on my back and, as I raised myself toward a sitting position, Dick Evey, Chicago's right tackle, started to jump over me. I came up, and his knee caught me flush between the eyes. I went down like a shot, but then I got up and went back into the huddle. I played a few more plays in the second quarter, then sat out the whole second half. The moment it happened, I knew I had a concussion. I knew I was in a world of trouble. Physically, I felt all right, but I knew I couldn't think straight. Four or five years ago, against the Los Angeles Rams, I played most of a game with a concussion. Forrest Gregg told me what to do on every play. He said, “Block the tackle,” or, “Pull and block the end,” and I actually played fairly well. I did what I was supposed to. Between college and the pros, I've had four or five concussions now, and I suppose I'm getting used to them.
After the movie, Coach said he was disappointed with the way we were filling out our player reports. After every game, we have to fill out reports on the opposing personnel, their ability to diagnose plays, their quickness, their lateral movement, everything. We grade them excellent, above average, average, below average, and poor. When someone becomes available and Lombardi thinks about trading for him, he goes through these reports and gets a lot of valuable information. It's a good bank for him.
“Everybody we're going to play this year,” said Lombardi, “has read all this stuff in the papers about who's going to beat the Green Bay Packers, who can do it, who can beat them, can anybody beat them. So everybody says, ‘By gosh, we can, we can do it.' This is the price of winning. This is the price of the last two championships. You're paying for it now because everybody in the league wants to beat you. They're giving it their maximum supreme effort. There's no loafing, no halfway, against the Green Bay Packers. My father told me when I decided to quit law school and go into coaching that there'd be a hell of a lot of days like Sunday, days when you wished you'd stayed in the locker room. But I fooled my father. We've won a hell of a lot more than we've lost. OK. Let's go.”
Then we ran out for calisthenics. On Tuesdays, instead of lining up in rows, we form a big circle, and one man gets in the middle and leads the exercises. Fuzzy always starts off the session and I finish it, and in between we call upon the men who've played outstanding games. We called upon Jim Grabowski first today. Jim gained in yards rushing against the Bears, the most any Packer has gained in two years. Donny Anderson and Elijah Pitts, who both had good running days, took turns in the middle, and so did Ray Nitschke, who played a helluva game, and Jim Weatherwax, who played the whole game at defensive end. After the calisthenics we played our usual touch game, and I threw a couple of touchdown passes—in the touch games, I play tailback on offense and free safety on defense—and the offensive line beat the defensive line again.
We finished up early, and several of the boys took time for long sauna baths, to sweat out Sunday and Monday nights.
We watched movies of the Atlanta Falcons today, saw them lose to Baltimore and to San Francisco, then went out and had a big work day, practicing for about an hour and a half in 40-degree weather. Winter has descended upon us a little early.
My folks came in from Louisiana this morning. My father and my partner in the diving business, Urban Henry, had a personality conflict, and my folks didn't enjoy living in Louisiana, so I guess they're going to go home to Idaho. I think it'll be good for my father to get home. He and I played nine shivering holes of golf this afternoon, and we didn't score well, but we had fun.
We all went over to Blaine Williams' house for a dinner party, and afterward we watched my show, then watched the Kraft Music Hall, which carried a commercial for the portraits we're distributing. The Kraft people tell us that the portraits should start moving well real soon.
SEPTEMBER 28
I brought half a dozen green berets to the locker room today. Each of the berets has a gold tassel on top, and each bears the words: World Champion Green Bay Packers. Blaine Williams and I are promoting them. We're going to have them made up in the colors of all the teams in the NFL and try to sell them around the country. Everybody on our team wanted one—for nothing, of course—so I guess I'll have to supply them. We'll have to chalk it off to public relations.
All my businesses seem to be flourishing. The archery company is starting to gross about $50,000 or $60,000 each month, the diving company's coming along, and my TV show has been getting good reaction. My only competition, really, is The Vince Lombardi Show. We're both syndicated around the state, and he does have a few more stations, but I know my show is better. With my personality and my good looks, Vince just doesn't have a chance.
I read an article today about Bubba Smith, called “The Human Side of Bubba Smith,” which interested me and irritated me at the same time. As if he were anything but human. The image that some people have of the professional football player—the monster, the subhuman type—really burns me. The story about Bubba said, “You don't feed him, you oil him.” There are a lot of sportswriters I'd like to oil.
SEPTEMBER 29
The atmosphere at practice this morning was strange. It was one of carefree frivolity, everybody laughing and kidding, everybody goofing off, even during the workout. About halfway through practice Lombardi turned to the defense and said, “Come on, defense, give us a picture over there. You're acting. You're jumping around. We've got the hokies this week, huh? We've got a bunch of patsies, and you're gonna fool around, just laugh around and have a good time, huh? Well, you're a bunch of fools, every one of you, a bunch of damned fools.”
I think Vince had a right to be upset. The defensive team was getting a little cocky, and Willie Davis was mouthing off a little bit. “Come on, offense,” he'd say. “We're gonna build up your confidence.” It was nothing serious, but they certainly weren't concentrating on their assignments. They were trying to have some fun, for a change.
SEPTEMBER 30
We took our chartered buses down to Milwaukee this morning and went to County Stadium for a brief workout. Coach Lombardi had several bitter words for us.
“I don't know what I can tell you,” he said. “I've never had to talk to a team like this. I never had to holler at them before a game. They were always ready. But you people aren't ready. You've got a lackadaisical attitude. You're just gonna go out there tomorrow and get the hell kicked out of you. I tell you, it's gonna be a hell of a game. Those Falcons aren't going to lie down for you.”
We want to believe Vince, we want to get ourselves up for the game, but we just can't. When you're going to play a game on Sunday, you have to start getting mentally ready on Tuesday. You have to work up a good hatred, a strong desire, and you can't just do it on Friday and Saturday. It's too late by then. We're having trouble every week getting up. We thought the Lions would be easy; they'd even lost an exhibition game to Denver. We thought the Bears would be easy; they'd lost their opener to Pittsburgh. And now Atlanta hasn't won a game, and we beat them last year, 56-3, and there just doesn't seem to be any way in the world Vince can convince us we're in trouble.
After Vince's lecture, we posed for our official team picture. Tommy Joe Crutcher and Jim Grabowski were both off at National Guard drills. They thought they'd be absent from the picture, but Tommy Joe showed up at the last minute, wearing his Air Force blues and saluting everybody in sight. Tommy Joe's a medic, and he actually goes around giving shots to people, which is something he never did before in his life, except maybe to cattle. Grabo didn't make it, so Dave Dunaway, from the cab squad, put on Grabo's jersey and took his place in the team picture. Later on, they'll superimpose Grabo's head on Dunaway's, and it'll look like he was there for the picture. I suppose Dunaway's the highest-paid stand-in in the whole world.
Tonight my wife and I had dinner with two of our best friends, Johnny Symank, the defensive-backfield coach of Atlanta, and his wife. Normally, I wouldn't even think of fraternizing with somebody from the other team the night before a game, but, somehow, with the Falcons, it seemed all right. I talked to their head coach tonight, Norb Hecker, another good friend of mine, and he invited me to Atlanta during the off-season to play golf with him. How can I get excited about the game?
OCTOBER 1
I had a little trouble waking up this morning, so I missed our first devotional service of the year. I just barely did get up in time for breakfast.
We started the devotional services last year, for the benefit of the Protestant boys on the team who can't attend church services when we're on the road. Four and a half hours before game time, half an hour before breakfast, we get together and read from the Bible and say a few prayers and sometimes have a little discussion, led by Bart Starr or Carroll Dale. We've got about twenty guys who usually go, and I felt a little bad about missing the service today.
Vince got upset at breakfast. We have a choice of ordering ham and eggs or steak, but most of the guys seem to take whichever appears first. If a man's ordered ham and eggs but the waitress comes around with a steak, he'll take the steak. And vice versa. Of course, there's always a few guys who really want steak or really want ham and eggs, and they're left at the end without the meal they ordered. Lombardi doesn't know what to do about it, but I guess it isn't his major problem.
Right after breakfast, we had our usual meetings, the offensive in one room and the defense in another. We found out at the meeting that Lionel Aldridge and Bob Long had been reactivated for the game, and that Dick Capp and Claudis James had been placed on waivers. If nobody claims them, I imagine they'll both be playing on our taxi team.
When we got to the stadium and got into the locker room, no one seemed too enthused about the game. Everybody seemed to feel it was one of those situations where you have to show up, you have to play, and you have to win. If you lose, you look like a dummy. We showed up, we played, and we won, 23-0, but it was a real mediocre effort.
Bart Starr got hurt in the first quarter, racked up on a blitz. Bob Riggle, the Atlanta safety, and Tom Nobis, their middle linebacker, both blitzed, and Riggle hit Bart first, jarring him, and then Nobis slammed him. Bart got hit in the armpit, and his right arm went numb. The safety blitz was a perfect example of the gambling attitude teams have when they play us. A safety blitz is an absolute gamble. If the quarterback gets away from it and gets off a good long pass, it's a sure six points. But the Falcons were willing to gamble against us, willing to try anything to score an upset. They were blitzing their safety and their halfbacks and their linebackers and everybody else. I think Norb Hecker, their coach, was ready to blitz one time.
Zeke replaced Bart and did his usual good job. He threw two touchdown passes to Carroll Dale, and he called a fine game. He's got to be the best second-string quarterback in the NFL, and he never gripes about playing second-string. Ben Wilson picked up a lot of yardage, and Lionel Aldridge, only six weeks after he broke his leg, played an excellent game at defensive end.
Bart's had such a frustrating season. He's had nine passes intercepted; most years he doesn't give up that many interceptions all season. Until today, I didn't realize quite how frustrated Bart was, how intense he was. When he came out of the game, he stood next to me on the sidelines and started kicking the ground. He told me how much he wanted to get back in. He was just so disappointed about being hurt. When Zeke threw his first touchdown pass, Bart was the first one to shake his hand, the first to congratulate him, but still, all during the game, he was terribly unhappy. Tears actually came to his eyes on the sidelines. I'd never realized how dedicated he is, how much he wants to win, how much he wants to excel.
After the game, I drove home to Green Bay, ate a light meal and went right to bed. I intend to get a lot of sleep this coming week. We play the Lions in Detroit next Sunday, and I want to be fully rested for my friend Alex Karras.
OCTOBER 3
Coach Lombardi seemed more disturbed than angry during our meeting this morning. He said there's a general lack of enthu- siasm on the club, a lack of desire, something he can't quite put his finger on. He said that sometimes he would rather lose and have everybody play a perfect game than win and have everybody look sloppy. My immediate reaction is to say that's crazy, that's ridiculous, he couldn't really mean that, but, somehow, I suspect he does, at least in theory. His desire for perfection is immense, and he's been very unhappy with our habit of doing only as much as we have to do to win.
