Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer

by Jerry Kramer

  Nitschke played a tremendous game. He is having a great season, and he was all over the field tonight, making tackles. In the locker room, when the game was over, Coach Lombardi walked up to Ray and gave him a kiss. He kissed him right on the cheek. Vince better not do that too often, or he's going to ruin his reputation as the meanest coach in football.

  NOVEMBER 1

  I was very apprehensive about the movies today. I thought I had played extremely poorly in the first half of the St. Louis game. All day Tuesday, I felt like I had a heavy weight hanging over my head. I kept thinking about a certain play where I had looked simply lousy. I slipped and Silas beat me easily on a pass play, and Kenny Bowman had to pick him up. I was cussing and cussing myself, and when the play came up in the movies today, Coach Lombardi passed right over it. He didn't say a word. I couldn't believe it.

  Vince had hardly any bad comments at all during the movies. He seemed pretty anxious just to get the films over with so that we could start thinking about Baltimore. We went out and played touch, and I was fantastic. I ran the length of the field, about 50 yards, for one touchdown and I passed for one touchdown and I knocked down two of their passes, and I just intimidated those defensive dummies completely. I think I enjoy the touch game more than any other part of the week. We put the rookies and the second-year men up on the line, and the veterans get to play the backfield. Bowman and Gregg and Skoronski and I just roam around the backfield, and we have a ball. We haven't lost a game to the defense yet this year. Those big dummies are getting pretty upset about it.

  NOVEMBER 2

  Coach Lombardi announced today that we were starting “our big push”—once again—then read us a letter that he'd received from Colonel Earl Blaik, who was the head coach at West Point when Vince was an assistant there. Vince has a great deal of respect for Colonel Blaik, so he read the letter very reverently.

  Mostly, Blaik talked about the St. Louis quarterback, Jim Hart, and how the high trajectory of his passes cuts down the area in which a defensive man can get to the ball. It didn't really seem terribly important, since the odds are we won't be playing St. Louis again, but one part of the letter dealt with Nitschke, and when he got to that part, Vince stopped and said, “Ray, he calls you Neetzie.”

  “Hell,” said Ray, who spent his early years in Green Bay sitting on the bench, “it took you five years to learn my name, so I don't feel bad about him misspelling it.”

  “I knew it,” the old man said. “I even knew how to spell it. I just didn't want to use it. I didn't have any need to call on you.”

  Ray had no answer to that; he just grumbled a little.

  We're going into the game against the Colts as three-point underdogs, which is a very rare position for us. I can't remember the last time we were underdogs in a game. I suppose Baltimore deserves to be favored—they're still undefeated—but we're not awed by them. We've beaten them the last five times we've played them.

  NOVEMBER 3

  I still haven't received a penny, or even a word, from my old college buddy who hit me up for the tickets in New York. I've asked my wife to check with the university to find out if he ever really studied to be a doctor and if they have an address for him. I wish I'd kept his girl's telephone number. I'd like to call her and tell her about him. She seemed awfully gullible. Come to think of it, I guess I did, too.

  We're not quite so excited about playing the Colts as we might be, partly, I suppose, because we've had so little time to think about the game, and partly because we're not really in any danger of losing the championship in our own division. We know that the Colts are always a threat to score as long as Johnny Unitas is at quarterback—he's having one of his best years—and we know that the strength of their defense is in their unity, their cohesive-ness, rather than in any individual stars.

  I may be facing my College All-Star friend, big Bubba Smith, Sunday—either Bubba or Billy Ray Smith. Bubba's had a bad right knee most of the season and he's been favoring it, but, judging from the movies, he's gotten better and better the past three weeks. He's starting to get a little confidence in his knee and he's getting a little stronger, but if he gives me any serious trouble Sunday, I'm going to kick him in the knee or cut him down or something. Billy Ray's not as big as Bubba—in fact, he's one of the smallest defensive tackles in the league, no more than 250 pounds—and he's not as strong or as quick, but he's got a tremendous amount of desire, sort of like Larry Wilson, and he's got experience. The Colts may use him Sunday just because he does have experience in big games.

  Zeke hurt himself in practice today. He started to hand off and slipped and wrenched his back pretty badly. We're lucky that Bart finally seems to be completely healthy. He's been off the pain pills for more than a week now.

  NOVEMBER 4

  We had a typical glamorous day on the road today. We worked out in Green Bay, flew to Baltimore, checked into our hotel, played poker for a couple of hours, ate an early dinner at the Chesapeake House, went back to the hotel, watched television and went to sleep. It certainly is exciting to be a professional football player.

  The big drama of the day came when Ron Kostelnik lucked into a big pot in the poker game. We play a crazy game we call high-low, shotgun, roll 'em with a shuck at the end—with a wild joker. You get five cards to start with, then throw away two of them. You're dealt a fourth card, and you bet. You're dealt a fifth card, and you bet. Then you draw to your hand, just like in regular draw, anywhere from zero to three cards. Then you roll your cards one at a time, except for a hole card, and you bet after each roll. At the very end, you can throw away one card, either the hole card or one of the up cards, and get a fresh card. Then, after all the betting, you declare high or low. Kostelnik stayed all the way with two pair, and a pat flush betting into him, and at the end, he shucked his hole card and drew the case card for his full house. He laughed like he knew all along it was going to happen.

  NOVEMBER 5

  Carroll Dale read an inspirational article during our service this morning, and then, after breakfast, we had our inevitable little meeting. Coach Lombardi said that because we had had a short week to prepare for Baltimore, things were a bit hectic and disorganized. He said he didn't think that would bother us. He thought we were a good enough team to overcome it. We all felt the same way.

  It was a bloody battle. Early in the first quarter, we lost Elijah Pitts. He twisted his ankle, probably tore an Achilles tendon, and may be out the rest of the year. Two minutes later, Jim Grabowski got his knee banged up, and he had to leave the game. Except for the rookies—Travis Williams and Don Horn—we had only Ben Wilson and Donny Anderson at running backs and only Bart at quarterback. Zeke had his uniform on, but he was in terrible agony. Max had to help him out of bed this morning and had to help him tie his shoelaces. Zeke couldn't bend over. He probably should have been in the hospital, perhaps in traction, but he was in uniform, willing to play and suffer, just in case anything happened to Bart.

  One incident showed me the kind of game it was. Billy Ray Smith played opposite me, but on one occasion, they were playing an odd-man line and Billy Ray was head-on on our center, Kenny Bowman. My assignment on this passing play was to check the left linebacker to see if he was going to red-dog, then go back and help the center. I took a few steps to my right and then I heard Kenny yell, “JERRY!”

  I looked back to the inside. Billy Ray had gotten away from Kenny and was rushing toward Bart. I came running across, and Billy Ray, seeing that I was going to cut him off before he could get to Bart, leaped in the air, and I hit his feet and I knocked him right on his head. His nose was bleeding, his face was bruised and he looked dizzy. But he got up and the next play he was just as wild-eyed, still playing with the same reckless abandon.

  I thought, “This guy won't stop at anything. I've got to really keep my head up. I've got to be alert. I don't know what this crazy guy's going to do next.” You generally don't pop a guy like Billy Ray. He picks the direction he's going to go and he goes fu
ll force in that direction, and you just drive him as hard as you can, drive him into somebody else or knock him down or force him out of the play. We had a good battle all afternoon; Billy Ray played the entire game.

  Late in the fourth quarter, we had a 10–0 lead, and the way our defense was playing we figured we had the game locked up. With just a little more than two minutes to go, Unitas threw a touchdown pass, but when Lou Michaels missed the extra point, our 10-6 lead looked fairly safe. I was standing on the sidelines, next to Boyd Dowler, who'd been knocked silly, and he turned to me and said, “What happened? How'd they score? They kicking off?” He didn't know what was going on, but I didn't have time to tell him because I had to get on the field with the kickoff-return team.

  We expected them to try an on-side kick, a short kick. I yelled to Willie Wood, “Willie, Michaels is left-footed, and if he tries an on-side kick, it'll go to our left. Be alert over there. Tell everybody over there to be alert.” Willie relayed my warning. We had five or six guys up front, ready to pounce on a short kick, and Michaels came forward and kicked it, and it wasn't even a good on-side kick. He kicked the ball too hard and, instead of simply rolling over the 50-yard line, it sailed right past our front line, right in between Tommy Joe Crutcher and Doug Hart and took a bounce to our left. Doug spun around, raced to the ball and overran it. One of the Colts, Rich Volk, broke right through our line and fell on the ball.

  They got the ball on our 34-yard line, and then our defense held them to four yards in three plays. On fourth and six, Unitas faded back to pass, saw that all of his receivers were covered and decided to run. He scrambled and stumbled for seven yards, barely enough for the first down. On the next play, Unitas threw a pass to Willie Richardson for a touchdown. They beat us, 13-10.

  The locker room was awfully quiet afterward. Everyone felt disgusted with the way we'd lost the game. I was near the coaches' room, and I heard Lombardi screaming, “Damned stupid high-school play like that. Damned stupid play. What in the hell were we doing? What in the hell were we waiting for?” Bob Hyland, the big rookie, was sitting with a towel over his face, like he might have been crying. Tommy Joe slouched in front of his locker and kept shaking his head. “Wouldn't have played it any different if I had to do it a thousand times,” he said. “Wouldn't have tried to bat that kick down. I felt the further it went, the better chance we had of getting it.” We actually felt that we'd won the ball game, that we'd outplayed them, but that they'd scored more points. Ray Nitschke kept saying, “Helluva ball game, helluva football game.”

  On the plane flying home to Green Bay, Tommy Joe and Fuzzy and Gilly and Max and Li'l Brother and Lee Roy and Kos and I had the card-playing seats in the back, and Bart was sitting on the arm of a chair, watching us. Coach Lombardi made his way back through the plane, the way he always does after a game, patting people on the back, roughing up their hair, talking to everybody. “What do you think, Tommy Joe?” he said.

  Tommy Joe looked up and said, “I still say, Coach, that was the only way to play it.”

  When Lombardi turned around and began making his way forward again, Bart crouched down between Max and me and said, “You know it, Jerry, and you know it, Max, but perhaps the young guys don't: This man is one great coach. He's got a brilliant mind. He prepares us better for a football game than any other team in the National Football League. Going into the game against St. Louis, we knew exactly what we could do, what we couldn't do, how to do it. The same thing today. I've never seen a more complete book on a team than Coach Lombardi had on Baltimore. It was really a beautiful thing to see.”

  Bart and Max and I all agreed that Lombardi really prepares us, really pushes us toward perfection. The conversation reminded me of a late-night movie I was watching on TV a few days ago. It was a Navy movie, and the commander was a real Vince Lombardi-type character. He got killed, and one of the men on his ship commented, “He made us all a little bit better than we thought we could ever be.” It sounds corny, but that's the way we feel about Lombardi.

  We landed in Green Bay at 6:30 P.M., and fifteen minutes later Doug Hart, Don Chandler, Allen Brown, and I climbed aboard a chartered twin-engine Beech and took off for the north woods— our wives had already driven up ahead of us—for the hunting grounds, for the perfect place to forget about the kind of football game we had today.

  NOVEMBER 7

  I went into the movies without too much fear this morning. I felt that I'd played one of my better games against Baltimore, and I didn't think Coach Lombardi would be too hard on me. He wasn't. But he said our whole offense stank. He cussed Gilly and he cussed Kenny Bowman. Kenny had some problems with pass protection. It's a tough job to center the ball and then get set for a pass block, when a man's playing right on your head, and Kenny's been having his difficulties Vince chewed Marvin Fleming unmercifully, called him stupid and lazy and everything else, and then, suddenly, he turned on Allen Brown, who's the second-string tight end behind Fleming. “Allen Brown,” he said, “I don't think much of you, either, to let a big stupe like that beat you out. You must not have much gumption to let a guy like that play ahead of you.” Allen hadn't even played against the Colts, and he got chewed.

  I wasn't so sparkling as I have been in the touch game. I intercepted two passes, knocked one down and scored a touchdown, but I threw some bad passes. After the touch game, we got together to run a few plays, and Kenny Bowman formed a huddle for the first series. Lombardi looked at Bowman, then looked at the sidelines and said, “Hyland, get in there.” Kenny looked up kind of blankly, shrugged his shoulders and tossed the football to Hyland. It looks like the rookie, Bob Hyland, is going to get a chance to be in the starting lineup, a chance to prove that he can actually play one of his many positions.

  NOVEMBER 8

  Bob Hyland worked out at starting center all day today, and we've been simplifying our plays for him. Normally, we have a choice of blocking assignments on every play, depending on the call by the center or the guard or the tackle, but this week we're trying to go without variations so that Bob won't have to think too much. Early in the season he was playing tackle, so he hasn't had much experience at center.

  The weather's starting to turn real cold in Green Bay. The temperature's down in the thirties, and the wind's starting to whistle, and all of us are counting the number of games till we head for warmer climates. We expect a struggle in our next four or five games, but I don't think it'll be a tragedy. We're looking forward to the Western Conference playoff game with Baltimore, presumably with Baltimore, hopefully with Baltimore. We'd certainly rather play the Colts than Los Angeles or even San Francisco. We know we can beat the Colts.

  The Kraft deal is going a little better these days. We're getting about two hundred to three hundred orders a day, up from fifty to one hundred. The archery company's growing, and the TV show's getting good ratings, and I heard today from my partner Urban Henry in Louisiana that the bank has extended the diving company's line of credit from $75,000 to $150,000. Urban's an ex-Packer and he's trying to persuade me to retire and move down there and start earning a living for a change. I don't know whether I'd like that honest money or not. I don't know how it'd feel.

  I'm going crazy trying to collect enough tickets for the game against Cleveland Sunday. I've got to get eight for a cousin of mine and his wife and three other couples who're coming in from Missoula, Montana. Dr. Matt Davis, who operated on me for a detached retina a few years ago, wants four tickets, and I need a pair for my Uncle Bud and his wife. That makes fourteen tickets I've got to buy. I get only one free ticket each home game, for my wife; I even have to pay for my kids' tickets.

  NOVEMBER 9

  Lombardi offered us another one of his sayings today. “The greatest accomplishment,” he said, “is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall.” In other words, it's much more difficult to get up once you've been knocked on your butt. He's driving us to get us up for the Browns. There's a newspaper clipping on the bulletin board in the locke
r room saying, PACKER OPPONENTS NO LONGER IN AWE. The story says that the Packers are prime targets for the Cleveland Browns this weekend; it also says that our offensive line is slowing down. I'm sick and tired of hearing everybody crying about the OLD Packers.

  We've been studying the Cleveland movies, and the Browns do look pretty good. They've got a well-balanced team. Their defense is strong, with four big people up front, and so is their offense, with fine running backs in Kelly and Green and good receivers in Warfield and Collins. They should give us a good test.

  Elijah Pitts is hobbling around, and I'm pretty certain he's out for the rest of the season. He's down, of course. “Jerry,” he said to me, “I remember you going around on crutches in 1961, and I never thought it'd happen to me.” Coach is cussing him occasionally, just for practice, I guess, just to make ZaSu feel loved. Grabowski can't run at full speed yet, and he won't play Sunday, but he should be back in action fairly soon. We've picked up a new running back—Chuck Mercein, an ex-New York Giant who'd been on the Washington taxi squad. To make room for Mercein, Lombardi put Pitts on the disabled list.

  Travis Williams blew a play during practice today and he got cussed out for his concentration period. “I suppose your concentration period lasts only about fifteen seconds,” Vince screamed, “and we're over that period now, are we?” It reminded me of a similar lecture I received four or five years ago. I blew a play, jumped offside, and Lombardi came up to me and stood toe-to-toe, my 6′3‘' and his 5‘2‘' or 5‘3‘' or whatever he is, and looked me in the eye. “Kramer!” he said. “The concentration period of a college student is thirty minutes, maybe less. Of a high school student, fifteen minutes, maybe less. In junior high, it's about five minutes, and in kindergarten, it's about one minute. You can't remember anything for even one minute! Where in the hell does that put you?” I didn't have much of an answer.