by Jerry Kramer
We play a rematch with the Minnesota Vikings Sunday, and we've got nothing going for us except our desire for revenge. They've been looking pretty good since the day they beat us. They've got a big, strong defensive front four. Coach Lombardi told us today that it's the best front four in the business, but, of course, he's exaggerating. They're tough, though, and my man, Alan Page, is especially tough. He's been named Associated Press Lineman of the Week twice already this year.
Gilly and Fuzzy and I have been doing a lot of talking this week in the movies and on the practice field. Since Gilly took my place against Page in the first game, and Fuzzy took Gilly's place against Paul Dickson, I've been asking Gilly about Page and Gilly's been asking Fuzzy about Dickson. “Page's stronger'n hell,” Gilly told me. “He's the kind of guy you really have to meet. If you wait for him, he'll just start sweeping you back and you can't catch yourself. Make sure you hit him good and solid right on the line before he gets moving. Stop him and then get away from him.”
Page is a lot like Frank Cornish, the Bears' tackle; they're both strong men, without too many tricky moves. They're not dancers. I'm not going to play cute with Page. I'm just going to hit him as fast and as hard as I can.
DECEMBER 1
At the start of our meeting this morning Coach Lombardi went over the itinerary for our trip to Minneapolis and the west coast. We're leaving straight from Minneapolis for Santa Barbara to work out there before we play the Los Angeles Rams. Lombardi got halfway into the itinerary and somebody said “Hey, there's a couple of guys still in the training room.” Lombardi marched over to the training room and shouted, “What the hell's going on in here?” He was pretending to be angry. “I thought this damned meeting started at 10 o'clock,” he said. “What are you guys doing in here?”
The time was then exactly 9:25 A.M.“I don't know what the hell you guys think,” Vince said. “When 10 o'clock comes around, we're supposed to have a meeting.”
We may be the Central champions, but we're still operating on Lombardi Standard Time.
I went to talk to Blaine Williams this afternoon because our portrait program is definitely in trouble. The Kraft people predicted that by mid-November things should really be steaming along, but now it's December and we haven't had more than 350 orders in a day. I'm afraid the whole thing sort of fell apart. We'll try to recoup, try to sell the portrait albums as Christmas gifts. I called Urban Henry in Louisiana and asked him to go on Paul Hornung's TV show and plug the portraits, and I called Bill Forester in Dallas and asked him to do the same thing in his area. I'm going to get in touch with Dick Schafrath or somebody from Cleveland and maybe Tom Matte from Baltimore, and see if we can get this whole thing straightened out. I signed a $50,000 note to get the business started, and I'd hate to lose the money.
DECEMBER 2
Ray Nitschke showed up at the plane this morning wearing a toupee and sunglasses, and he looked like a different individual. He kept jiving up and down the aisle, showing off his rug and his shades. “Which way's Hollywood, gang?” he said. We were all pretty damned anxious to get out to California and soak up a litle sunshine.
DECEMBER 3
We beat the Vikings today 30-27, when my roommate kicked his third field goal of the game in the closing seconds. For a balding old man, he kicks pretty well.
I couldn't get terribly excited about the game one way or the other, but I went out and played hard-nosed football. I played one of my best games of the season. I came off the ball fast and I pounded Alan Page, and he didn't do any damage. He's relying entirely on his strength now—and it definitely wasn't enough today—but I suspect that in a couple of years, when he picks up a few moves, I'm not going to have much fun with him. I think I'd better retire pretty soon.
Vince kept shifting players in and out of the lineup, giving everybody a chance to rest, giving the young boys a chance to show what they can do. Travis Williams got his first good shot at playing halfback, and he picked up quite a bit of yardage. I think Travis is going to be one of the great football players in the NFL. I hope he gets to play a lot in the last two games against Los An- geles and Pittsburgh, because if he just learns a little more about the way our offense functions, he could make a difference in the playoff games.
Bart had a good day, a very good day, which is certainly an encouraging sign. He's played two excellent games in a row. He was one of the few people who played the whole game today. “I rested enough earlier in the season,” he told one sportswriter.
At the start of the fourth quarter Coach Wietecha asked me if I wanted to rest, and I said, “OK, but don't let me sit here on the bench for ten minutes and cool off and then send me back in. If I come out now, I'd like to stay out.”
“OK,” said Wietecha.
When I came out, we were leading 27-17, but with two minutes to play the score was tied 27-27, and Minnesota had the ball. Then they fumbled in their own territory and Tommy Brown recovered for us, and the offensive team ran out on the field, with Fuzzy in my spot. I was standing on the sidelines just enjoying the game. Suddenly, Coach Lombardi spotted me and shouted,“Jerry! What are you doing here? Get the hell in there!”
I jumped like a wounded rabbit and ran out on the field just as our huddle was breaking. Naturally, I had to tell Fuzzy to come out, and it made him look bad, running off the field by himself. He was bitter afterward. He was furious with me at first, but then he realized it wasn't my fault, and he started hating Vince. All the way to California after the game, Fuzzy boiled. He snapped at everybody.
DECEMBER 4
My roommate is a great human being. Last night, after we ate dinner in Santa Barbara, he went back to our motel to sleep and I went out with a few of the guys to celebrate. We weren't celebrating our victory—just the sunshine and the freedom and the escape from the telephone that never stops ringing at home.
We let loose, more than any other night all year. We went to a bowling alley—I know that doesn't sound very exciting, but we're from Green Bay—and we went to a discotheque and we listened to music and we sang and Max bowled and we all had a few drinks. There was no curfew last night—starting tonight, it'll cost us $1,000 if we miss 11 P.M. bed-check, and $2,000 if we get caught sneaking out after the bed-check—so we got rid of enough tension to last us all season. I didn't really drink too much, but when you've been in training for months and your body's grown accustomed to no more than one drink or two drinks a week, you take more than a couple and you feel pretty happy. I came back to our room in the wee hours feeling loose and happy, and there was my roommate fast asleep—fast asleep in the single bed. He had left the big double bed for me. He has kicked seventeen field goals in twenty-three attempts this year, and he is a great human being.
“Sure I left the double bed for you,” Don said this morning. “I knew darn well that if I didn't, you'd throw me out of it when you got home. I just wanted to sleep.”
For the first time in several years the offense and defense had a joint meeting tonight to watch the Minnesota films, and the old man was in a screaming mood. He called me a big cow for getting to a linebacker late, and he heard Boyd Dowler whispering and he shouted,“I'll make the comments in here,” and he hollered at Marvin Fleming, “Look at you, stupid, you big jerk. You don't have the mental capacity to retain anything for twenty-four hours.”
It was really just a typical Lombardi performance, nothing special, but the defensive boys were deeply impressed.
“You don't have much fun in your meetings, do you, Jerry?” said Doug Hart. “We have lots of laughs in our meetings.”
“You guys get more money than we do,” said Kostelnik, “but you deserve it to sit through those meetings. I don't ever want to go to one again.”
DECEMBER 5
We went out to practice this morning, and Elijah Pitts came limping around the field, wearing a blue turtleneck sweater that made him appear a little fat. “Dammit, Pitts,” said Lombardi, “there's a chance we can activate you for the Super Bowl, but you look
like a balloon. Where the hell are we gonna put you? At guard?”
Herb Adderley said, “Pittsie and Fuzzy now have the exact same waistline.”
We're having some fun this week, but on Saturday, in the Los Angeles Coliseum, I'll be facing Merlin Olsen, and that's definitely work, not fun. Merlin is simply a great football player. He's about 6′5″, and his weight varies, maybe 275 or 285 or 290. That may sound silly, but it's not like weighing 175 or 185 or 190. My weight last week fluctuated from 259 at the beginning to 250 1/2 at the end. I've seen Merlin at 260 and at 296 when we played together in Pro Bowl games. Merlin's not as quick as Alex Karras, but he's stronger. Both of them have great lateral movement. Merlin has tremendous hustle; he never quits. Alex sometimes will ease up if his club is far ahead or far behind, but Merlin never lets up. He'll run right over you no matter what the score is. When I play against a guy like that there's a lot of mutual respect, and there's never any holding or kicking or clipping, just straight, clean, hard football.
The other night Forrest Gregg was talking about Carl Eller, a good defensive end for Minnesota, and somebody said, “Man, if you get down around his knees, you can cut him off real easy. He's got bad knees. You can tear him up.”
“Yeah,” said Forrest, “but I hate to. He's a helluva guy. He's such a good clean competitor I wouldn't do anything like that.”
That's the way I feel about Merlin.
DECEMBER 6
Somebody tried to rob our motel this morning. A guy came in around 2:15 in the morning carrying a small automatic and tried to hold up the night clerk. The clerk took out his own gun and shot the stickup man in the leg. He fled, and the police caught him.
The ironic part was that the night clerk didn't even have a dime. But I was sleeping on the ground floor, only a few doors off the lobby, with my door unlocked and several hundred dollars in my attaché case. From now on, I think I'll lock my door.
Lombardi's a little bit afraid of robbery, too. He's afraid that somebody from the Los Angeles Rams will try to steal a look at our practice sessions. We stayed in Santa Barbara last year and we worked out at the same field, the stadium of the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Vince gave the school $3,000 to buy a big canvas screen to put around the field. We're practicing behind the screen this week. Vince Lombardi believes in locking his doors.
DECEMBER 7
We want to beat the Rams Saturday for a very selfish reason. If we beat the Rams, they're eliminated from the Coastal Division race, and Baltimore wins the division title. But if the Rams beat us and then beat Baltimore the following week, they win the title. We play the Coastal Division winner in Milwaukee for the Western Conference championship, and we want to play Baltimore. We think the Rams are a much more dangerous team. We feel that we had the Colts beat in Baltimore, that we lost the game only through a fluke and that we'd certainly be able to beat them in the playoff.
There are only a few dissenting opinions on the team, and they all come from the defensive unit. They're not anxious to face Johnny Unitas again. I don't blame them. But, given the choice between going up against Unitas and going up against Los Angeles' defensive Fearsome Foursome, the consensus is: Bring on Unitas.
DECEMBER 8
We drove in chartered buses this afternoon from Santa Barbara down to Los Angeles, checked into our hotel and hurried out to do some shopping. A bunch of us went over to a knitting mill where they let pro football players buy clothes at half price. Sometimes I think we buy everything wholesale. I bought my wife a few dresses and bought myself half a dozen alpaca sweaters and eight or ten pairs of slacks. I do like to spoil myself.
DECEMBER 9
I understand now, better than I ever did before, what Vince means when he says, “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” We worked our butts off today, and when the game ended, when we finally surrendered, I felt like crying.
The game was on national TV, and it must have been beautiful to watch. The Rams were fighting for their lives, we were fighting for our pride, and both teams were up for the fight. Neither of us ever led by more than a touchdown. After we'd been in front 7-0 and 10-7, the Rams took the lead 17-10. Then they kicked off deep to Travis Williams—they had been kicking shallow all afternoon—and Travis caught the ball in the end zone, came up the middle, bounced off one of their men and spun to his left. I got a piece of a block on one Ram, then a piece of a block on another; the second man, after I'd hit him, stumbled toward Travis, reached out and barely missed him. I was surprised to see Travis running up the sidelines; I'd expected him thundering up the middle behind me. Travis sprinted all the way to a touchdown, a total of 104 yards, tying the score.
In the last minute of play, we were leading 24-20, and we had to punt from our own territory. Tony Guillory, a Los Angeles linebacker, lined up right on our center. On a punt, the center isn't responsible for blocking anyone; he's got his head down in a very awkward position and his main job is to get the ball back to the punter. Chuck Mercein, who was new to the punting team, was supposed to check Guillory. But Guillory jumped around Bowman at center, and Mercein didn't pick him up, and Tommy Joe Crutcher, who was back blocking for the punter, was looking from side to side, expecting someone to come charging in from the outside, and didn't even see Guillory coming up the middle. Guillory blocked the punt, the Rams recovered on our 5-yard line and, two plays later, Roman Gabriel threw a touchdown pass to beat us 27-24.
I was ready to fall down when the game ended. I contained Merlin pretty well, but I was beat from head to toe. I played about as hard as I've ever played in my life, and I took an incredible physical pounding in the middle of the line. So did everybody else; everybody gave 100 percent. Coach Lombardi told me I played a great game, but I was down, blue, disappointed, dejected, everything. I never came so close to tears on a football field.
We were pretty quiet in the locker room after the game, and Dave Robinson said to me, “The disappointment of losing a football game is in direct proportion to the amount of energy expended in trying to win it.” Robby's an engineer, and I guess he likes to talk in formulas, but I didn't have to be a mathematician to figure out what he meant. It was a long ride home to Green Bay.
DECEMBER 11
I just stayed around the house yesterday and today, licking my wounds. The defeat still hurts; the clock ran out on us again. I watched a little television and I caught up on my reading. I read In Cold Blood and a book by Jeane Dixon, who says she can see into the future. Jeane Dixon predicts that the 1967 National Football League champions will be the Green Bay Packers. I hope the lady knows what she's talking about.
DECEMBER 12
Coach Lombardi said this morning that he was very proud of us for putting on the display we did against Los Angeles. He said he thinks we're a helluva bunch of young men to have worked so hard in a game that meant nothing to us in the standings. Then he began cussing. He cussed me and Gilly and Forrest and Ski and just about everyone on the team. He called us a bunch of fatheads and he said that we didn't have one brain among us. He's getting himself worked up more than anyone else, building up his own momentum to carry him through the playoffs. The rumors about his possible retirement are going around again, and I think he wants the third championship in a row more than anything in the world. I wouldn't mind it myself.
DECEMBER 13
The Associated Press announced its All-Pro teams today, and I was named first-string offensive guard. Forrest made first-string tackle to keep me company. We were the only Packers on the offense, but Willie Wood, Willie Davis, Dave Robinson, and Bob Jeter made it on defense. I felt badly about Ray Nitschke missing out. Ray had his best season, a great season, but the sportswriters passed him by.
My selection gave me a great deal of satisfaction. I've been All-Pro five times during the last eight seasons; the other three years I was sick and hurt and forgotten. Being chosen again is a strange feeling, sort of like having a fickle lover come back, I guess. I'm tempted to say that the selecti
on doesn't mean anything, but it does. It really does. It means recognition—which may be part of the reason I keep playing this silly game.
DECEMBER 14
We're really in no shape mentally to play Pittsburgh Sunday. We know the game doesn't mean a thing. We know the coaches are spending all their time preparing for Baltimore and Los Angeles, getting ready no matter which one wins their big game in California. We're looking at the Pittsburgh game as if it were a good scrimmage, the last big scrimmage before a ball game, the final chance to polish our technique. Guys have been laughing and clowning on the practice field, and Coach Lombardi's screaming doesn't seem to have much impact. “You'll be laughing,” Vince said today, “you'll be laughing down in Miami on January 7 th. That's where you'll be laughing. You won't be laughing December 23 rd.” He kept referring to the 23 rd, which is when we play the winner of the Rams-Colts game, and to the 7 th, which is when the loser of the Western Conference playoff meets the loser of the Eastern Conference playoff. It's very unusual for Lombardi to refer to losing. Maybe he thinks we are going to lose.
DECEMBER 15
I've never heard a word from that Idaho classmate of mine who told me he'd become a doctor in New York City. I haven't received a check or a letter or even a postcard. And the university hasn't helped me at all. The tracer on him didn't turn up an address or a telephone number. It's kind of funny to go all the way to New York City to get suckered by an Idaho country boy. It won't be so funny for him, though, if I ever find him.
