Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer

by Jerry Kramer

  DECEMBER 16

  Coach Lombardi told me this morning that I'd been picked to play on the Western Conference team in the Pro Bowl game—for the first time in four years—but I missed my chance for even greater honors: I didn't win one of the big awards presented today by Tom Brown, the commissioner of the Green Bay Packer Volleyball League.

  We've played a volleyball game almost every Saturday morning all season, using a football for a volleyball and a goal post crossbar for a net. Lee Roy Caffey and Tommy Joe Crutcher have co-captained one team, the King Ranch Bullies, and Ray Nitschke's captained the other, the Cicero Sissies. I've been on the Sissies, but despite my heroic play the King Ranch Bullies won the championship. Lee Roy won the Most Valuable Player award, and Ron Kostelnik, from our team, won the Outstanding-at-Standing-Around-and-Doing-Absolutely-Nothing-but-Tearing-the-Grass award.

  Lombardi handed out awards today, too, blocking awards for the last two games, and I got one for the Minnesota game. I got a 95 for passing and an 85 for running, the highest grades I've gotten all year, but I still don't put much faith in them. I've received blocking awards for only two or three games this season, and I didn't get one for the Los Angeles game, even though Vince told me right afterward that I'd played brilliantly. Ray Wietecha has the most to say about which linemen get blocking awards, and I'm beginning to suspect that he's still mad at me for beating the Giants in the 1961 and 1962 championship games. Ray was playing for the Giants in those games.

  After our workout this morning, CBS-TV filmed an interview with Forrest Gregg and me for their pregame show tomorrow. The show's usually reserved for the big names, the backfield stars and a few defensive linemen. They must be getting down to the bottom of the barrel if they've got to interview a couple of offensive linemen. One of the Cleveland Browns once told me that if he ever had to go on the lam from the law, he'd become an offensive lineman.

  It cheered me up when the producer of the CBS show told me he'd heard that I had a TV show and he'd like to see it; he asked me if I was interested in a future in television, and I told him I certainly was. It also cheered me up to hear from Blaine Williams that Kraft has tentatively agreed to make up whatever money we lose on the portrait program. Urban Henry has a saying, “The sun doesn't shine on one dog's rear all the time,” and maybe the sun is starting to shine on mine.

  DECEMBER 17

  We emptied our bench today, poured every active player into the Pittsburgh game except Jim Grabowski, whose knee is still sore. Don Horn played most of the game at quarterback and Travis Williams played almost a full game at halfback. Travis had a beautiful day. He scored two touchdowns, ran for a lot of yards, and caught several passes. I think he's got the potential to be another Jimmy Brown. He's got an uncanny knack for picking the right holes. It usually takes a running back three or four years as a pro before he learns how to hit the holes, but Travis does it naturally.

  We lost the game 24-17, which didn't mean much to us, but meant a great deal to the Steelers, particularly to the ex-Packers on their team. Kent Nix, the boy we traded during training season, played the whole game for them at quarterback and looked pretty good. My Idaho friend Dick Arndt played a little at defensive tackle; he faced Gilly, so I didn't have a chance to give him a proper greeting. I did bump into him in the tunnel before the game, and I asked him what his picture was doing in our program in a Green Bay uniform. “I've been gone fifteen weeks.” Dick said. “You'd think that'd give 'em enough time to change the picture.”

  Pittsburgh treated us rough. They bruised Donny Anderson and banged up Ben Wilson, and Steve Wright cracked a rib. And Allen Brown almost died. He was playing on the kickoff-return team, and on one kickoff return one of the Steelers told Allen he was going to get him next time. Allen didn't pay any attention; neither did anyone else. Guys are always saying things like that without meaning anything by it.

  On the next kickoff, Allen threw a cross-body block into the guy and turned his back a little bit, and the guy kneed him in the back. Allen got up under his own power and hobbled off the field, a very pained look on his face. I couldn't tell whether he was really hurt or shocked or just surprised, and I didn't think much about it. I figured he just got kneed or kicked, nothing serious. I found out after the game that the doctors had removed Allen from the stadium at half-time in an ambulance. He almost lost his blood pressure on the way to the hospital. They took him inside and examined him and discovered that he had two broken ribs and a punctured kidney. They put him on the critical list.

  Poor Allen's really had a tough life as a Green Bay Packer. In 1965, his rookie year, he hurt his shoulder in the College All-Star game, underwent surgery and missed the whole season. In 1966, he injured his knee the third week of the season, had to go under the knife again, and missed the rest of the year. Now this. He must be trying to build up a medical history like mine.

  It's curious the way the guys react to an injury like Allen's. Most of the guys try to wipe it right out of their minds. You'll see them turn their backs on an injured teammate on the field, sort of to pretend that it didn't happen. They're afraid to think about injuries, afraid to think that it might happen to them. The more you think about it, of course, the more likely you are to get hurt. I'm fatalistic myself. I don't really realize how brutal the game is until the off-season, when I go out to banquets and watch movies of our games. Then I see guys turned upside-down and backwards and hit from all angles, and I flinch. I'm amazed by how violent the game is, and I wonder about playing it myself.

  I tried to stir up a little violence myself this afternoon. I kept looking for No. 50, Bill Saul, the linebacker who'd grabbed me by the shoulder pads and thrown me to the ground—after the play was over—during our preseason game. I was really looking to blast him. But I got only one shot at him and it wasn't a very good one. Pittsburgh was in a four-four defense, and Saul was directly behind Ken Kortas, my tackle. My assignment was to block Kortas if he tried to go outside me—or to block Saul if Kortas went inside me. Kortas charged to the inside, and I went for Saul, but I didn't hit him from the best angle. I still drove him back about five yards. He looked at me kind of oddly. I don't think he remem- bered what he'd done to me in the exhibition. He didn't have a tooth in his mouth; he was gummy and evil-looking.

  I didn't play much of a game. I tried to make all my blocks crisp and low, perfect them for the playoffs, but the emotion wasn't there. Without the emotion, you can't play this game.

  As soon as we got dressed after the game Don Chandler and I and a few other people hurried back to my house to watch Los Angeles play Baltimore on television. We were all pulling for the Colts—we didn't want to face the Rams again—but by the half we knew Los Angeles was going to win. They won the game 34-10, and they looked terrific. They're tough. They're hot. They're lucky. They're confident. They've got everything in the world going for them. They think nobody can beat them, and, by thinking that way, they just may be right.

  This is the sixth time in eight years that we've gotten into the postseason playoffs; this is the second time we've had a chance to win a third straight National Football League championship. I'm positive that we're a good team, but I don't know how good. I'm a little bit worried. I've got a terrible feeling that maybe we're going to get our tails whipped. I don't think I've ever felt this way before.

  DECEMBER 18

  It is dreary, cold, rainy, typical Green Bay weather. Even my head is foggy. I got banged in the head yesterday. The Steelers kicked me from my head to my toes, my neck, my ribs, my feet, every part of me. I can barely think, and when I do my thoughts are not at all reassuring.

  If there is ever a year for us to get knocked on our butts, this it it. Compare the way we played against Pittsburgh yesterday with the way Los Angeles played against Baltimore, and you have to believe that the clock, finally, is about to run out on us. I hate to be gloomy. I hate to even think about defeat. I hate the idea that we could come so close to a third straight world championship and miss it. But I h
ave a very bad feeling about this game.

  I flew to Milwaukee this afternoon to buy my wife a piano for Christmas—wholesale, naturally—and on the plane I bumped into Jim Flanigan, our rookie linebacker. Jim told me he was flying to Chicago on business.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked. I'm a very prying individual.

  “I'm going to buy an engagement ring for my girl,” he said.

  “Wonderful,” I said. “I've got a friend in Milwaukee who runs a wholesale jewelry house. Want to see him?”

  “I don't know,” Jim said. “We went over to Tiffany's in Chicago and saw several rings we liked.”

  “How much you had in mind spending?”

  “About $5,000,” Jim said.

  “Good Lord, Jim,” I said. “That's a tremendous amount of money to spend for an engagement ring. You'd better get off this plane with me and come talk to my guy.”

  I brought Jim into Milwaukee and he picked out a two-carat diamond, a perfect diamond, a $5,200 ring, and paid only $2,700 for it. He saved himself a couple of thousand dollars. Rookies sure have more expensive tastes now than they did when I was a rookie. My whole rookie season, I only earned $7,750.

  Now Jim Flanigan's got a chance to earn $25,000 in the next four weeks. If we can beat Los Angeles, if we can beat the Eastern Conference champions, if we can win the Super Bowl game, we'll earn about $25,000 a man.

  I keep seeing the figure running through my head. Each week during the season, when I tried to work up a hatred for my opponent, I was really just using a gimmick to get myself emotionally ready. I called it hatred because there was nothing else involved. But now I call it $25,000.I keep telling myself that I've got $25,000 in my pocket and somebody's trying to steal it from me. There's no problem getting emotionally ready this week. I just wish that bad feeling would go away.

  DECEMBER 19

  I've started daydreaming about Merlin Olsen. I see myself breaking his leg or knocking him unconscious, and then I see myself knocking out a couple of other guys, and then I see us scoring a touchdown, and always, in my own dreams, I see myself the hero.

  I lay in bed last night and my mind began drifting. “Third-down situation,” I told myself. “Passing situation. Merlin likes an outside rush on a third-down situation. His favorite move is to come into me with his head, pull me with his left hand, throw his right hand across my head and go to the outside to get to the passer. Now, in this situation, I'm going to hit him, then I'm going to come off him a little bit and then I'm going to drive him. I'm going to drive him to the outside just as hard as I can, and I'm going to knock him down.”

  And then my thoughts wandered to other situations: “Lundy plays wide, so on a sweep-left, we're gonna have to run inside him. I'll pull and turn upfield real quick and I'll look for the middle linebacker, Woodlief, and knock him down, knock him unconscious, of course, and then I'll go get the safety, Meador. But when we sweep the other way, outside Davy Jones, it's hard for a back to cut him, so I'll knock him down and then I'll get the linebacker, Pardee, and then I'll look for the halfback.” Before I knew it, I had played a terrific half a football game. Finally, I fell asleep.

  When we reported to practice this morning, Coach Lombardi greeted us with a little inspirational talk. “We may be wounded,” he said. “We may be in trouble. Some people may be picking Los Angeles over us. But I'll tell you one thing: That damned Los Angeles better be ready to play a football game when they come in here 'cause they're going to have a battle. I'll guarantee that. This team has a history of rising to the occasion. This is it. There's no tomorrow. This is really the start of the big push.”

  Vince hollered and screamed a little while we watched the movies of the Pittsburgh game, but he didn't have his heart in it. He wanted to get on to the Ram game. He gave us a few new plays to learn, and we went out and had a real good workout. We didn't play our usual game of touch. We combined the regular Tuesday and Wednesday practices because this is a short week. We play the Rams in Milwaukee Saturday.

  I found a few early Christmas presents in my locker. I got a box of candy from a candy manufacturer up in Michigan, a bottle of cologne from some cologne manufacturer, and a spice rack from Channel n in Green Bay, all gifts to wish us well against the Rams. The whole team got a letter in Braille today from a class of blind schoolboys.

  Don Horn, the rookie quarterback, came on my TV show tonight, and his answers to a few of my questions showed how far he's come since training camp. He's changed his attitude—he isn't cocky anymore—and, like all the other first-year men he's become a part of the Green Bay Packers.

  “Don, you've got what's known as a quick release,” I said. “How'd you develop that?”

  “I guess I do get rid of the ball quickly,” said Horn. “When you see all those big linemen coming at you, you're scared to death, and you've got to get rid of the ball quickly.”

  “How long does it take to make a good pro quarterback?”

  “When I first arrived here,” Don said, “I didn't think it would take any time at all. Now, after learning a little from Bart and Zeke, I figure it's got to take three to five years, if I'm lucky.”

  The pressure is here. The tension is here. Generally, the tension builds up gradually, but this week it's a constant thing-morning, noon, night. God knows what it'll be like by Saturday. At this stage of the season, you can't do anything about your physical condition, but if you can get the mental thing going for you, that's something. That's what Vince is working on. That's what the whole club is working on. All I keep thinking is: Olsen, Olsen, Olsen.

  DECEMBER 20

  I'm having terrible trouble sleeping. I can't stop seeing those plays running through my mind. I got to bed last night at 9 P.M. and read for half an hour and wasn't tired. Then I watched TV for half an hour and wasn't tired. I read for another hour and, at 11, I took a tranquilizer, and I still wasn't tired. At 11:30, I took a sleeping pill and, about 1 o'clock, I finally dozed off.

  I got up bright and early this morning, picked up Chandler, and drove over to the stadium. Lombardi had that gleam in his eye, that hungry, lively look. He was excited, very excited, and he got everybody else excited. The bad feeling is starting to go away. The memory of how good Los Angeles looked against Baltimore is starting to fade. We're all getting rid of our misgivings, getting a little confidence, beginning to believe in ourselves once more.

  We had a lovely practice, the first and last practice this week with pads on. The backs were hitting the holes well, sharply, precisely. Lombardi kept screaming, “Tremendous. Beautiful. Way to go.” He kept building everybody up, nursing their confidence. He looked young and fresh again.

  We're just in fair physical condition. Allen Brown is still in the hospital, coming along, but critical, leaving Marv Fleming as the only tight end. Ben Wilson and Jim Grabowski make up about one fullback between them. Grabo says he can block, but can't run, and Ben's limping a little. Chuck Mercein's our only able-bodied fullback, and, of course, he's still learning to fit into our system.

  Coach Wietecha gave the offensive line a speech this morning on how he felt about the Ram game. He said that we have to approach the game positively; we can't afford to think of the past or of bubbles that have to burst. “If you guys handle yourselves properly and prepare yourselves properly,” Wietecha said, “you can keep winning for the next thirty years.”

  We concentrated on a few new plays, plays I suspect Lombardi has been saving for several weeks, saving especially for this game. We've put in some quick-hitting plays up the middle, a 21-quick, a 41-quick, a 61-quick, all through the “one” hole, the hole between me and the center. The difference between these plays and our regular plays is that we're utilizing “quick,” or direct, blocking. Instead of, for instance, the center blocking on the tackle and me stepping behind the center and blocking the middle linebacker, we just block straight ahead, strict zone blocking. The back has got to hit the hole as fast as he can, no jab step, no hesitation, no looking for an opening. I
t's a little different from Coach Lombardi's standard theory of running to daylight, because with these plays we anticipate the holes. The beauty of the plays is that they're a change of pace; they're just the sort of plays other teams don't expect from us.

  After our workout we watched movies of our last game against the Rams, and I tried to watch me exactly as Merlin Olsen would watch me. I tried to use the mind of a defensive tackle to study myself. I think I know what Merlin'll try to do, and I think I know how I'll stop him.

  When I got home this afternoon I stepped into a headache. I had a whole bunch of tickets for the players' wives, and I've got to straighten out who's going to sit with whom. It's not enough I've got to worry about hurting Merlin Olsen; I've got to worry about hurting people's feelings, too.

  DECEMBER 21

  Coach Lombardi was jolly and jovial in the locker room this morning. He was alive, intensified, bouncing around. It's as though he had been lying dormant for fourteen weeks, just going through the motions to get all that unimportant stuff, all those regular-season games, out of the way.

  Someone in Vietnam, a Packer fan in a foxhole, had sent Vince a smiling Buddha, not a sitting Buddha, but one standing up with his arms stretched over his head and, of course, a large, protruding stomach. The soldier had told Vince that it was good luck to pat the stomach of a smiling Buddha, so Vince passed the statue around the room. It was beautiful to see the looks on some of our big football players' faces while they gently rubbed Buddha's belly. “That's what Fuzzy's going to look like in five years,” Lombardi said. “Or Pitts.” He stopped and smiled, showing all his teeth. “Come to think of it,” Vince said, “that's what Pitts looks like now.”