The offer startled and flattered Lombardi, and it certainly interested Marie, who had successfully put down roots in Green Bay but would rather live in New York.
But Lombardi didn't feel right about leaving.
"I haven't fulfilled my obligation to the people in Green Bay," he told Mara.
Mara asked him to think about it. Lombardi did, as he settled into his off-season routine in Green Bay, and then called Mara again.
"I would really be running out on these people if I left," Lombardi said.
Irritated, Mara talked Howell into staying on as the Giants' head coach.
Turning down a return to the Giants irrefutably marked Lombardi as a Packer. And that was fine with him. In January he moved his family into their new house on Sunset Road in Allouez. Every morning he pulled out of his driveway and drove downtown to the Packers' Washington Street offices. He graded film with his assistants, and also put on his GM's hat, talked to other teams about trades, and sent contract offers to his veterans for the 1960 season.
He was settled in Green Bay, had plenty of friends, a busy social life, a church that suited him, a regular golf game—and a healthy salary. He had complete control of the Packers, the executive committee having made good on its pledge to step back. The fans were supportive, the press largely benign. He would have to get past Unitas and the Colts in the Western Division if he wanted to win a championship, but he didn't have to deal with the Browns and Giants, two tough Eastern Division teams who showed no signs of faltering.
And most importantly, to his surprise, he had plenty of material to work with, much more than he thought when he took the job, sat down in his office, and watched those miserable 1958 game films. That had been a depressing experience, almost frightening, but it convinced him to go with his instinct, take a tough stand, and force players to measure up to higher standards on and off the field. He figured he would lose some guys with that approach, but the Packers couldn't become winners again until they regained their self-respect, he thought, so he had to find out who was willing to endure that difficult transformation. By the end of the season, the players had done so and were performing better than they probably ever imagined possible.
Sitting in his office in February 1960, as snow fell outside, Lombardi was excited about what lay ahead. His defense was already respectable and could become dominant if Lombardi found more speed for it. And the offense had just devastated opponents near the end of the season; it was going to pose a real challenge for opposing teams from now on. The line was still young and almost certain to improve. Hornung had found a home at halfback. Taylor, when healthy, had run like a star fullback. Dowler was a genuine long-ball threat. And what could you say about Starr? The young man had played like a Pro Bowl quarterback in the final weeks. Lombardi had underestimated him, plain and simple. Starr had run the offense brilliantly, thrown terrific passes, and exhibited real leadership, even telling his teammates to shut up and listen.
There was no telling what would happen now at quarterback. McHan hadn't really done anything to lose the number one job; he had played relatively well early in the season, gotten injured, and then just couldn't get back on the field. But he was a competitor and hopefully would come back determined to regain the job. Lombardi smiled; it was nice knowing he had two decent quarterbacks. That was two more than he had thought he had a year earlier.
But there was no doubt Starr would work harder than anyone in the off-season, throw more passes, study more film, and come back determined to play even better. He might be hard to deny. Lombardi couldn't stop thinking about how the season ended, with Starr resembling a savvy symphony conductor as he led the offense to those crushing wins over the Rams and 49ers. Watching those games, Lombardi had begun to think he might have something going here—something quite good. The Packers still needed help in places, but they had started rolling over opponents, and with Lombardi determined to keep pushing them to improve, they might just roll right into contention for division titles and league championships—starting now.
Heh. We're going to show 'em how the Green Bay Pack-ahs do it. We're going to knock 'em on their asses. A year later, in January 1961, Mara again tried to lure Lombardi back to New York after Howell retired, this time unequivocally, but by then Lombardi's position in Green Bay had further solidified. His second season had ended with the Packers playing in the NFL championship game. They were a rising power, Lombardi entrenched as their leader.
He didn't take Mara's offer seriously. Big things were about to happen in Green Bay, he thought. He was sure of it. And he was right.
Epilogue
Almost a half century later, in 2008, Fuzzy Thurston, then a seventy-five-year-old Wisconsin legend, recalled the good feelings that swept through the Packer locker room toward the end of the 1959 season.
"We realized that we were going to be good," he said. "We knew what was about to happen. Maybe we didn't know that we would win as much as we did for as long as we did, but we knew we were going to be a very good team. Lombardi just wasn't going to stand for anything less. We didn't like him as a person. Damn, he was impossible. But we loved him as a coach. We hated the way he treated us, but we were glad we had him. He was going to make us special."
With their fans dreaming of a division title and ignoring Lombardi's warning not to get excited, the Packers opened the 1960 season against the Bears at City Stadium. The stands were packed and noisy, and it seemed the 1959 season had never ended as the Packers built a 14–0 lead during the first three quarters. The offense was unchanged, with Taylor and Hornung running hard behind Ringo, Kramer, Gregg, Thurston, Masters, and Skoronski, and Starr throwing to Dowler and McGee. The defense had two new starters: end Willie Davis, obtained from Cleveland in a trade (now three of Lombardi's four starting defensive linemen had come from the Browns), and cornerback John Symank, replacing Bobby Dillon, who had retired again, this time permanently.
But the Bears shocked the Packers and the crowd by scoring seventeen points in the fourth quarter to pull out the win. That night, McHan, who had been beaten out by Starr in training camp, cornered Lombardi at a restaurant and complained that the team couldn't afford to lose such games, saying he could make a difference. Impressed with McHan's fire, Lombardi started him over Starr the next week. McHan played well in a victory over Detroit and continued to shine as the Packers defeated the Colts and 49ers. McHan appeared to have taken the number one job back.
But when McHan struggled against Pittsburgh in the Packers' first road game of the season, Lombardi yanked him and Starr pulled out a tough win.
"Lamar was a real good football player but didn't handle adversity as well as Bart," Boyd Dowler recalled in 2008. "If things got bad, his head went down. If a coach fussed at him, it bothered him. He was talented but a little fragile."
Lombardi called Starr into his office the next day and said he had made a mistake by waffling between quarterbacks. "You're the starter from now on, no matter what happens," Lombardi said.
That proclamation was immediately tested when Starr struggled as the Packers lost three of their next four games, dropping their record to 5–4 with three games remaining. Then Starr and Lombardi had a confrontation that forever changed the team.
"One day in practice, a pass was deflected and intercepted, and he was all over me," Starr recalled. "After the drill I said, 'Coach, may I see you in your office when we get inside?' He said sure. When we went inside I very respectfully told him, 'If I am going to be the leader, you can't chew my ass out in front of the whole team. Do it all you want in here, between us, but not in front of the team.' Politely, I said, 'I can take your ass-chewing, that's not a problem, but please do it in here, privately, so I'm not embarrassed, especially when the mistake is not my fault. That ball was tipped out there.' He said, 'All right, I'll do that.' He never said anything to me ever again."
The Packers pulled together. They routed the Bears in Chicago, 41–13, as Jim Taylor, now an offensive centerpiece, rushed for 140 yard
s (on his way to gaining 1,101 for the season); and Paul Hornung scored two touchdowns and kicked two field goals and five conversions (on his way to scoring a league-leading 176 points). Then the Packers shut out the 49ers, 13–0, in a driving rain at Kezar Stadium, as the defense yielded just 81 total yards and never let the 49ers cross midfield.
With the Colts conveniently collapsing (they would end the season with four straight losses), the Packers suddenly just needed to win their last game, against the Rams in Los Angeles, to win the Western Division. The Rams scored first, but then Starr threw touchdown passes of ninety-one and fifty-seven yards to Dowler and Max McGee, and Hornung tossed a forty-yarder to McGee. The win put the Packers into the championship game just two years removed from their 1-10-1 season.
Their opponents were the Philadelphia Eagles, who also had struggled through the 1950s after a period of glory (they had won back-to-back titles in 1948 and 1949), but had risen again, winning the Eastern Division behind thirty-four-year-old quarterback Norm Van Brocklin and thirty-five-year-old Chuck Bednarik, a gritty two-way player. The game was played on Monday, December 26, at Franklin Field in Philadelphia. (The league didn't want to play on Christmas Day.) The Packers converted a pair of early turnovers into field goals, and then the Eagles went ahead when Van Brocklin threw a touchdown pass. Trailing 10–6 for much of the second half, the Packers controlled the ball and finally went ahead when Starr led a drive midway through the fourth quarter. His touchdown pass to McGee put the Packers up, 13–10. The title was within their reach.
But the Eagles had pulled off six come-from-behind wins during the season, and they came through again. Ted Dean returned the kickoff fifty-eight yards and Van Brocklin led a touchdown drive, Dean scoring on a five-yard run with 5:21 left.
Down by four points, Starr led a dramatic final drive as the clock ticked down, reaching the Philadelphia 22 with eight seconds left. Taylor caught a pass from Starr and ran to the 8 before being tackled by Bednarik, who sat on Taylor to make sure the Packers didn't have time for another play. The Eagles had won.
"Perhaps you didn't realize you could have won this game," Lombardi told the players. "But I think there's no doubt in your minds now. That's why you'll win it all next year. This will never happen again. You'll never lose another championship game."
He was right.
McHan was traded after the 1960 season to the Colts, where, Lombardi knew, he would sit on the bench and not haunt the Packers. McHan backed up Unitas for two seasons and part of a third, and then went to the 49ers, where he started nine games in 1963. His career ended after a brief stint in the Canadian Football League in 1965.
He eventually became a coach and scout, settling near New Orleans and working for the NFL's Saints. He raised a family, went into real estate, and lived happily, according to his wife, Barbara. He died of a heart attack in 1998.
Looking back, it is hard to believe Lombardi originally saw more in him than in Starr, who was later enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But McHan was the better quarterback until the middle of the 1959 season.
"He never talked much about what happened in Green Bay," Barbara McHan said in 2009. "He made some good friends there, but he was quite a competitor so I'm sure it bothered him not to play."
"Pineapple Joe" Francis suffered a broken leg in training camp in 1960. That ended his career with the Packers. He played briefly in Canada, retired, and became a high school teacher and football coach in Hawaii.
"I thought I had a decent game when I went in for McHan that day against the Giants in Yankee Stadium [in 1959], but I didn't win and that was that, I was out of there, never played again," Francis said.
After advancing to the postseason despite losing one-third of their regular-season games in 1960, the Packers made it clear they were the best team in the Western Division in 1961. As NFL schedules expanded to fourteen games, the Packers lost their opener but then won ten of their next eleven games and easily captured a second straight division title. At one point, they won five straight games by at least twenty points.
Their defense seldom yielded. Two brilliant young pass defenders—cornerback Herb Adderley, a first-round pick, and Willie Wood, a second-year safety—made the secondary impregnable. And Ray Nitschke, in an improbable turnaround, learned to control himself on and off the field and become a dominant middle linebacker.
Offensively, there were no more growing pains. Starr efficiently executed Lombardi's plays; the fact that he had not recorded a personal win in his first twenty games as a starter was forgotten. Hornung led the league in scoring for a third straight season and was voted the league's Most Valuable Player. Taylor rushed for 1,307 yards and fifteen touchdowns, and McGee caught fifty-one passes; both made the Pro Bowl. Ron Kramer, his injured knee healed, regained the starting tight-end spot from Knafelc and grabbed thirty-five passes.
In the championship game, played at City Stadium, the Packers obliterated Mara's Giants, 37–0, in a delicious moment for Lombardi.
"He hated not moving the ball forward on a play," Jim Taylor recalled. "So we didn't go for many big strikes like other teams did. For years and years all we did was pick up one first down at a time, move the chains, not make mistakes. It was so simple, but people couldn't stop us because we were so good at it."
In 1962, Lombardi's fourth season, the Packers reached a pinnacle. Their simple power offense and tough defense overwhelmed the rest of the league. They won their first ten games, destroying the Bears 49–0 in early October and beating the Eagles by the same score later. After ending the regular season with a 13–1 record, their only loss coming on Thanksgiving in Detroit, they again defeated the Giants in the championship game, this time by a 16–7 score in icy weather at Yankee Stadium.
Taylor, who rushed for 1,472 yards and nineteen touchdowns during the season, was named the league's MVP.
"He just kept pushing us," Jerry Kramer recalled. "I was having a good time, making All-Pro, winning titles, taking care of business, but I wasn't working as hard as I could. And he just wouldn't relent. One day in practice I jumped offside, and he got his nose about eight inches from mine and said, 'Mister, the average college student can concentrate for five minutes, a high school student can last for three minutes, a child in kindergarten can go thirty seconds, and you don't even have that, so where does that leave you?' He just wouldn't let me go, refused to let me slide. And he was that way with all of us. If you weren't using any part of your talent, he wanted it. He wanted everything. It drove you crazy, and there were a lot of hurts and a lot of pain, but it was all worth it."
Tim Brown had a stellar career after Lombardi cut him. He joined the Eagles, became a top kick returner in 1961, and developed into a big-play halfback, leading the league in all-purpose yardage (rushing, receiving, and returns) in 1962 and 1963. He scored touchdowns rushing (thirty-one), receiving (twenty-six), returning kickoffs (five), and returning punts (one) in his career, and was a three-time Pro Bowl selection.
"After one game when Green Bay came to Franklin Field [in Philadelphia], Lombardi held up the Packer bus specifically to come over and speak to me," Brown recalled. "He was very gracious, said I had really made something of myself in the league, and he was pleased for me. He didn't have to do that."
Brown played ninety-six games for the Eagles, eleven for the Colts (in 1968), and one for the Packers.
"The former Packer players finally talked me into coming back for a reunion," Brown recalled. "They introduced me, and the people in the crowd went 'Ooops!'"
The team had no doubt which player Lombardi liked the most.
"He loved Hornung," Gary Knafelc said. "There was Bart, from a military background, smart, went to church, kept his closet immaculate, ask him a question and get a five-page answer. Hornung partied every night and couldn't care less what was happening, but on Sunday he played football. A little part of Lombardi would have liked to be like that. I really believed that. Lombardi was a good Catholic boy, and Paul was another good Catholi
c boy, but living on the edge."
Hornung's lifestyle caught up with him before the 1963 season when he was suspended by NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle for gambling on games. He missed the entire season and the Packers faltered only slightly, but it was enough to deny them a third straight title. The Bears beat them twice and finished just ahead of them in the division as George Halas coaxed a final great season out of his team at age sixty-nine.
Hornung returned in 1964, but the Packers struggled for the first time under Lombardi, falling to third place in the division with an 8-5-1 record.
Scooter McLean coached the Lions' offensive backs until the middle of the 1963 season, when he was diagnosed with cancer. He died four months later at age forty-eight.
Lombardi's final years on the Green Bay sideline were a grueling valedictory. The Packers faced challenges from the Colts, Browns, and Tom Landry's Cowboys, but they won a succession of unforgettable games. In the 1965 Western Division playoffs, they beat the Colts, 13–10, forcing overtime with a field goal the Colts swore was wide. In the 1966 NFL championship game, they beat the Cowboys, 34–27, saving the game with a last-minute goal-line stand. In the 1967 NFL championship game, they again beat the Cowboys, 21–17, in a game that became known as the Ice Bowl. Playing in Green Bay in subzero temperatures, the Packers trailed late but drove sixty-eight yards to score the winning touchdown.
They also won the first two Super Bowls, routing the champions of the AFL, the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders, in successive years. With pro football's popularity exploding, the Packers were the sport's preeminent team, and little Green Bay was known as Titletown, USA.
Lombardi retired from the Packer sideline after winning Super Bowl II in January 1968. The Packers didn't win another championship for twenty-nine years.
That First Season: How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set It on the Path to Glory Page 29
