by Jerry Kramer
If Bart comes up to the line of scrimmage and sees the defense set up to stop a 49, he'll call an “automatic”—also known as an “audible”—a signal to change the play. Before he says “hut,” he always calls out two numbers, first a single-digit number, then a double-digit number. If the single-digit number is the same as the snap signal—“two,” in this case—that means he's calling an automatic; the double-digit number that follows is the new play. In this case, if he comes up to the line of scrimmage and says, “Two-46-hut-hut,” I know that the 49 is off, that the new play is a 46, the four back into the six hole, between the left tackle, and the left end, and that, instead of pulling to my right, I have to pull to my left. Then I can either work a double-team with the fullback on the right linebacker or, if I see that the fullback is going to force the linebacker outside, I can cut up through the six hole and block the middle linebacker.
I realize it sounds complicated—it even looks complicated on paper—but after a while it all comes very easily, very naturally. Vince likes to make certain that we do the right thing naturally, that we don't stop to think, that we just react automatically.
We got more than just our plays tonight. We got a lot of hell, too. We'd had a pretty miserable practice this morning. No one felt like wearing pads; everybody looked dead. The Bears like to blitz, to shoot their linebackers, so we had a long blitz drill, practicing our passing attack against blitzing and red-dogging linebackers. The drill is mostly for our offensive backs, getting them to move around to pick up the charging linebackers, so the linemen generally sort of play brother-in-law. The offensive linemen take it a little easy. You don't go ioo percent. You just kind of practice your steps a bit, keep your head up and your feet moving. And the defensive linemen don't really try to get to the quarterback. If they've got you beat, they move back in front of you, so that you don't look too bad. The coaches were taking movies of us today, and we didn't know it. Lombardi saw the movies this afternoon and reviewed them for us tonight. He panned the whole show.
“We are not going to have half-assed performances around here,” he said. “You all looked like a bunch of cows. You're out of your mind if you think you can win like that.” He really got on Lee Roy Caffey for loafing when he was blitzing. “Lee Roy,” he said, “if you cheat on the practice field, you'll cheat in the game. If you cheat in the game, you'll cheat the rest of your life. I'll not have it.” Then he cussed Marvin Fleming up one side and down the other and said he was going to give Marvin one more chance and that if he didn't produce, he was going to trade for a new tight end. Vince is a little hard on Marvin sometimes.
AUGUST 16
More than anything else, I suppose, Lombardi is a psychologist. Maybe a child psychologist. Today he kept telling Bob Hyland, the big rookie, how great he is. “Fantastic, Hyland, fantastic,” he kept saying.
Hyland has come in for a lot of praise from the old man—and only from the old man. Actually, he's made a couple of blocks that were sort of medium, semi-good, and Coach has told him that they're great. Lombardi has a habit of praising the young people when they do anything at all. He was that way with Gillingham last season—everything Gilly did was fantastic—but now he's riding Gilly every day, chewing him, chewing him, chewing him. The courtship is over, the romance is gone, and Gilly's got to work his ass to the ground. The strange thing, and maybe it isn't strange at all, is that Gilly is twice the ballplayer this year that he was last year. He's taken Fuzzy's job away for good.
Vince has always chewed Fuzzy and me pretty hard, and once we stopped and figured out why. First, Vince was an offensive coach before he was a head coach, so he's tougher on the offense. Second, he played the line himself, so he's tougher on linemen. Third, he was a guard, so he's tougher on guards. And fourth, from my own point of view, he was a right guard, so he's tougher on me than on anybody.
In 1959, his first year, he drove me unmercifully during the two-a-days. He called me an old cow one afternoon and said that I was the worst guard he'd ever seen. I'd been working hard, killing myself, and he took all the air out of me. I'd lost seven or eight pounds that day, and when I got into the locker room, I was too drained to take my pads off. I just sat in front of my locker, my helmet off, my head down, wondering what I was doing playing football, being as bad as I was, getting cussed like I was. Vince came in and walked over to me, put his hand on the back of my head, mussed my hair and said, “Son, one of these days you're going to be the greatest guard in the league.” He is a beautiful psychologist. I was ready to go back out to practice for another four hours.
Coach is working some of his psychology on us right now. We were all up for the College All-Star game, really high, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I think Vince is pushing us extra hard now, trying to wear us down, trying to take away our fine edge. He knows you can only hold that edge for a certain length of time. He hasn't been telling us lately what a great team we can be. My suspicion is that he wants to whip us down and keep us down for a few weeks, then bring us back up just before the start of the season.
I'm pushing myself to get ready for the opening of the season. I'm constantly asking Ron Kostelnik, who plays opposite me, “Can you read me? Can you tell what I'm going to do?” I'm striving to keep my stance exactly the same, whether it's a running play coming up or a passing play, whether I'm pulling left or pulling right. I've got a right-handed stance, with my right foot back a bit, and, because of this, I sometimes lose a little speed going to my left. But I don't want to compensate by moving up my right foot, or the tackle'll know which way I'm going. I also concentrate on keeping the same amount of weight on my hands whether it's a running play or a pass. I can't be leaning backwards, giving the tackle a key, indicating a passing play.
The defensive men can pick up little things. When Bill George was playing for the Bears, he used to be amazingly quick off the ball against us, always anticipating the snap, and we finally figured out the problem. Our center, Jim Ringo, would keep his hands slightly loose on the ball, and then, just before the snap, his hands would tighten up. George was reading Ringo's hands and moving when the fingers tightened. Once we caught on, we stopped George pretty quick. Ringo would squeeze the ball one count early, and George would jump offside. After a few penalties, George stopped trying to read Ringo's hands.
You often try to fake men into reading the play wrong. Every once in a while, when I think the defensive man is watching my head, I'll use a head fake. If the play's going to the left, I'll make a quick motion to the right with my head, and the defensive man'll move that way, thinking the play's going in that direction, and then I'll just stand up and shield him. It's a cute little maneuver that saves you a little work, but it doesn't always succeed. I tried it against Pittsburgh the other night and Kortas beat me to the inside. I was a little lazy.
Experience, of course, is a tremendous edge in this game. For instance, on a 42-trap, four back through the two hole, just to the left of the center, I have to pull out and trap the right end. A rookie would just think to himself, Pull, trap right end. But suppose I was up against a guy like Doug Atkins, who used to be with the Bears. I knew that Doug had a funny way of dropping his left shoulder into a trap block and twisting his body, trying to go under a trap. So on a 42 I'd automatically think, Pull, trap Atkins, use inside-out position, get low to meet his left shoulder, go like hell.
Our whole running game is built around Coach Lombardi's theory of running to daylight. Except on special plays, you don't have any predetermined place to take the man you're blocking. You just take him where he wants to go. If he wants to go inside, I'll drive him inside, and the back runs outside. If he wants to go outside, I'll drive him outside, and the back runs inside. If he doesn't want to go either direction, I'll just stand there and meet him, put my head in his chest and keep my feet moving, and when he reaches for the ballcarrier, as he inevitably must do, I push him backwards as hard as I can. It's a simple game, really.
AUGUST 17
We took
two chartered buses today from Green Bay to Milwaukee, after our morning workout, and on the way down, while we were playing cards, I happened to rub the scars on my forehead. I'd forgotten all about them. I got the scars originally about a month ago, from that first nutcracker drill, from bumping up against Ron Kostelnik and Bob Brown, and once the head is skinned, it becomes more susceptible to getting skinned again. I took another chunk out of it just two days ago, and I know I'm going to have to live with it all season. Once the season's over, and I stop wearing a helmet, it'll heal up in about three or four days. But during the season, we wear our helmets at least three days a week, usually Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so the wound never gets a chance to heal fully.
I hate my helmet. I've always hated it, I guess. You'd imagine that a person would become accustomed to wearing a helmet after eighteen years of football, but I've never really learned to live with it. After every offensive play of every game I play, I immediately undo the chin strap to my helmet. I used to take off my helmet between plays whenever I got really tired. It seemed to be the only way I could breathe. I'm sure it was all in my head, not in my lungs, but I still take the helmet off at every opportunity, for a time-out or a measurement or anything.
I'm not going to throw away my helmet, though, because it's a good weapon, probably the best weapon I've got. When I get mad at somebody—maybe the defensive tackle's been clubbing me with his forearm—I use my helmet on him. I hit him with the helmet high on his chest, then slide up into his chin. Of course, I'll hit him with a forearm too, if I think that'll be effective.
It seems that the longer you play the less equipment you wear. I stopped wearing rib pads in college, but my rookie year in Green Bay I wore knee pads, thigh pads, and hip pads. During the next few years, I threw away the hip pads and changed to smaller knee and thigh pads, and then I started slimming down the size of my shoulder pads. I don't use my shoulders that much, anyway; at least I shouldn't use them much on a block. You hit with your head first and then sort of slide off on your shoulders. About five, six years ago, I found a beautiful pair of light shoulder pads—discarded by some halfback, I think—and I wore them for three or four years till Dad Braisher, the equipment man, gave them away to a high school team. He was ashamed of them, but I was furious. I had to find a new pair, a stiff pair, and it took me a long time to break them in so that they didn't choke my size-19 neck.
AUGUST 18
I had a busy, profitable morning. I got up around a quarter to ten after a good night's sleep, ate breakfast, then visited the local RCA-Victor distributor, who gave me a color-TV set because I'd made a commercial for him. I also picked up a color-TV set for Don Chandler, a stereo set for Ron Kostelnik, and stereotape recorders for Max McGee and Donny Anderson, all at bargain prices. When I got back to the hotel I chatted with the local Lincoln-Mercury dealer, who gave me a real fine price on my Lincoln last year because I'd made a commercial for him, and we talked about another commercial. Then I went over to McNeil-Moore's clothing store and picked out part of the $500 wardrobe that they're giving me to wear on my weekly TV show. Finally, I hustled up eight tickets to the game for the sales manager of my archery company to give out to a few of our customers. About three o'clock I lay down and rested for an hour.
The game itself was less rewarding. Frank Cornish was strong, awfully strong, and he was ready for me. I think he remembered the way I popped him last year and he wanted to get even. He pushed me around quite a bit. The whole Chicago defense was rough, and we didn't score a touchdown until halfway through the last quarter. Up till then, my roommate was our total offense. Don kicked three field goals in four tries, one of them from 45 yards out, and Ron Kostelnik made an end-zone tackle, so that we were ahead 11-0 when we finally did get a touchdown. The game ended 18-0, and I was happy to get out alive. We never did get our running attack going; we gained only 65 yards rushing all night.
Coach Lombardi, naturally, had an appropriate comment after the game. “We stunk up the joint on offense,” he said.
AUGUST 19
Right near the end of the game last night, Lionel Aldridge, a quiet, sort of dignified guy—surprisingly, he gets so emotional before every game that he gets sick to his stomach—who plays defensive end for us, hurt his ankle and limped off the field. I walked over to Lionel and said, “You all right, kid?” He said, “Yeah, I think so. It's in the ankle. I don't think there's anything wrong, but I can feel something moving around in there.” He didn't seem to be in much pain. He stood on the sidelines and watched the last few minutes of the game.
This morning we found out that Lionel has a broken leg, just above the ankle. He's going to be in a cast for six weeks, and big Bob Brown, a shy boy with a high, squeaky laugh, as though he isn't used to laughing, is going to take Lionel's place in the defensive line. Bob's strong, maybe the strongest individual on the club, but Lionel's absence has got to hurt us.
AUGUST 20
I've been thinking about the way I feel about my teammates, and I've found something that expresses it. It's from The Madman, by Kahlil Gibran, who wrote The Prophet, and it's called “My Friend”:
My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear. … The “I” in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence … my words are naught but thy own thoughts in sound and my deeds thy own hopes in action.
When thou sayest, “The wind bloweth eastward,” I say, “Aye, it doth blow eastward;” for I would not have thee know that my mind doth not dwell upon the wind, but upon the sea. …
When it is day with thee, my friend, it is night with me; yet even then I speak of the noontide that dances upon the hills and of the purple shadow that steals its way across the valley….
When thou ascendest to thy Heaven, I descend to my Hell—even then thou callest to me across the unbridgeable gulf, “My companion, my comrade,” and I call back to thee, “My comrade, my companion”—for I would not have thee see my Hell. …
My friend, thou are not my friend, but how shall I make thee understand? My path is not thy path, yet together we walk, hand in hand.
I may be missing Gibran's point, or part of it, but somewhere, mixed in all those words, is what I feel about our team. We're all different. We all have our own interests, our own preferences, and yet we all go down the same road, hand in hand. Maybe, ultimately, we're not really friends, but what I mean is that no individual on this club will go directly against another individual's feelings, no matter what his own opinion is. No one ever gets into an absolutely contrary position. At the worst, if someone disagrees with someone else, he'll just say, “Well, whatever you say…”
We're all moving in one direction, and that direction is the world championship, the third straight world championship. There's no friction, no division into cliques. Certainly we have different groups—the swingers, the family men, the extremely religious young men—but everyone respects everyone else's feelings. Carroll Dale, our flanker, probably hasn't had a beer in ten years. He's like Bart; he's practically a saint. But he doesn't climb up on a soap box and try to change anyone else. He just says, “No, I'd rather not have a beer.” He has no holier-than-thou attitude. I guess it all comes down to consideration, or maybe it's what Coach Lombardi last year called love, the love we have on our team.
AUGUST 21
When Coach Lombardi informed us one day last week that come Monday we were going to start the big push, everybody almost fell out of their chairs. We thought we'd been killing ourselves up till then. But Vince wasn't kidding. Today we started the big push.
We've been having trouble offensively with the timing be- tween the backs and the line. We've been a little ragged. With Jim Grabowski and Ben Wilson alternating at fullback, we just haven't been marching to the same music all the time. So this morning we started with basics again. We started running the 36 play, which is an off-tackle play that Jimmy Taylor used to run extremely well. It's a simple play, all zone blocking, all one-on-one blocking on the left side of the line. The h
alfback will block on the linebacker, and the fullback will cut either inside the linebacker or outside, depending on the direction of the block, just run for daylight. We ran that same play fifty times this morning.
Lombardi ran us and ran us and ran us. He chewed everybody, even Lionel Aldridge, who was working out on the weight machines just two days after his broken leg was put in a cast. Vince takes injuries as personal insults. He had us wearing pads, which is very unusual for a Monday. Travis Williams, the rookie from Arizona State who has run the 100 in 9.3 seconds, was really struggling. He's nervous and he's pressing too hard. He fumbled the ball two or three times today, and finally Coach told him to pick up the ball and carry it with him everywhere he goes. “Take it to the showers, take it to meals, take it to meetings,” Vince shouted. “And maybe you'll learn how to hold onto the damned thing.”
AUGUST 22
The first of a series of two articles by Vince Lombardi came out in Look magazine yesterday, touching off a small storm. Vince wrote about the board of directors of the Packers not being properly appreciative, not giving him a vote of congratulations for winning the Super Bowl, and about the wives of the players not being properly appreciative, either. He told how he gave the wives mink stoles when we won the title in 1961, and all of them wrote thank-you notes. He gave them color-TV sets when we won the title in 1962, and most of them sent notes. Then he gave them silver tea sets when we won the title last year, and only three or four of them responded.