Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer

by Jerry Kramer

  “Damn,” said Gilly. “That's the first time I ever got chewed out for a block before I got a chance to make it.”

  Most of the time, Vince was in a good, cheerleading mood. He kept smacking his hand and saying, “We're ready, we're ready.” And he kept looking to Paul Hornung, who watched the whole practice, for his approval. Paul was having fun. He asked Max, “What kind of year have you had?” And Max said, “Coach Schnelker and I have had about the same kind of year. We've both kept real warm and haven't had too much contact.”

  After the workout we watched movies of our 1966 championship game with Dallas and half of their game with Cleveland. Everybody still seems to have that confident feeling, no tightness, no real strain. Chandler's a little concerned, and so am I. The guys can't possibly be thinking of anything but the game. I know I can't think of anything else.

  I'm not daydreaming about Jethro Pugh, the way I did about Merlin Olsen. My thoughts are of a more precise nature: What am I going to do on pass protection? Head up, keep moving, keep his hands off me.

  I noticed something about Jethro in the movies today and I mentioned it to Lombardi when we were talking about our goal-line plays. “Pugh's high, Coach,” I said. “He doesn't get down. He doesn't bury himself the way Bob Lilly”—their other tackle— “does. If we're gonna wedge, we should wedge Pugh.”

  I'm thinking about Jethro all the time. This morning, in fact, I started calling my wife Jethro. “C'mon, Jethro,” I yelled at Barbara. “Get me breakfast, Jethro. Get me my coat, Jethro. Get me my car keys, Jethro.” I don't know if it's going to help me much Sunday, but it's kind of fun today.

  DECEMBER 30

  The tension really hit me last night. I went to bed at 6:15, slept a few minutes, woke up, slept, woke up, slept, woke up, finally had to take two sleeping pills, a little one, then a big one, to knock me out. I had a wild dream about the game. I dreamt I suffered a concussion and woke up three days after the game and asked who won, and my daughter, Diane, said we won, 60-4, and Barbara said we lost, 17-7. And then I started remembering the game, and Dick Modzelewski, the old Cleveland tackle who hasn't played in years, was opposite me, and he and Forrest Gregg started fighting over a fumble. They both bobbled it, and I recovered the ball, and something hit me, and I staggered off the field and asked someone, “Who's the coach?” Then I told the coach that I didn't feel I should continue to play.

  I've never had a dream quite that wild. I don't know how Dick Modzelewski got in there, and I never heard of a game anywhere ending with a score like 60-4.

  We played a world championship volleyball game this morning, and we used a real volleyball for the first time all year. My team, the Cicero Sissies, was beating the King Ranch Bullies 5-4 when the commissioner, Tom Brown, made an extremely bad call. The call totally demoralized our team and we lost, 9-6. We filed a protest against the commissioner with the commissioner, but we don't expect it to be acted upon favorably.

  I suggested to Coach Lombardi that we have Paul Hornung sit on our bench tomorrow. I said it would help the team and make us play better. Vince said he'd check to see if it was OK with the commissioner. He meant Pete Rozelle, the commissioner of the National Football League, not Tom Brown.

  Just before we left the field today, Coach Lombardi gave us a brief talk. He simply said that this is for the NFL championship and that we all know what it means. I know. The championship game was the biggest game of my life the first time I played in it, and the second time, and the third time. This is the sixth one for me—the ninth one for Don Chandler—and the more you play in it, the more you realize how much it means, especially if you lose. We lost the title game to Philadelphia in i960 and the defeat obsessed me for the next six months. I thought about it almost every night. Over and over and over, I kept seeing a play I had blown. I had one of the most miserable winters of my life.

  The Cowboys have just gone through a terrible winter remembering the game they lost to us. I was in Dallas last spring to set up their participation in the portrait program, and I visited Bob Lilly and his wife. She didn't know quite what to think of me. She was still hating the Green Bay Packers. To break the strain—or maybe to increase it—I said, “Katsy, if you like, I could leave this package of Green Bay Packer portraits with you. Maybe you'd like to put them up around the house.” She wasn't too amused. “I've heard enough about the Green Bay Packers,” she said. “That's all I've heard all winter.” When I left the Lillys' house, Katsy Lilly said, “We'll see you in Green Bay in December.”

  I guess she's here for the game.

  I thought I wasn't too nervous today, but when I got home this afternoon, I discovered that, in the dressing room, I'd put my shorts on backwards.

  DECEMBER 31

  When I woke up this morning, after a good night's sleep, I knew it was cold. “It must be 10 below zero,” I told Barbara. I thought I was kidding.

  During breakfast, I found out the temperature was 16 degrees below zero, the coldest December 31 st in Green Bay history, and I started to shiver. Still, I figured it would warm up a little by noon. It warmed all the way up to 13 below by game time.

  Chandler and I bundled up driving over to the stadium and we didn't realize quite how bitter the cold was. As we ran into the dressing room we saw a helicopter hovering over the stadium, blowing snow off the seats.

  When I got inside and began dressing, Gilly came over to me and said, “You gonna wear gloves?”

  I hadn't thought of it. I'd never worn gloves before in a football game. I was about to say no, and then I thought, “Who the hell am I kidding? I don't use my hands out there.”

  “Hell, yeah,” I told Gilly.

  Maybe, if it were 5 above zero or 10 above, I would have passed up the gloves and tried to psych the Cowboys into thinking that the cold wasn't bothering me. But at 13 below I wasn't going to be psyching anyone. Everybody in the whole United States was going to know I was cold.

  Gilly, Forrest, Ski, and I—the interior linemen—got gloves from Dad Braisher, the equipment manager. We're the only ones who don't have to use our hands in a game. We decided we'd wear the gloves outside to loosen up and see if we needed them for the game.

  “With this cold,” Ron Kostelnik mentioned to me, “it's gonna hamper us on defense. We won't be able to grab, to use our hands too well. You won't have to be afraid of popping people, Jerry. They won't be able to throw you with their hands.” The thought warmed me up slightly.

  We got dressed in our long stockings and our silk pants, and when we stepped out on the field—I was wearing my thermal underwear, but only knee-length and elbow-length, so that it wouldn't restrict my mobility—icy blasts just shot right up our skirts. It took Gilly and Forrest and Ski and me about three seconds to decide we'd keep on the gloves. “Hell, let's get another pair,” I told Gilly.

  I looked over at the Dallas Cowboys and I almost felt sorry for them. As bad as the cold was for us, it had to be worse for them. We were freezing, and they were dying. They were all hunched over, rubbing their hands, moving their legs up and down, trying to persuade themselves that they weren't insane to be playing football in this ridiculous weather.

  We kicked off, and our defense held, and when I came out on the field for the first time we had the ball around our own 20-yard line. Bart started right off with the 41-special, the new play we'd put in for the Cowboys. Gilly pulled out to his right, faking Lee Roy Jordan, the middle linebacker, into thinking the play was going that way, and Bob Hyland blocked on Gilly's man and I blocked on Jethro Pugh, and Chuck Mercein, at fullback, leading Donny Anderson into the line, blocked Lee Roy Jordan trying to recover. The play worked just the way we hoped it would. Donny picked up five yards before he got hit. He fumbled, which wasn't part of our plan, but Mercein recovered for us. With Bart calling that 41-special a couple of times, and with the aid of a few penalties, we marched all the way down the field for a touchdown. Bart passed to Dowler in the end zone, and, midway through the first period, we were leading 7-0.

>   The cold was incredible, cutting right through us, turning each slight collision into a major disaster, but, for me, the footing on the field wasn't too bad. The ground was hard, but by putting most of my weight on my toes, I could dig in and get a foothold. I handled Jethro pretty well, popping him more than I would under normal conditions, keeping his cold hands away from me, moving him on running plays and checking him on passing plays. We didn't say a word to each other; even if we'd had anything to say, it was too cold to talk.

  The only conversation I had all day was with Lee Roy Jordan. When we tried a screen pass, Bob Lilly or one of their linemen read the play and grabbed the back, the intended receiver, by the jersey. Bart had no one to throw to. “Look, he's holding, he's hold- ing,” I screamed at the referee. But the referee didn't see the infraction, and Jordan smiled and said to me, “He wasn't holding, Jerry. Your guy just slipped and fell down, and we were just helping him up.”

  We had more conversation on our own bench, mostly over who'd get the good seats by the warmer. Hornung usually had one of them; the commissioner had said he could sit on our bench. At one point, the warmer ran out of fuel and started to smoke, and we all jumped off the bench. Another time, Donny Anderson was sitting on the bench freezing, and he saw the CBS sidelines microphone, sponge-covered to kill the wind sound, dangling in front of him. He reached up and put his hands around the microphone, thinking it was some new kind of heater.

  Early in the second quarter, when we had the ball on a third-and-one situation just past midfield, Bart crossed up the Dallas defense, faded back and threw a long touchdown pass, again to Dowler. We were ahead 14-0, and I felt warmer. I was only worried about our tendency to let up when we get a few touchdowns ahead.

  Less than a minute later, Herb Adderley intercepted one of Don Meredith's passes and returned the ball almost to the Cowboys' 30-yard line. If we can get this one now, I thought, we can forget it, the game's over, the whole thing's over. I had a beautiful feeling about the ball game—until we didn't score. Bart lost some yardage eating the ball when he couldn't find an open receiver, and we had to punt. I felt frustrated, terribly let down. I'd been so certain that we were going to get at least something, at least a field goal.

  Then, late in the second period, deep in our own territory, again Bart faded to pass and again he couldn't get rid of the ball, and Willie Townes, their big defensive end, hit Bart and knocked the ball loose, and George Andrie, their other defensive end, swooped in and picked up the ball and charged to the end zone for a touchdown.

  Forrest Gregg tackled Andrie just as he crossed the goal line, and I was only a step or two behind Forrest, and I suddenly felt the greatest desire to put both my cleats right on Andrie's spinal cord and break it. We had been victimized by these stupid plays— scooped-up fumbles, deflected passes, blocked kicks, high-school tricks—so many times during the season that I felt murderous. I'd never in my career deliberately stepped on a guy, but I was so tempted to destroy Andrie, to take everything out on him, that I almost did it. A bunch of thoughts raced through my mind—I'd met Andrie off the field a few times and I kind of liked him—and, at the last moment, I let up and stepped over him.

  We couldn't do a thing when we got the ball—Jethro caught Bart for a loss one time, but I thought I'd checked him long enough; I thought Bart held the ball too long—and they took over again and added a field goal, and so, at the half, instead of leading 17-0 or 21-0 or something like that, we were barely in front, 14-10.

  Ray Wietecha chewed us out pretty good between the halves. “One guy's giving the quarterback all the trouble,” he told us. “One guy. C'mon. Don't let up out there. There's a lot of money riding. Get tough, dammit, get tough.” Ray didn't mention any names, but we all knew that Ski was having a lot of trouble with Andrie, that Andrie was doing most of the damage.

  We just couldn't get unwound in the third quarter. I still felt I had Jethro under control, but he caught Bart two more times, not back deep, but out of the pocket, after Bart had had enough time to throw if he could have found anyone open. The ends were having trouble cutting. On the first play of the last quarter, they used the halfback-option—an old favorite play of ours—and Dan Reeves passed 50 yards for a touchdown. We were losing, 17-14, and the wind was whipping us, too.

  Five minutes later, my roommate was wide with an attempted field goal, and when the ball sailed by to the left I had a little sinking feeling, a little fear that the clock might run out on us. I thought maybe the time had come for us to lose. Dallas controlled the ball for about ten plays, staying on the ground as much as they could, eating up the clock, and all the time my frustration built up, my eagerness to get back on the field, to have another chance to score.

  With five minutes to go, we got the ball on our own 32-yard line, and, right away, Bart threw a little pass out to Anderson and Andy picked up five, six yards. The linebackers were laying back; they were having trouble with their footing, trouble cutting. Chuck Mercein ran for the first down, and then Bart hit Dowler for another first down, and we were inside Dallas territory. I began to feel we were going to make it, we were going to go for a touchdown. At the worst, I figured we'd go down swinging.

  On first down, Willie Townes got through and caught Andy for a big loss, and we had second and about twenty. But Bart capitalized on the Dallas linebackers' difficulties getting traction. Twice, with the ends still having problems with their footing, he threw safety-valve passes to Anderson and twice Andy went for about ten yards, and we had a first down on the Dallas 30, and I could feel the excitement building in the huddle. But we had only a minute and a half to play. Bart passed out to Mercein on the left and Chuck carried the ball down to the Dallas eleven. I walked back to the huddle, wondering what Bart was going to call, and he called a give-65, and I thought, “What a perfect call. We haven't used it all day. What a smart call.”

  It's a potentially dangerous play, a give-65. We block as though we're going through the “five” hole, outside me. Gilly pulls and comes over my way, and everything depends on the tackle in front of him, Bob Lilly, taking the fake and moving to his left. The play can't work against a slow, dumb tackle; it can only work against a quick, intelligent tackle like Lilly. We figured Lilly would key on Gilly and follow his move, but we didn't know for sure. Everybody blocks my way on this play, Anderson coming for the hole as though he's carrying the ball, and nobody blocks the actual target area, Lilly's area. If Lilly doesn't take the fake, if he ignores Gilly pulling, he kills the actual ballcarrier, Mercein.

  But Lilly followed Gillingham, and the hole opened up, and Chuck drove down to the 3-yard line. With less than a minute to play, Anderson plunged for a first down on the one, and, with only two time-outs left, we huddled quickly. “Run over there,” Gilly said, in the huddle. “Run that 55-special. They can't stop that.”

  Bart called the 55, and I thought to myself, “Well, this is it, toad. They're putting it directly on your back, yours and Forrest's.” I didn't make a very good block, and the five hole didn't open up, and Andy got stopped at the line of scrimmage. We called a timeout with twenty seconds to play. Then Bart called the same play again, and this time Andy slipped coming through the hole—I don't know whether he could have gotten through—and slid to about the one-foot line, and we called time-out with sixteen seconds to play, our last time-out, and everybody in the place was screaming.

  We could have gone for the field goal right then, for a tie, hoping that we'd win in overtime. We decided to go for the victory. In the huddle, Bart said, “Thirty-one wedge and I'll carry the ball.” He was going to try a quarterback sneak. He wasn't going to take a chance on a handoff, or on anybody slipping. He was going to go for the hole just inside me, just off my left shoulder. Kenny Bowman, who had finally worked his way back to the lineup, and I were supposed to move big Jethro out of the way. It might be the last play of the game, our last chance.

  The ground was giving me trouble, the footing was bad down near the goal line, but I dug my cleat
s in, got a firm hold with my right foot, and we got down in position, and Bart called the “hut” signal. Jethro was on my inside shoulder, my left shoulder. I came off the ball as fast as I ever have in my life. I came off the ball as fast as anyone could. In fact, I wouldn't swear that I didn't beat the center's snap by a fraction of a second. I wouldn't swear that I wasn't actually offside on the play.

  I slammed into Jethro hard. All he had time to do was raise his left arm. He didn't even get it up all the way and I charged into him. His body was a little high, the way we'd noticed in the movies, and, with Bowman's help, I moved him outside. Willie Townes, next to Jethro, was down low, very low. He was supposed to come in low and close to the middle. He was low, but he didn't close. He might have filled the hole, but he didn't, and Bart churned into the opening and stretched and fell and landed over the goal line. It was the most beautiful sight in the world, seeing Bart lying next to me and seeing the referee in front of me, his arms over his head, signaling the touchdown. There were thirteen seconds to play.

  The fans poured on the field, engulfing us, engulfing the Cowboys, pummeling all of us. Chuck Howley, the Dallas linebacker, got knocked down three or four times accidentally, and he was furious. I had to fight my way through the crowds to the sidelines; Bart came off the field looking like he was crying, and he probably was. The Cowboys still had time to get off two plays, two incomplete passes, and the game was over. I tried to get to the dressing room quickly, but I got caught around the 30-yard line, trapped in a mass of people beating me on the back, grabbing at my chin strap, grabbing at my gloves, trying to get anything for a souvenir. I had a sudden moment of panic, wondering whether I was ever going to get out of that mess alive.

  Finally I reached the dressing room and I was immediately aware that the whole place was wired for sound. Cameramen and cameras were all around, and Coach Lombardi cussed the cameramen and ordered them, flatly, to get the hell out. When we were alone, just the team and the coaches, Vince told us how proud he was of us. “I can't talk anymore,” he said. “I can't say anymore.” He held the tears back and we all kneeled and said the Lord's Prayer, and then we exploded, with shouts of joy and excitement, the marks of battle, the cuts, the bruises, and the blood, all forgotten.