But now he was fighting for a job in Green Bay, and after the first three exhibition games, he was worried about his prospects. McHan was the only quarterback who hadn't started a game. In fact, he had barely played. Meanwhile, the other three guys had fared well, especially Babe Parilli in San Francisco and Joe Francis in Portland.
McHan had sensed that Lombardi favored him during the early weeks of training camp, but now he feared the coach might ship him back to the Cardinals. The other quarterbacks laughed when he expressed his concern, saying they wished Lombardi liked them as much as he obviously liked McHan. But McHan couldn't help feeling skeptical. His Arkansas and Chicago teams had never been big winners, and years of losing had spawned a negative inner impulse he constantly fought. Being a competitive young man of few words, he didn't always express himself gracefully and had gotten into trouble a few times as a result. He had butted heads with Cardinals owner Walter Wolfner, whom he didn't like or trust, and at Arkansas he complained so much about play selection during spring practice one year that he was moved to defense and told he wouldn't go back to quarterback until he shut up.
But his coaches generally understood that he just wanted to win, and in time, McHan had figured out that he needed to control his emotions and keep his opinions to himself. He shrugged when Bart Starr started the first exhibition game. He shrugged when Parilli started the second game. He felt his temper rising when Francis started the third game and McHan didn't get to play a down, but he didn't complain to Lombardi.
Now, as the Packers prepared for their next game, against the Giants on September 5 in Bangor, Maine, Lombardi approached McHan in the City Stadium locker room after a midweek afternoon practice.
OK, you've got this game, Lamar. Saturday night against the Giants.
Thanks, Coach.
Like to see you do well.
I plan on it.
McHan was pleased to get a chance, but shook his head ruefully as Lombardi walked away, his negative impulse rising. Great. The other guys start against no one and I get the Giants, the best defense in the league.
Maine had never hosted an NFL game, and Bangor city officials rented ten thousand folding chairs and situated them around tiny Garland Street Field to accommodate the crowd. The Packer offense drove crisply on its first possession. Lombardi had spoken to McHan about mixing runs and passes—you can't just cram the ball down the Giants' throats, he said—and McHan heard the coach's voice in his head as he called plays in the huddle. Jim Taylor picked up one first down around left end. Paul Hornung ran up the middle for another. McHan threw to Gary Knafelc for thirteen yards.
On a first down at the New York 28, Hornung slipped out of the backfield and into the middle of the secondary, findi ng an open spot. McHan threw him a strike, and the Golden Boy grabbed the ball and lunged across the goal line for a touchdown. McHan punched the air in triumph as the fans rose from their folding chairs and cheered, but then everyone spotted the flag on the ground—a referee had whistled the Packers for being offside, nullifying the score. A few plays later Hornung lined up for a thirty-two-yard field goal, but it was blocked.
The Packer defense, fortified by Bobby Dillon's return, forced a punt. Dillon had practiced with the team all week and quickly played his way into shape as Lombardi, having grudgingly yielded on the fine issue, made him run extra laps after every practice, just so Dillon knew who was boss. With Emlen Tunnell, back after a broken hand, at one safety spot, and Dillon at the other, the pass defense suddenly looked solid.
On its second possession the Packer offense again drove into New York territory. McHan threw a pass to Steve Meilinger, a veteran reserve tight end, open over the middle. But the ball bounced off Meilinger's hands and into the arms of Giants safety Jim Patton. McHan muttered as he walked off the field. Why do they drop my passes?
After failing to capitalize on those early chances, the Packer offense began to struggle. Rushing plays still gained yardage but penalties and the Giants' pass rush undermined drives. With opposing players bearing down on him, McHan became flustered and missed open receivers. Parilli took over in the second quarter but immediately threw an interception on a sideline route. Starting from the Green Bay 16, the Giants pushed the ball over the goal line in five plays.
The Giant defense clamped down hard after that, yielding little ground. McHan returned to the game but missed more passes (he would end the night with just five completions in fourteen attempts), and Parilli also couldn't move the ball. Meanwhile, the Giants drove eighty-six yards to a touchdown in the third quarter. Lombardi gave Francis a shot in the fourth quarter, and Pineapple Joe moved the offense to four straight first downs with his running and passing. But then he lost a fumble at the New York 14, and the game ended moments later. After scoring sixty-nine points in their two wins on the West Coast, the Packers had been shut out, 14–0.
Lombardi wasn't upset in the locker room; he tended to be in a better mood after losses, for whatever reason. He said he was pleased to see the defense yield so little, and noted that Green Bay rushers had gained 136 yards. "It's been a long time since anyone moved the ball that well on the Giants," he said. "We hit very hard in this ball game. We still have a lot of work to do, but I like how we're moving the ball."
McHan, frustrated by his performance, sat quietly at his locker, his shoulders sagging.
With their exhibition record now even at 2–2, the Packers barnstormed on, flying to North Carolina for their next game, against the Washington Redskins on Saturday night, September 12, at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. They would practice in the outfield of a Class B minor-league baseball park for a week before the game.
This was the fifth straight year in which the Packers had played an exhibition game in Winston-Salem against Washington. The southern site posed no problems for the Redskins, the only NFL team with no black players, as mandated by owner George Preston Marshall. But the Packers' four black players couldn't stay at their team's segregated motel. Unhappy with the situation but unwilling to fight it, Lombardi arranged for Tunnell, Borden, Tim Brown, and A. D. Williams to stay in dorms at North Carolina A&T, an all-black college nearby.
Brown, the youngest of the four, was furious. He railed at Tunnell as they sat up late in the dorm one night.
"This is bullshit. We're supposed to be a team and we can't even stay with our teammates? It's embarrassing. It's not right. It shouldn't be," Brown said.
Tunnell talked him out of making a scene.
"You're right, Timmy, it's bullshit," Tunnell said. "But you might make this team. Don't blow it now. Sit tight. Vince will get things under control here."
Brown kept his mouth shut.
Ray Nitschke joined the team in North Carolina after missing training camp and two-thirds of the exhibition season because of a military-service commitment. Lombardi was unsure of the role he would play. Nitschke had made a strong impression, but not always positively, as a rookie under Scooter McLean. It was hard to say whether he was wilder on or off the field.
Prematurely bald with piercing, close-set eyes and a pointed chin, Nitschke lived on the edge. Raised by his older brothers in a working-class Chicago suburb after his parents died, he ran wild, becoming a drinker and brawler, the human version of a pair of brass knuckles. Openly seething at what he believed was the bad hand he had been dealt in life, he took out his anger on the football field, knocking opponents senseless as a fullback and linebacker in high school and at the University of Illinois.
Jack Vainisi knew he was drafting a headache when he took Nitschke in the third round in 1958, but he couldn't pass up a young man who played a violent game so violently. If Nitschke ever learned how to harness his aggressiveness, he could be a brutal force.
The experiment had not gone well in Nitschke's rookie season. He struggled to master the signals, and when given a chance to play, just ran around hitting people. Unable to supplant starters Tom Bettis, Bill Forester, and Dan Currie, the latter a more polished rookie drafted ahead of hi
m, he took to calling himself the Judge because of all the time he spent on the bench. Lombardi wondered if he would ever mature enough to be helpful.
After the Wednesday practice in Winston-Salem, Lombardi informed Bart Starr that he would start against the Redskins.
"That's great, sir," Starr replied with a smile, his elation obvious. "I look forward to playing well and beating the Redskins."
Starr hadn't played much since the first exhibition game against the Bears. Understanding that the other quarterbacks also needed to play, he had done all he could to impress Lombardi in the mean time, memorizing the playbook, studying hours of film, and brainstorming about when and how to change plays at the line. He loved the coach's clear-eyed, clinical approach and felt it suited him, but he had no idea where he or any of the quarterbacks stood with Lombardi. The coach offered no hints.
Alex Hawkins, the rookie halfback, also was told he would start Saturday, and like Starr, had no idea what to think. His introduction to the NFL had not gone well. Lombardi mostly just yelled at him, it seemed, and while that approach inspired some players, Hawkins had retreated into a shell and performed poorly.
Now, he was being given a chance.
Starr also realized the upcoming game was his chance to prove himself as a starting quarterback. The regular-season opener was in two weeks. Lombardi would be making decisions about jobs soon. Starr asked him for film of the Redskins' defense and watched it at the motel instead of going out to dinner. He hoped he would see something he could take advantage of, a linebacker who gave away a red-dog, or a safety who cheated in one direction. By Saturday night he was confident he could move the ball on the Redskins, who weren't one of the NFL's top teams.
The college stadium was half-full as the game kicked off, with most of the fifteen thousand fans supporting the Redskins, the NFL's southernmost team. A national television audience was watching on ABC, giving fans around the country their first glimpse of Lombardi's rebuilding project.
After the Redskins drove to a touchdown on their first series, the Packers' first series began with Starr kneeling and calling plays in the huddle. He started with a pass. Max McGee dropped it. Then he badly overthrew Taylor, who was open in the left flat. An offside penalty moved the ball farther back, and Starr gave up on the possession, calling for a pitchout to Hawkins on third down. Red-dogging linebackers nailed the rookie for a loss. McGee punted the ball away.
After the Packer defense forced a punt, Starr started the next possession by throwing over the middle to Gary Knafelc, his road roommate, for nineteen yards.
Nice pass.
Nice catch, let's move that ball.
But the drive ended when Taylor lost a fumble, and after the Packer defense got the ball right back, Starr dropped it while scrambling for a first down, and the Redskins recovered. The rash of mistakes infuriated Lombardi. Damn, why can't we hold onto the ball out there?!
Shocking Starr, the coach turned to the bench and hollered, "Francis! Get warmed up, you're going in!" Joe Francis grabbed a ball and started to throw, and Lombardi turned his back on Starr. That was that. Starr was being pulled.
Francis drove the offense into scoring range on his first series and Hornung kicked a short field goal. The Packers were on the board. Francis would stay in the game, Lombardi said. Starr sat down at the end of the bench, wondering if he had played himself off the team. This had been his chance, and he had prepared hard, but things had spiraled in the wrong direction.
Tears welled in his eyes, which he closed as he quietly choked back sobs.
"What in the hell are you so upset about?" a nearby voice sounded.
It was Hawkins, who had also been pulled from the game and was sitting next to him on the bench.
"He ... took me out," Starr stuttered.
"Well, he took me out, too," Hawkins replied.
The rookie knew his time with the Packers was over and he would be cut when the team returned to Wisconsin after this game. (As it turned out, he was waived, then pulled from waivers and traded to Baltimore for a draft pick. "I'll see you around," he told Lombardi, and sure enough, went on to play ten years in the NFL, mostly with the Colts.) Starr, meanwhile, sat and watched Hornung lead the Packers to a 20–13 victory in Winston-Salem. The Golden Boy, adapting to the Frank Gifford role, rushed eight times for forty-nine yards, caught two passes for twenty yards, threw an option pass, and scored every Green Bay point on two touchdowns, two field goals, and two extra points. Francis, unlike Starr, didn't turn the ball over.
On the charter flight back to Green Bay, Starr stared out the window, wondering if he was about to be cut. Lombardi had pledged to keep three quarterbacks, and with McHan more proven, Parilli more experienced, and Francis having a great exhibition season, Starr figured he was in trouble. When Knafelc, sitting next to him, told a joke, he pretended to laugh.
The fall semester at St. Norbert had started, so instead of returning to Green Bay, the Packers set up a final training camp near Milwaukee beginning Sunday, September 13. For the next ten days they would practice at St. John's Academy, a military school, and room at Oakton Manor, a secluded resort on Pewaukee Lake. They would briefly leave camp for their sixth and final exhibition game, against the Pittsburgh Steelers, in Minneapolis, on September 20.
Lombardi invited the players' families to join them at the resort, but he closed the camp to the public, wanting the players to himself with the regular season so close now. The Packers would open their twelve-game league regular-season schedule against the Bears at City Stadium on September 27.
Lombardi's first day at Oakton Manor was busy. He made another trade with Paul Brown, his third since March, sending a draft pick to Cleveland for Henry Jordan, a defensive tackle in his third NFL season. Small but quick, Jordan wasn't starting in Cleveland, but Lombardi immediately penciled him in. With the pass defense more secure now thanks to Bobby Dillon and Emlen Tunnell, the line was Lombardi's chief defensive concern; the Giants and Redskins had combined for more than 250 rushing yards in the past two games. Hopefully Jordan would help.
Next, Lombardi made a big move that rocked the Pewaukee camp—he cut quarterback Babe Parilli. The veteran was enormously popular in the locker room and had played well in his only exhibition start, but in Lombardi's view, Starr was younger and better prepared, McHan more experienced and talented, and Francis a more natural playmaker. Parilli just didn't stand out in any way. Lombardi couldn't envision missing him.
After the coach called in Parilli and gave him the news, word spread quickly through camp. He cut Babe? Are you serious? Starr, though relieved to be spared, was sad for his friend and boyhood idol. Francis, likewise, had admired Parilli as a youngster and couldn't believe he had been kept over the better-known player.
Parilli shook hands with Lombardi and walked away believing he had blown his prospects when he took a dollar off Lombardi in that golf bet at the Oneida Golf and Riding Club back in the spring.
I should have let him win. What was I thinking?
Lombardi still hadn't announced which quarterback would start the regular-season opener, but he had an idea. He had brought in McHan to take control of a murky situation, and the other two quarterbacks had their positive qualities, but McHan was farther along in his career. McHan hadn't done much in the exhibition season, but in the end, he probably gave the Packers their best chance of winning. Starr? He was an ideal backup. Francis? Let's face it, he probably didn't pass well enough to beat top teams such as the Colts or Giants. McHan had started in the league for five years, battled playoff teams, won some games. The choice seemed obvious, actually.
Still, Lombardi started Francis in the sixth and final exhibition game on September 20, rewarding the second-year man for his surprising play. But Francis struggled. The Packer running game was stymied by Pittsburgh's rugged defense on a humid Sunday afternoon, and Francis misfired in must-pass situations, confirming Lombardi's concerns about him.
Starr took over in the second quarter, immediately spot
ted Tim Brown open on a deep route down the middle, and hit the rookie with a strike. Brown dropped what would have been a touchdown, summing up Starr's hard-luck career. But Bobby Layne, the Pittsburgh quarterback, couldn't dent a Packer defense that suddenly didn't seem to have many holes, and the game remained scoreless until just before halftime, when Forrest Gregg cleared an opening that Taylor ran through for a long gain, setting up a Hornung field goal. The Packers led at halftime, 3–0.
McHan took over in the third quarter, and after several stalled drives, hit Lew Carpenter with a short pass in the left flat. Blocks by Norm Masters and Jim Ringo freed the veteran back, and he sprinted fifty-eight yards down the sideline before a Pittsburgh safety brought him down. But Taylor fumbled on the next play, and after the Packer defense held, Tim Brown, having a rough day, fumbled a punt at midfield. The Steelers converted that mistake into a field goal that tied the score early in the fourth quarter.
The fumbles angered Lombardi.
Jimmy Taylor, one more fumble and you're on the bench.
Come on, Brown, you think you're so great. Hold onto the damn ball!
What in the hell is going on here?
He calmed down when McHan led the offense on a long touchdown drive, hitting four passes, including a touchdown throw to Hornung, who drifted into the left flat, beat the defender covering him, and grabbed McHan's tight spiral right at the goal line. Hornung added the extra point to give the Packers a 10–3 lead.
The Steelers then misplayed the ensuing kickoff, the ball bouncing out of bounds at the 1, putting Layne in a seemingly impossible situation. But Layne, thirty-two, was a daredevil who loved a challenge. He led a ninety-nine-yard touchdown drive with his passing and running—and help from Nitschke, whose ill-timed roughing-the-passer penalty negated a fourth-down incompletion deep in Green Bay territory.
That First Season: How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set It on the Path to Glory Page 15