Classic Lineup

We can’t get enough of great photos like this one. We’re not definitively sure of the where and when, but these are some Green Bay legends — Jim Taylor (#31), Paul Hornung (#5), Bart Starr (#15), and head coach Vince Lombardi.

1968 Football Preview

The first year of the Phil Bengston Era is previewed in today’s blog post. Vince Lombardi had retired as head coach in February, staying on as general manager while his former defensive coordinator took over with the team. Having won the N.F.L. title in 1967, the Packers grace the cover of this magazine, but the era of championships was over.

This is an article with a general overview of both professional football leagues for the coming year in ’68.

Next, we bring you the four pages of prognostications for Green Bay — post-Lombardi.

This ’n That Saturday

First of all, we apologize to our readers for two missed days this week — one because of general busyness, and last night the start of high school football took over the evening. While we try to blog each and every day here in beautiful downtown Packerville, U.S.A., occasionally time gets away from us.

Today we have some images found in Sports Illustrated’s galleries that are Green Bay-related. Above, new Washington Redskins coach Vince Lombardi poses with his quarterback Sonny Jurgenson.

Packers’ running back Jim Taylor fights for yardage against the 49ers on the cover of Sports Illustrated, September 10, 1962.

The Packer Sweep forms with Elijah Pitts (#22) carrying the ball behind Forrest Gregg (#75) and Fuzzy Thurston (#63).

Linebacker Ray Nitschke (#66) yells instructions to his defensive teammates while awaiting the snap against the Bears in Chicago’s Wrigley Field.

Illustrated had a gallery that featured the best players of all time by jersey number, and we’re pretty sure they could’ve shown Reggie White in a Packers uniform to represent #92. C’mon guys. Did he win a championship while in Philadelphia?

The great Don Hutson makes a fingertip catch in old City Stadium in Green Bay in the 1940’s.

Back in Washington, Vince Lombardi diagrams some football fundamentals on the blackboard for his quarterbacks. They no doubt we’re thinking of the dynasty that he would build around them in the nation’s capitol, but it was not meant to be. Lombardi would die of cancer just a little over a year away in September 1970.

Lastly, in a gallery of undrafted N.F.L. players who went on to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, we found the Packers’ Willie Wood (#24). Wood wrote to teams after college asking for a tryout, and Green Bay gave him one. The rest is history.

We’re Back... in 1960

The time machine takes us back to the summer of 1960 today, when this publication was on the corner newsstand. The Packers were in the second year of the Lombardi Era, and were coming off a 7-5-0 record in ’59 (which was way better than their 1-10-1 record in ’58). On the cover is a scrambling Johnny Unitas of the Baltimore Colts.

Sportswriter/sports cartoonist Murray Olderman wrote up a prediction of each N.F.L. team’s 1960 season.

There were no other Green Bay-related articles in the magazine besides this standard two-page analysis of the team and their roster. The Packers hadn’t done enough to warrant top-caliber team attention, but that would change this very season.

Green Bay would forge an 8-4-0 record in 1960, and travel East to take on the Philadelphia Eagles in the N.F.L. title game. They would lose that contest 17-13, but the championships would come — starting in 1961. Philadelphia would never win another to this day.

Leaving... On a Jet Plane

We have a great photo today showing Green Bay head coach and general manager Vince Lombardi on his way to board the team flight to an out-of-town game on a wintry day in Titletown. The sign in the snow bank refers to the old North Central Airlines, which may have been the team charter (or not — we know they used United later on in the Sixties). This is at the Austin Straubel airport, which is the facility still serving Green Bay and Northeast Wisconsin today.

1962 All-Pro Football

We’ve got another 1962 preseason publication for today, this one being “All-Pro.” Considering the fact that the Packers were defending champions from 1961, and that they beat the New York Giants 37-0 to become champs, this magazine doesn’t give them much attention other than the two-page preview seen below. They even put the Giants on the cover instead of the title winners from Green Bay. Gee, we wonder in which city this was produced and published.

The Packers Outlook in 1964

Here is another 1964 season preview publication, which features Cleveland Browns star Jim Brown on the front cover. His team would prove to be the best in football that year, winning the N.F.L. title.

The magazine had a two-page photo feature on Green Bay running back Paul Hornung, who was returning to the game after serving a one-year suspension for his involvement in gambling.

Here is an analysis of the Green Bay Packers going into the 1964 season, written by the editors of Sport magazine, publishers of the preview magazine.

1969 Falcons Game Program

We have an extended blog entry for today, featuring some of the October 26, 1969 game program when the Atlanta Falcons visited Lambeau Field in Green Bay.

Here is head coach Phil Bengston’s staff of assistants for ’69. which included former Packer players Zeke Bratkowski, Forrest Gregg, and Dave Hanner.

There was a team photo of the 1968 Packers, who finished with a 6-7-1 record in the N.F.L. Central.

This is the first of several pages which displayed photos of your favorite Packer stars of that year.

And here’s the team roster for 1969.

We have the book “The First 50 Years” in the Packerville, U.S.A. archives, but not the LP set that is pictured with it here.

It’s pretty obvious that this Coca-Cola ad is from the year of Woodstock.

More of your Packer stars from the end of the Sixties. Note that Forrest Gregg is listed as a player and coach for the team.

The workhorse of the Ice Bowl of a couple years prior, Chuck Mercein started the 1969 season before he wound up with Vince Lombardi in Washington to end the year. It was Lombardi’s only full season of coaching in the nation’s capitol, as he was stricken with cancer and died in September 1970.

More stars of the Lombardi era hung on in Green Bay, and one wonders how many were kept because of their link to the Glory Years. As with their choice of head coaches after Dan Devine, the Packers were often guided by nostalgia rather than with forward-thinking football acumen.

Don’t forget to tune in to “The Phil Bengston Show,” because in 1969 you couldn’t record it if you weren’t home!

A mixture of more older Packer players than newer stars.

Some information about the people behind the scenes and behind the microphone.

Here’s the entire slate of Packer games and their start times for the season.

Here’s a few more newer members of the Packers’ fraternity.

Enjoy some Peter Piper Pickles when you watch the next Packer game.

Jerry Kramer’s “Instant Replay” was one of the first Packer-related books acquired by the Packerville, U.S.A. archives.

And lastly, when you’re in the market for a new snowmobile to ride the snowy trails of northern Wisconsin, be sure and make it a Mercury... because Fuzzy Thurston told you so!

The Packers beat the Falcons on this day, 28-10.

Outlook for 1969

Joe Namath graced the cover of this particular publication in the summer of 1969, and below are the pages dedicated to the Green Bay Packers. This season would prove to be another difficult post-Lombardi era year for our team, as they would finish with an 8-6-0 record for third place in the N.F.L. Central Division. The years of relative futility had only just begun.