Classic SI Packers Photos

We’re pretty sure that most of our readers wouldn’t have stumbled across this gallery of classic Sports Illustrated photos featuring the Green Bay Packers. So, we’re bringing it to you over here at the Packerville blog. All captions are from the magazine as well. Above, Vince Lombardi shares a moment with Jerry Kramer, who carried the coach off the field after their 33-14 Super Bowl II win against the Raiders. The game marked Lombardi's last as a Packers head coach.

Bart Starr under center during a 1962 game against the San Francisco 49ers.

Jim Ringo (51) and Max McGee (85) sit on the bench during a cold game in Green Bay.

Vince Lombardi patrolled the Green Bay sidelines for nine seasons, leading the Packers to a 9-1 playoff record, three N.F.L. championships and two Super Bowl wins.

Vince Lombardi surprised the wives of the Packers' players with mink stoles after the team won the N.F.L. Championship in 1962.

Teammates (from left) Paul Hornung, Jerry Kramer and Fred Thurston exit the field in 1965.

Lombardi surveys the field during a 1967 game. He compiled an 89-29-4 regular-season record with the Packers.

Two-time Super Bowl champion and Super Bowl MVP quarterback Bart Starr rears back to throw a pass.

Linebacker Ray Nitschke's 66 is one of only five numbers retired by the Packers.

Offensive lineman Forrest Gregg had a Hall-of-Fame career with the Packers and also coached the team from 1984 to 1987.

Lombardi addresses his players during a team meeting.

Bart Starr, pictured here in a 1963 game against the San Francisco 49ers, is the only player to quarterback his team to five N.F.L. Championships.

Former Heisman Trophy winner Paul Hornung played running back, quarterback and place-kicker for the Packers from 1957 to 1966.

Vince Lombardi jokingly participates in a 1962 practice.

Head coach Bart Starr leads his playoff troops through drills before a game against the Chicago Bears in 1963.

Hard-hitting linebacker Ray Nitschke spent 15 seasons with the Packers and won the MVP award in the 1962 N.F.L. Championship Game.

Bart Starr was the 1966 N.F.L. MVP. That year he threw for 14 touchdowns and only three interceptions on his way to the fourth of his five championship wins.

Vince Lombardi and Ray Nitschke during a 1963 game against the Chicago Bears.

Packers quarterback Scott Hunter gets some tips from Starr before a 1972 game.

Hornung, Jim Taylor, Starr and coach Lombardi prepare for Super Bowl I against the Kansas City Chiefs in 1967. Lombardi and Starr won all five of their championships together.

Lombardi made a habit of being carried off the field during his coaching days. Here, Packers players swarm him after the 1961 N.F.L. Championship.

After four Pro Bowl selections and 152 career touchdowns, Bart Starr was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977.

Reggie White's 68.5 sacks as a Packer rank second all time and his 198.5 career sacks is the second best in N.F.L. history.

Brett Favre partakes in a Packers tradition by riding a bicycle to practice with fans during training camp in 1993.

Favre and head coach Mike Holmgren led the Packers to five straight playoff runs from 1994 to 1998. The stretch included two Super Bowl appearances, including a victory in XXXI in 1997.

Brett Favre prepares to exit the tunnel before a 2006 game against the Chicago Bears.

1962 Haystack Gang

Here’s some of the finest players of your 1962 Green Bay Packers squad — which finished 13-1-0, and won the N.F.L. title over the New York Giants. The starting offensive unit (from top to bottom): Ron Kramer (#88), Jim Taylor (#31), Bob Skoronski (#76), Forrest Gregg (#75), Boyd Dowler (#86), Max McGee (#85), Paul Hornung (#5), Jim Ringo (#51), Bart Starr (#15), Fred “Fuzzy” Thurston (#63), and Jerry Kramer (#64).

That First One

Now that the Packers are going back to The Big Game for the first time since the 1997 season, let’s take a look back at the first Super Bowl, which also featured the team from tiny Green Bay, Wis. Above is the game program cover, which we do not have in our archive collection. The programs from those first two games are a bit pricey on the collector’s market.

Before the game, FB Jim Taylor (#31), and QB Bart Starr spend a moment by head coach Vince Lombardi.

LB Ray Nitschke chases Kansas City QB Len Dawson in front of a staggering number of empty seats by today’s standards of the Super Bowl.

HB Elijah Pitts makes some yardage behind his trusty Packer linemen including Forrest Gregg (#75), and Fred “Fuzzy” Thurston (#63).

WR Carroll Dale (#84) makes a catch against Chiefs’ CB Willie Mitchell (#22).

Green Bay star Herb Adderley makes a kickoff return and is stopped by a gaggle of Kansas City defenders. He had two returns of 20 yards each in the game.

YES!!!!!!

New Day in Green Bay

As we post this not too long before the kickoff of the NFC Championship game, we look back to December 1960, when the Packers were positioned to win the Western Conference for the first time in ages. Vince Lombardi was in his second year, and the Packers were gaining some of the first national attention they’d had in a long while. The cover of this issue of Sports Illustrated has no clue of the Green Bay material inside.

First, there was this article on the Western Conference battle coming down to the end of the season.

The real nugget of this issue is the multi-page article on tiny Green Bay, Wisconsin, and it’s place in National Football League history. There are a lot of mentions to the old-timers around town, as the young players had yet to become immortals by the championships to come.

GOOD LUCK IN CHICAGO, PACKERS!

A Bad Day in L.A.

On the eve of “The Big Day,” we go back to December 1967, and the second-to-last game of the season. The Packers were in L.A. to play the Rams, and this subsequent December 18 issue of Sports Illustrated tells us the story of what happened that day.

Green Bay would go on to lose the season finale against the Pittsburgh Steelers as well. But, don’t worry, they beat the Rams again in Milwaukee for the Western Conference title before winning it all against the Cowboys in the Ice Bowl on New Year’s Eve.

GOOD LUCK TO THE PACKERS TOMORROW!

Another Big Game

Is there some sort of game this Sunday? Really? We haven’t heard anything about it in the media. Actually, we’ve heard MUCH MORE than we need, and we wish they could just line up now and get it over with. There’s certainly a lot riding on the game’s outcome, just as there was on a certain Sunday in January 1967. Seen above is coach Vince Lombardi observing his Packers in pre-game warm-ups before the first World Championship football game between the A.F.L. and the N.F.L. — or Super Bowl I. The “old league” just could not lose to the upstart league that day, and Lombardi heard about it from the other coaches and owners the week before the big day. Fortunately, his Packers prevailed and the honor of the N.F.L. was upheld, at least until Super Bowl III.

The Unfriendly Confines of Wrigley

In another installment during this “Bear Week,” we bring you some action photos of early Sixties action in Wrigley Field in Chicago. Enjoy.

Packers vs. Bears — Halloween 1994

In this week of the ultimate Green Bay–Chicago matchup, let’s look back to the early Mike Holmgren era on an extremely nasty weather evening on ABC ’s Monday Night Football. It ’s Halloween 1994, and a monsoon rages along Lake Michigan in Soldier Field. And it’s a “throwbacks” night as well. Note the complete absence of graphics all over the television screen like we’re used to nowadays.