A Look Back at 1946

Don Hutson finally retired in 1946 after threatening to for several seasons, and the team’s decline began. Curly Lambeau lost the one piece that allowed him to continue with success in a football world that was passing him by. The team slipped to 6-5, third in the West, but the offense dropped to eighth by scoring just 148 points. Defensively, they were second by giving up just 158 points. In a season of league-wide parity, there were only two teams with losing records, and the Packers beat them both, but were just 4-5 against the rest of the league—2-3 at home and a surprising 4-1 on the road.

Irv Comp again led the team in passing yards, but he completed just 28% of his passes and threw for only 333 yards. Tony Canadeo was second with 189 yards passing on just seven completions. Overall, the team threw for four touchdowns and 18 interceptions. With such an ineffective passing attack, the Packers ran the ball 76% of the time, up from 63% the year before and 56% in 1942 when Cecil Isbell was still on board.

Tony Canadeo led the team with 476 yards rushing and was followed by Ted Fritsch’s 444 and rookie Walt Schlinkman’s 379. Clyde Goodnight and Nolan Luhn tied for the lead in receptions with 16 apiece. Fritsch led the NFL in scoring with 100 points. Herman Rohrig led the squad in interceptions on defense with five. Fritsch and Charley Brock were named All-Pro.

Fighting against the fledgling All-America Football Conference, the underfunded Packers were not able to sign top draft pick fullback Johnny Strzykalski. In fact, just two 1946 picks made the team, third rounder Bob Nussbaumer and 30^th rounder Al Sparlis. The team did enjoy an influx of rookies from War Years drafts, though, including: Urban Odson (1942-1), Dick WIldung (1943-1), Bob Forte (1943-11), Merv Pregulman (1944-1), Walt Schlinkman (1945-1) and Don Wells (1945-6).

The ‘46 season was the Packers’ 25^th in the NFL and the Press Gazette named the following All-Time team:

Ends: Hutson and Lavie Dilweg

Tackles: Cal Hubbard and Cub Buck

Guards: Mike Michalske and Buckets Goldenberg

Center: Charley Brock

Backs: Arnie Herber, Johnny Blood, Verne Lewellen and Clarke Hinkle

All custom cards are colorized.

An Odd Bears-Rams Trade Benefits the Packers

In February 1958, Chicago and Los Angeles swung in interesting trade that ultimately would not help either of them but would turn out to be a big winner for Green Bay. The Rams were looking for help on the offensive line and obtained five-year starting tackle Kline Gilbert, a Pro Bowl player, for end Bob Carey and defensive halfback Jesse Whittenton. Carey, a highly decorated multisport star at Michigan State had a marvelous rookie season in 1952 with the Rams before a military stint and knee injury altered his career arc. Whittenton had starred at quarterback for Texas Western before being drafted in the fifth round by LA in 1956. He spent two seasons as a starter in the Ram secondary.

On July 28, the deal started to go bad. Gilbert informed Ram GM Pete Rozelle that he had more pressing business at home and would not report to LA. The Bears then substituted a draft pick in the trade. Just prior to the ‘58 season, Whittenton got sick and was left off Chicago’s opening day roster. Two weeks later, he was placed on waivers and claimed by Green Bay to replace the injured Carlton Massey. Carey, meanwhile, appeared in one game for Chicago before recurring knee problems ended his career. At the 1959 draft, the Rams selected end/linebacker John Tracey from Texas A&M with a fourth-round pick from Chicago, completing the deal. Tracey, however, was included as a throw-in in the nine-for-one trade that brought Ollie Matson to LA. So from that Bears-Rams trade, one player (Carey) appeared in one game for one of the teams.

Whittenton, though, went on to have an outstanding career with the Packers. Although he played some safety in ‘58, he was ensconced as the team’s right cornerback from 1959-64, went to two Pro Bowls and was named All-Pro in 1961. In Launching the Glory Years, Lombardi’s assistant coaches said of Jesse:

Does a very creditable job. Tackles well with good reaction to ball. Does not make many mistakes.

Jesse has been the most consistent halfback we have on defense. Has played real well and as loose as a goose. Just the way it should be played. Has excellent speed and with a start from the beginning next year should have a good year. I think he is the best defensive halfback we have. Plays it smart and fair tackler.

A good defensive halfback. Our best and probably good enough for anyone.

The best we have in our secondary defense. No question about him.

Three years later in Run to Daylight, Lombardi wrote:

After Lombardi’s death, Whittenton was asked of his time in Green Bay and recalled in 1971:

It takes mental toughness to succeed in sports. Lombardi taught me that in football. He wasn’t smarter about football than any other coach. In fact, Phil Bengtson was the brain on the staff. He put in the game plans, but, while he was a great assistant, he wasn’t tough enough to be a winning head coach.

Lombardi was tough, He was an organizer. We practiced one and one-half hours. He said if we couldn’t get the job done in that time, he’d get someone who could. He wasn’t your buddy. I hated him at times, but I always respected him. He won because he could convince men that if they’d do their jobs, they couldn’t lose.

Whittenton, of course, became involved with young golfer Lee Trevino and had a very successful second career running golf courses and playing on the PGA Seniors Tour.

Second and eighth custom cards are colorized.

A Look Back at 1945

Don Hutson made one last un-retirement in 1945 for the defending champion Packers and kept the offense going. On October 7 against the Lions, Don set a league mark by scoring 29 points in the second quarter on four touchdowns and five extra points in a 57-21 victory. The 6-4 Packers were second in the league in scoring with 258 points but were fourth in points allowed with 173 and finished second in the West. They were 1-3 against winning teams and 5-1 against losing ones. They began the season with a 4-1 run at home, but limped home with a 2-3 closing road trip.

Irv Comp led the team in passing with 865 yards, seven touchdowns and 11 interceptions, and Roy McKay added 520 yards, five scores and nine interceptions. Ted Fritsch led the team in rushing with just 282 yards, followed by McKay’s 231. Hutson led the league with 47 receptions and caught nine touchdowns. He was trailed by two rookies from Tulsa, Nolan Luhn and Clyde Goodnight, who caught 10 and seven passes respectively

Hutson led the NFL in scoring one last time with 97 points. Fritsch added 57. Hutson and Charley Brock led the Pack with four interceptions a piece on defense. Hutson, Fritsch and Brock all were named All-Pro. In addition to Luhn and Goodnight, other notable rookies included linemen Ed Neal and Paul Lipscomb and former Heisman Trophy-winning halfback Bruce Smith.

All custom cards are colorized.

Terry Glenn

Troubled but talented receiver Terry Glenn was born on July 23, 1974 in Columbus, Ohio. Glenn never knew his father, and his mother was beaten to death by a man she knew when Terry was just 13. Glenn made the hometown Ohio State Buckeyes as a walk-on and earned a scholarship. As a redshirt junior, he was an All-American and registered for the NFL draft.

Over the objections of Coach Bill Parcells, the Patriots made Glenn the seventh overall pick of the 1996 draft. Parcells wanted to pick a lineman and tested his new receiver’s mettle by repeatedly referring to Terry as “she” as he recovered from an injury. Glenn won Parcells respect by catching 90 balls as a rookie in helping lead the Pats to Super Bowl XXXI where they lost to Green Bay.

Parcells moved on so he could select his own “groceries,” while Glenn continued in New England. The next season, he caught seven passes for 163 yards in a regular season rematch against the Packers, but in general his next four seasons were marred by injuries and disciplinary problems. Coach Pete Carroll finally suspended him at the end of the 1999 season. Under new coach Bill Belichick in 2000, Glenn signed a six-year contract extension, but did not fully buy into the program.

In 2001, he was suspended four games by the league for substance abuse. Combined with charges of domestic assault, this led to bonus payments being withheld by the team and more problems with Glenn. Terry appeared in four games after the suspension (Catching Tom Brady’s first ever TD pass), then was deactivated for seven games in a row before being suspended by the team before its historic first triumphant Super Bowl run.

He was not awarded a Super Bowl ring, but rather was traded to Green Bay for two fourth round picks. In 15 games as a Packer in 2002, Glenn caught 56 passes for two touchdowns. He was then dealt to Dallas for a sixth-round pick. Reunited with Parcells, Glenn continued to have injury problems, but also recorded two 1,000-yard seasons. Injured again in 2007, he was released in 2008.

The father of seven children by different mothers, Glenn continued to encounter problems in his post-football life. He died in a one-car accident on November 20, 2017 at the age of 43. He was the driver and his blood-alcohol level was well above the legal limit.

Custom card in 1952 Topps Baseball style.

Nitschke’s Evolution

Linebacker Ray Nitschke was part of the Packers’ 1958 draft haul of three Hall of Famers and one All-Pro, but it took several seasons before the undisciplined wild man managed to get out of his own way and reach his potential. The highlight of his rookie season was recovering the ball on an onside kick by the Eagles at the close of the Packers one victory in ‘58.

Vince Lombardi took over in 1959, and Nitschke was part of a four-man linebacking corps known locally as the “Fearsome Foursome” with Bill Forester, Dan Currie and Tom Bettis, but it was Bettis who started at middle linebacker. Ray was the Tommy Joe Crutcher of the group and was not happy; he was known to refer to himself as the “Judge” because he was “always on the bench.” When the assistant coaches wrote up their evaluations of the ‘59 roster, they were not charitable toward Nitschke. In Launching the Glory Years, they are quoted as saying:

Has physical ability but cannot think. Will never be able to play for us. Trade him.

A real scatter-brain, but I believe if it were possible to play him more, he could be a good one, particularly as a middle linebacker. I think he is about as good a fourth linebacker as we can expect to get.

Ray has been disappointing this year. I guess he is a tough boy, but when he gets a chance in games doesn’t seem to do the job. A poor actor off the field and could cause plenty of trouble for this club. Would trade to get a good football player. Wants to be traded. Never will learn the entire defense and I think he would hurt our club more than he will do it any good. TRADE.

Will always be in trouble and causing trouble. Seems like he will always be too erratic to play defense. I don’t know where he would play on offense. Should be good trade material.

Nitschke managed to achieve starting status near the end of 1960, but nearly screwed that up by breaking one of Lombardi’s main rules by drinking in the same bar as the coaches. Lombardi left it up to a vote of the players whether to keep Ray on the team. Then, in the title game against Philadelphia, veteran Eagle quarterback Norm Van Brocklin told reporters that he took advantage of Nitschke’s aggressiveness and inexperience to hit on several big plays.

Bettis continues to get a lot of playing time in 1961, particularly with Nitschke serving out his National Guard stint during the weeks of the season and returning for the games. However, when Nitschke was discharged from his duty on July 14 of that year allowed Lombardi to make Bettis happy three days later by trading Tom to the Steelers third (Dennis Claridge) and seventh (Olin Hill) round draft picks. Nitschke was entrenched at last. He was the MVP of the 1962 title game, and Lombardi said of him in Run to Daylight:

He was finally on his way to Canton.

All but second and fourth custom cards are colorized.

A Look Back at 1944

The NFL struggled to field a nine-team league in 1944, with the desiccated Cardinals and Steelers combining to form the merged, moribund Card-Pitts. However, the Packers were able to maintain enough talented veterans to win the West easily with an 8-2 record and triumph over the 6-3-1 Giants in the ’44 title game. Green Bay finished third in scoring and in points allowed, went 5-0 at home and against losing teams, while posting 3-2 marks on the road and against winning teams.

As I wrote in Pioneer Coaches of the NFL:

Lambeau won his last title with a similar strategy against Steve Owen’s Giants. The Packers won the coin toss, but turned the tables on New York by electing to kick off, a regular practice of the defensive-oriented Owen. Once again, Owen threw all his resources into stopping Hutson, and largely succeeded, but lost the game. With the Giants concentrating on Hutson, Green Bay ran the ball 49 times for 163 yards and threw the ball just 11 times, completing a mere three passes. All three completions were for more than 20 yards, though, and two came on the same drive – a 23-yard pass to Hutson was followed two plays later by a 26-yard toss to fullback Ted Fritsch for the score while three Giants were chasing Hutson. Fritsch had scored the first touchdown on a fourth down one-yard plunge earlier in the second quarter.

Joe Laws led the way with 74 yards rushing. Years later, he told reporter Lee Remmel, “We ran as much as we did just because of the way the game developed. We were picking up yardage running, so why throw? If they’d have changed their defense, we would have thrown more. We were using Hutson as a decoy that day. They were putting three men on him, so that was always leaving something or somebody else open.” The Giants, by contrast, ran the ball 30 times for 85 yards and threw 22 times, completing eight for 114 yards. The Giant passer was aging Arnie Herber, and the Packers stole four of his passes, with Laws accounting for three. New York scored one touchdown in the third quarter, but the Green Bay defense continually shut down Herber in the final stanza and secured the win.

At this point, Curly Lambeau had won more games than any other NFL coach and was second only to Guy Chamberlin in winning percentage. However, his .727 winning rate would drop to .668 over the next five years of Packer decline. His sixth title was his last hurrah.

Irv Comp led the league in passing yards with 1,159 and interceptions with 21 and led the Packers with 12 TD passes. Ted Fritsch led the team in rushing with 322 yards, followed by rookie fullback Don Perkins with 207. Perkins also had the longest scoring play of the year with an 83-yard interception return against the Card-Pitts on October 8.

Don Hutson led the league in receptions (58), receiving yards (866), TD catches (9) and points (85). Hutson caught as many touchdowns as the next two Packers caught passes: rookie halfback Paul Duhart and end Harry Jacunski each caught nine passes. Comp and Fritsch had six interceptions each on defense. Hutson and tackle Baby Ray were named All-Pro and center Charlie Brock was named to the second team.

Custom cards all colorized except for Fritsch.

Alex Urban

Born on July 16, 1917 in Bessemer, Pennsylvania, Alex Urban grew up as one of 10 siblings in Toledo, Ohio where he starred as an All-City tackle in high school. Urban switched to end at the University of South Carolina and lettered in his sophomore and senior years, but was ruled academically ineligible as a junior.

Curly Lambeau signed Urban as a free agent in July 1941 on the recommendation of SC coach Rex Enright, who had played fullback for Notre Dame and the Packers in the 1920s. Enright had previously persuaded Lambeau to draft another Gamecock end, Larry Craig, in 1938 and that worked out very well. Enright, though, oversold Urban a bit, telling the Green Bay Press-Gazette on July 12 that as an undergraduate, Urban “is a better pass receiver than Hutson.”

Alex would catch a career-high two passes as a rookie in ’41 and then go into the Army. He was discharged in 1944 and rejoined the Packers in October. He appeared in five games for Green Bay and started the finale against the Card-Pitts, but did not play in the ’44 title game against the Giants. Urban returned in 1945, but left the team after week one because his wife was ill. He never played in the NFL again.

Urban worked as a warehouse supervisor for Buckeye Furniture for 30 years and died at age 90 on September 7, 2007 in Toledo. He was survived by a son, a daughter, six grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

Custom cards are colorized.

The Chesley Brothers

Frank Chesley was born on July 14, 1955 and played linebacker and tight end for Wyoming until he was drafted in the sixth round in 1978 by the Saints. He failed to make the team, but on December 7 of that year, Frank signed with the Packers and appeared in one game for Green Bay before the end of the season. It was his only NFL appearance.

Chesley was one of seven brothers from Washington D.C. who all played major college sports and one of three to reach the NFL. William Chesley played offensive line for North Carolina Central and Walter Chesley played basketball for Boston University. Following Frank, came Al, a linebacker for Pitt and then the Eagles and Bears from 1979-82; John, a tight end for Oklahoma State who appeared in one game for the Dolphins in 1984; and Martin and Delmar, a linebacker and tight end respectively for Southern California. Three sisters, Ellen, Jackie and Carolyn, also played sports in college.

Although Al was the only brother to ever have an extended career and even start in the NFL. Just having a cup of coffee like Frank and John did to make up a trio of  pro football brothers is still impressive.

Custom card is colorized.

Don Wells

Two things have blurred the memory of Don Wells, a fine defensive end for the Packers in the late 1940s–the team was in steep decline and his career was greatly shortened by injury problems. Wells was born on July 12, 1922 in Waycross, Georgia, but grew up in Fort Pierce, Florida where he was a schoolboy star. He earned a football scholarship to the University of Georgia and was drafted in the sixth round by the Packers in 1945.

After the War, Don joined the team in 1946 and appeared in every game for Green Bay during his first three years. He even caught two passes in his rookie season, one for a 65-yard gain against the Rams on October 6 in Milwaukee. However, he had knee surgery following the 1947 season and had knee problems reoccur in late 1948. In early 1949, Wells suffered another knee injury while working as a life guard in Florida and underwent another operation.

Due to his ailing knee, Don was released by the Packers after the third game of the ’49 season, and he was replaced by Steve Pritko. Back in Florida that off season, Wells injured his knee again in an automobile accident. He did some semipro coaching in the area and drove a beer truck before buying Don’s Grocery Store in Stuart, Florida and settling in. He died of cancer in a hospice on February 14, 1989 at the age of 66. Three days later, the Today Show aired a segment on hospice care that featured him and his caregiver. Wells was survived by a son, Dale.

All custom cards are colorized.

A Card for Everyone: Del Lyman

Born on July 9, 1918 in Aberdeen, Washington, Del Lyman starred at tackle for Fairfax High School in Los Angeles and then at UCLA before being drafted in the 14^th round by Green Bay in 1941. At UCLA, Lyman lettered from 1938-40, and for his sophomore and junior seasons played with Kenny Washington, Jackie Robinson, Woody Strode, Chuck Fenenbock and Ned Matthews. The 1939 team went 6-0-4 and was ranked seventh in the nation. Those stars were gone in ’40, when the Bruins went 1-9. Lyman himself missed most of that year due to an appendectomy.

Curly Lambeau told the Green Bay Press Gazette at the time of the draft:

I also liked the looks of Del Lyman, big left tackle of UCLA, who has been an outstanding Pacific coast lineman the past three years.

Lyman’s aggressive play earned him a slot on the team and he appeared in five of the Packers first seven games in ’41, but then was released before Halloween when veteran guard Russ Letlow was activated after missing the whole season to that point due to an ankle problem. Lyman was quickly claimed by the Cleveland Rams and appeared in four games for them to complete the season.

Lyman went into the Air Force and only briefly returned to the Rams in 1944 for two games, although he did play for the Hollywood Rangers of the Pacific Coast League in 1945. He and his brother purchased a service station in Manhattan Beach, and Del served on the city council there. He was in the news again in 1951. In July, he married “Cynthia Shaw” in Las Vegas after a whirlwind one-day romance. On October 5 of that year, he had the marriage annulled after he discovered that “Cynthia” was actually Bernice Emerick, 15 years his senior, already married and a grandmother. Oh, and she was sought by the FBI for embezzlement in Dayton, Ohio. Del concluded his big year by marrying divorcee Eva Leeds in December. He passed away at age 68 on December 19, 1986 in Santa Barbara.

Custom card is colorized.