A Look Back at 1950

Moving forward from the brink of financial ruin, again, but this time without founder Curly Lambeau, the 1950 Packers opened a sad decade that ultimately would end with great promise. Lambeau saw the waning of his influence and jumped to the Cardinals as head coach on February 1, while Bears assistant Gene Ronzani signed to coach Green Bay five days later. Ronzani would be along young talent scout Jack Vainisi, a host of former Bears players as players and assistant coaches and a new color scheme of green and gold. He would also sign the team’s first black player, end Bob Mann, on November 25 after Mann had been shunned by the league due to a salary dispute. He would not bring a lot of wins, though.

Before Curly left, he conducted one last draft for the Packers and did get value at the top with linebacker Clayton Tonnemaker in the first round and quarterback Tobin Rote in the second. Of broader impact, the All-America Football Conference merged with the NFL after four seasons of war, with the Browns, 49ers and Colts joining the older league. At the dispersal draft held in June, the Packers nabbed former Los Angeles Dons’ halfback Billy Grimes and end Ab Wimberly, along with former Buffalo Bills’ end Al Baldwin and linebacker Carl Schuette. Altogether, just 11 of the 36 men who would play for Green Bay in 1950 had played for the team before. Ronzani tried a clean sweep of the tottering franchise.

The ’50 Packers were a work in progress, though, finishing tied for fifth in the West with a 3-9 record. They scored 244 points, a middling eighth in the league, but allowed 406 (34 points per game), 12^th in the 13-team league. Green Bay won two of its first three games, including a home win over the Bears, but only one of its last nine. The Pack was 3-3 at home and 0-6 on the road; 2-2 against losing teams and 1-7 against all others. The only win in the one-year life of the original version of the Baltimore Colts came at the expense of the Packers.

Rookie Tobin Rote completed just 37% of his passes but led the team with 1,231 yards, seven touchdowns and 24 interceptions. Veteran backup Paul Christman chipped in with 545 yards, seven scores and seven picks. Rookie quarterback Tom O’Malley added six more interceptions in the opener against the Lions, his only NFL appearance. That’s 14 TD passes and 37 interceptions total.

Billy Grimes led the team with 480 yards rushing and led the NFL with 55 yards in punt returns, including two for touchdowns. Grimes also led the team with 600 yards in kickoff returns and with 48 points. He had a spectacular season, scoring on punt returns of 68 and 85 yards, a reception of 96 yards and rushes of 57, 61 and 73 yards. Former Bear draftee Breezy Reid was second in rushing with 394 yards.

Al Baldwin was the leading receiver with 28 catches for 555 yards and three scores, including one of 85 yards. Rookie Rebel Steiner snagged seven interceptions, while Baldwin and Wally Dreyer each grabbed five. Steiner set a team record with his 94-yard pick six in the October win over the Bears. Aging Ted Fritsch was second in points with 39, but hit on just three of 17 field goal attempts in his final season.

Rookie Tonnemaker and Grimes were All-Pros, while center Ed Neal was named to the second team. Grimes and Neal were also named to the first Pro Bowl, played in Los Angeles in January 1951.

 

 

 

All custom cards are colorized. Player order of these unlabeled 1950 Bowman style cards is: Tonnemaker, Rote, Grimes, Wimberly, Baldwin, Schuette, Christman, O’Malley, Reid, Steiner, Dreyer, Fritsch, Neal and Mann.

Rebel Steiner

Rebel Roy Steiner, named after an uncle, was born on August 27, 1927 in Ensley, Alabama. A four-sport star at Ensley High, Steiner matriculated at the University of Alabama in 1945 and played end for the Tide in the 1946 Rose Bowl as a freshman. Drafted into the military, Rebel played service ball for the Army’ First Calvary unit in Tokyo in 1946 before returning to Alabama the following year. Steiner finished his college eligibility by starring for Bama from 1947-49. He played two seasons with Harry Gilmer and played in the 1948 Sugar Bowl against Texas.

Steiner was drafted twice by the NFL due to the service interruption to his college career. The Lions selected him in the 23^rd round in 1948, and the Packers picked him 12^th in 1949. He joined the Packers a year later, and new coach Gene Ronzani shifted Rebel to the defensive backfield as a rookie. With his speed and tackling ability, Steiner showed great promise on the defensive side. He picked off a team-leading seven passes and returned them for 190 yards in ’50, including a 94-yard pick-six in a win over the Bears in October. Still, he was learning and, after struggling with Cloyce Box of the Lions and Tom Fears of the Rams, was replaced by Al Baldwin late in the year.

Steiner returned as a starting defensive halfback in 1951 and picked off three more passes. He is listed in football reference works as having played all 12 games for the second straight season, but that was not the case. According to the Press-Gazette, Steiner injured a knee against the Bears in November and missed the next two games against the Lions and Yanks before returning for the season-concluding West Coast trip to San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The Packers expected his return in ’52, but he failed to report, and in August the team announced he would not play. Steiner joined the family meat processing business in Birmingham and lived a simple life as a family man. When he died at age 87 on October 18, 2014, he was survived by three children and several grandchildren.

Custom cards all colorized.

J.T. O’Sullivan’s Hidden Gift

Well-traveled former NFL quarterback J.T. O’Sullivan turns 41 today. O’Sullivan was born on August 25, 1979 in Burbank, California. At UC-Davis, he was a two-time Division II All-America and was drafted in the sixth round of the NFL draft by New Orleans in 2002. Over the next 13 years, he would be part of 13 professional football teams, including all four members of the NFC North. He was the ultimate itinerant backup; the Saints, with their initial draft selection, and the Packers, who traded for him, are the only two teams that ever gave up anything for his services–and New Orleans received starting cornerback Mike McKenzie in return for J.T. and a second round pick.

Sullivan spent 2002 and ’03 as the inactive third quarterback in New Orleans. The Saints allocated him to Frankfurt in the World League in 2004, and he led the Galaxy to the World Bowl championship game that season. For New Orleans, he was inactive third quarterback again for the first four games in ’04.

Packer Coach/GM Mike Sherman traded disgruntled starter McKenzie to the Saints for O’Sullivan and a 2005 second rounder in October of ’04, and J.T. was the inactive third QB for the next 11 games before being activated for the season finale and entering his first NFL game to perform two kneel downs to close out the win over the Bears.

With the selection of Aaron Rodgers in 2005, O’Sullivan’s Packer days were numbered. Green Bay cut him on September 3 of that year, and he became a free agent nomad:

2005: Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings

2006: New England Patriots and Carolina Panthers

2007: Chicago Bears in February, who allocate him World League where he again leads Frankfurt to the World Bowl. Signed by Detroit in July, he appears in four games for the Lions.

2008: Follows Offensive Coordinator Mike Martz to San Francisco and starts eight games. When benched, he led the league with 11 interceptions and 11 fumbles (six lost).

2009: Cincinnati Bengals, appears in final three games of NFL career.

2010: San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders

2012: Saskatchewan Roughriders in CFL.

O’Sullivan is now a high school coach in San Diego.

So what was his hidden gift? In 2005, the Packers next draft pick after Aaron Rodgers was the second rounder obtained from the Saints for J.T. New GM Ted Thompson used it wisely on Bethune Cookman safety Nick Collins, who turned out to be a Pro Bowl safety for the Packers until a neck injury ended his career.

Custom cards based on Topps baseball sets.

Joe Andruzzi Turns 45

Joe Andruzzi was another one of Ron Wolf’s small college finds. Born on August 23, 1975 on Staten Island, he was a two-time Division II All-America at Southern Connecticut State before signing with Green Bay as an undrafted free agent in 1997. By August of that year, Wolf said of him, “I would have to say the guy who impressed me was Joe Andruzzi. He should have been a draft player. We should have drafted him.”

An injury kept Andruzzi from making the team in 1997, and Green Bay allocated him to NFL Europe for seasoning in 1998. Joe played for the Packers in 1998 and ‘99, but two knee injuries in the latter season impelled the Packers to release him in 2000. Signed by the Patriots, Andruzzi was a five-year starter at guard in New England and won three Super Bowl rings. He left the Patriots as a free agent in 2005 and finished his career with two years in Cleveland.

Andruzzi drew notice in 2001, when it was noted that all three of his brothers responded to the World Trade Center bombings as members of the New York Fire Department. A dozen years later, Joe himself was photographed carrying a woman to safety from the Boston Marathon terrorist bombing.

Andruzzi formed a foundation to help cancer patients pay their medical expenses after getting to know a child cancer patient in 2001. Joe survived a brush with cancer himself in 2007 and still runs his foundation today.

Second custom card is colorized.

Summing Up the 1940s

Despite the ignominious end to both the decade and to Curly Lambeau’s tenure in Green Bay, the Packers had the third best record in the league for the 1940s.

Chicago Bears (4) 81-26-3  .757

Washington Redskins (1) 65-41-4 .613

Green Bay Packers (1) 62-44-4 .585

Philadelphia Eagles (2) 58-47-5 .552

New York Giants 55-47-8 .539

CLE/LA Rams (1) 50-45-5 .526

Chicago Cards (1) 41-65-4 .387

Pittsburgh Steelers 40-64-6 .385

Brooklyn Dodgers 20-33 .377

Boston Yanks/NY Bulldogs 15-48-4 .238

Cecil Isbell posted the best passing numbers in his three 1940 seasons, cumulating 4,537 yards, 47 TDs and 37 interceptions. Irv Comp added 3,354 yards, 28 TDs and 52 interceptions and T-Man Jack Jacobs added 2,518 yards, 21 touchdowns and 41 interceptions.

Tony Canadeo surpassed Clarke Hinkle’s team mark in career rushing by gaining 3,628 yards. Ted Fritsch ran for 2,187 in the decade.

Don Hutson led the NFL for the decade with 329 catches for 5,089 yards and 63 touchdowns. Clyde Goodnight caught 100 passes in Green Bay and Nolan Luhn added 89. Hutson also topped the league with 591 points. Fritsch scored 341.

Comp was the top interceptor with 34, followed by Hutson’s 30 and Charley Brock’s 20.

Hutson was a six-time first team All-Pro. Charley Brock earned three first teams and two second teams, while tackle Baby Ray received three first team nods. Packers who received two first team selections included: Cecil Isbell (2/1), Tony Canadeo (2/1), Dick Wildung (2/1) and fullbacks Clarke Hinkle and Ted Fritsch with 2/0 each.

Custom Cards all colorized.

Jurko Turns 53

Bad-bodied Croatian John Jurkovic was a blue-collar favorite during his years in Green Bay who was best described as “squatty but quick.” He was born in Friedrich Schafer, Germany on August 18, 1967, and his family later emigrated to the US, where John grew up in Calumet City, Illinois. He attended Eastern Illinois University and signed as an undrafted free agent with Miami in 1990.

The Packers signed him as a Plan B free agent a year later. Through high effort he made the team primarily as a run stuffer. Two years later, defensive line coach Greg Blache praised the hard-worker, “Don’t underestimate John Jurkovic. He’s smart, one of the smartest players I’ve ever had. He knows the game. He’s got good quickness, and he recognizes things before they happen.”

When Reggie White signed with Green Bay in 1993, Jurkovic gave up his number 92 to White and switched to 64. Jurko’s last game with the Packers was in January 1996 against the Cowboys. In that loss, Dallas tackle Erik WIlliams took him out with a cheap shot cut block from behind that tore ligaments. Jurkovic refused to be carted off and hobbled off the field. He left as a free agent that off season and signed with the Jaguars. With Jacksonville from 1996-98, he missed the ‘98 season due to a broken leg. He signed with Cleveland in 1999, but a torn hamstring ended his career.

Jurko quickly moved on to a second career as a popular, blunt and funny sports talk personality in Chicago.

Custom cards in Fleer and Topps styles.

A Look Back at 1949

1948 was bad enough but Curly Lambeau’s career hit bottom in 1949, and he knew it. In fact, two days before the second game of the season, Curly kicked himself upstairs and left the on-field coaching to his three assistants: Bob Snyder, Tom Stidham and Charley Brock. The 2-10 Packers finished tenth in points and eighth in points allowed, and all ten of their losses were by at least two touchdowns. They were 2-2 against losing teams and 0-8 against everyone else; 1-5 on the road and at home.

In addition, the team was nearly insolvent. The Packers low point and high point of the season came at the same time-a Thanksgiving intrasquad game that raised enough money to keep the struggling team barely afloat. Once again, Green Bay fans bailed out its team.

The abysmal passing attack from ‘48 was even worse in ‘49. Rookie Jug Girard led the team by completing 62 of 171 passes for 881 yards four touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Second was rookie Stan Heath who completed just 24 of 106 passes for 355 yards, one touchdown and 12 interceptions. Overall, the team completed 30% of its passes for five touchdowns and 29 interceptions.

The bright spot was Tony Canadeo who ran for a team record 1,052 yards, besting Ted Fritsch’s 227, although Fritsch did lead the team in points with 32. Ted Cook led in receptions with 25, followed by 17 by Bill Kelley and 15 by Nolan Luhn. The previous year’s leader, Clyde Goodnight, was released after the season opener. Cook also led the Pack with five interceptions. For the second year in a row, Ralph Earhart had the year’s longest scoring play, this time on a 57-yard punt return.

1950 marked the end of the line for veteran Larry Craig, and the team featured 10 rookies and six second-year men, but most would not last long in the NFL. Canadeo and tackle Dick Wildung were both named first team All-Pro.

All custom cards are colorized.

A Look Back at 1948

1948 was the beginning of the end for Curly Lambeau in Green Bay. The team started the season 2-1 and then played the eventual NFL champion Chicago Cardinals tough in a 17-7 loss, but Lambeau found the effort so lacking that he withheld the players game checks. Rebounding with a 16-0 win over a decent Rams’ squad, Packer players expected to get back that missing check, but Curly miscalculated, continued to withhold the previous week’s checks and lost the team. The 3-2 Packers lost their last seven games, including three to losing teams, and lost them all by at least two touchdowns, with an average score of 30-8.

Green Bay finished tenth in scoring and seventh in points allowed. The Pack was 1-6 against winning teams and 2-3 against losers; 2-4 at home and 1-5 on the road.

Jack Jacobs had some injury problems and was not the same quarterback as in ‘47. He led the team by completing 82 of 184 passes for 848 yards, five TDs and 21 interceptions. Irv Comp pitched in with 335 yards, one touchdown and seven interceptions. Altogether the Packer passing attack yielded eight touchdowns and 29 interceptions.

Tony Canadeo led the team with 589 yards rushing, followed by Walt Schlinkman’s 441. Clyde Goodnight’s team-leading 28 receptions were trailed by 17 by Nolan Luhn and 13 by newly-acquired Ted Cook. Cook led the squad with 6 interceptions, while Comp and Bob Forte each chipped in five. Ted Fritsch led Green Bay with a measly 29 points. One bright spot was rookie halfback Ralph Earhart who scored on touchdown dashes of 72 and 50 yards and a 64-yard scoring reception.

It was veteran Baby Ray’s final season. Tony Canadeo and tackle Dick Wildung were the only Packers to receive All-Pro notice, but it was second team.

Custom cards all colorized. In order, they are Jacobs, Comp, Canadeo, Schlinkman, Goodnight, Luhn, Cook, Earhart, Forte, Fritsch, Wildung and Ray.

Bill Forester Transformed

When Vince Lombardi arrived in Green Bay in 1959, 28-year-old linebacker Bill Forester looked to be on the way down. He had appeared in every Packer game since his rookie season of 1953, starting every match but one and had generally been a steady, solid performer whether at middle guard through 1956 or right outside linebacker in ‘57 and ‘58. One sign of decline, though, was that he was yielding time to waiver wire pickup Marv Matuszak in the latter season. However, Lombardi sent Matuszak packing to Baltimore for guard Fuzzy Thurston in training camp.

Even though Forester made the Pro Bowl for the first time in 1959, Packer assistant coaches had their doubts in their year-end evaluations. From Launching the Glory Years by Len Wagner:

Real improvement over last year. Played very well most of this season, although I don’t know if he has slowed up too much or if he will. Believe we will still have to keep him.

A good linebacker. Tackles poor at times, but his speed, size and experience make him a top man.

Slow-reacting. Especially on pass defense. Bill is just about at the end. May have one more year but that is questionable.

Bill is a big, strong boy and has done very well this year. At times, his tackling has been poor but when he wants to play is very tough. Not as good on passes as we would like to have. Should improve next year.

In December 1961, Tex Maule wrote a Sports Illustrated analysis on the Packers outside linebackers, Forester and Dan Currie, and concluded, “They are probably the biggest pair of corner linebackers in football and almost certainly the best.”

Maule went into detail about how Green Bay played the run on defense:

The Packers, reading this key, play it a little differently from other clubs in the league. It would be worth your while to watch the strong-side flank of the Packers defending against a run—specifically, the defensive end and the corner linebacker. In a normal defense, once the running key becomes evident, the linebacker crosses the line of scrimmage, intent on stopping the play there. This sets him up perfectly for a block by the guard who leads the play. The Packer corner backer, either Forester or Currie, does not cross the line, and consequently is harder to block. Each man is equally fast, although, according to Packer defensive coach Phil Bengtson, Forester, who is 29 years old now, probably was faster than Currie a few years ago. “Now,” says Bengtson, “they are just about the same speed. And both of them can do everything a corner linebacker should do.”

Focusing on Forester’s style, Maule added:

Forester, more conservative than Currie, makes a conscious effort not to depend on a pattern. “I think about the situation and what the club we’re playing has done in other games, but I never depend on it,” he says. Forester is a rather quiet, slow-speaking Texan who played college football at Southern Methodist. He is in his ninth season as a pro—three of them All-Pro. “I try to react to the play as it develops,” he went on. “You can tell in a second if it’s going to be a pass or a run, and you’ve got time to carry out your assignment then. When you try to anticipate you can get in trouble.”

By 1963’s Run to Daylight, Lombardi was extolling his defensive captain:

In fact, I would say there is no one on this club who is more quiet and self-contained than Bubba, as they call Forester. He is highly intelligent and steady on and off the field and his leadership is one of action rather than words. There is an aura of efficiency about him that the others respect and rise to.

So what wrought this change? Upon being selected to his first Pro Bowl in 1959, Forester told Bud Lea that Lombardi had driven him and the rest of the team to the reach the best shape in their lives and that Phil Bengtson’s coaching put the players in position to make plays. After achieving no honors in his first six seasons, Bubba Forester went to four Pro Bowls and earned All-Pro notice four times in his last five years. Good coaches bring out hidden talent and develop players to reach their full potential.

Good players can enhance the work of the coaches. In Lombardi’s Left Side, Dave Robinson told how helpful Forester was in training him to play linebacker in the NFL:

In Sensenbrenner Hall, the rookies were on the second floor and the veterans on the first floor. I used to sneak down the back steps to his room because rookies weren’t supposed to be on the first floor. If a veteran found a rookie on the first floor he’d rip him a new one.Bubba and I would talk for a half hour or hour about playing outside linebacker, how to read keys, what tips to look for and things like that. I took my playbook down and we went over everything. Ninety-nine percent of what we did was verbal, not on the chalkboard or watching film.The big thing was that I learned all 11 defensive positions. When I would ask Bubba a question, he would tell me what I was supposed to do, but he could also tell me what any of the other ten guys were going to do. Forester was much more thorough with me than Phil Bengtson. Phil would tell me about the X’s and O’s, but Bubba Forester would tell me why the X is here and the O is here.

Teammate and co-author Herb Adderley added:

Bill Forester was a very good linebacker and he was a white guy from Texas. He didn’t judge a man by the color of his skin and he wanted Dave to be successful as a linebacker… If Dave had been in Dallas, the white linebackers wouldn’t have helped him with anything. But Bill Forester did it for the good of the team, and he thought it was the right thing to do.

 

 

First three custom cards are colorized.

A Look Back at 1947

In 1947, Curly Lambeau finally tried to bring the Packers into the modern offensive world by switching to the T Formation, or at least his version of it, which had some similarities to the offense the Packers ran when Red Dunn was calling signals in the 1920s and taking a direct snap under center. The key twist to Lambeau’s T foray in ‘47 was that sometimes the ball would be snapped past the quarterback under center to another back deep in the backfield, as it would have been in Curly’s favored Notre Dame shift. The variation did not catch on.

Lambeau acquired Redskin backup quarterback Jack Jacobs in exchange for halfback Bob Nussbaumer in January. With the shift to the T, Green Bay did improve from eighth to fifth in points scored in ‘47, from an average of 13.5 per game to 22.8, while remaining second in points allowed. Still, both Packer teams won six, lost five and finished third in the West, with the ‘47 squad adding a tie as well. Green Bay was 4-2 at home and 2-3-1 on a season-closing six-game road trip. The Pack was 3-0-1 against losing teams and 3-5 against others.

New T quarterback Jack Jacobs completed 108 of 242 passes for 1,615 yards, 16 touchdowns and 17 interceptions. Tony Canadeo led in rushing with 464 yards and Walt Schlinkman followed with 439. The Tulsa twin receivers Nolan Luhn and Clyde Goodnight caught 42 passes for 696 yards and seven touchdowns and 38 passes for 593 yards and six scores respectively. Ted Fritsch scored 56 points, sharing the kicking chores with veteran pickup Ward Cuff who scored 51 points. Bob Forte led the team with nine interceptions and former tailback Irv Comp added six.

In the draft, Green Bay was unable to sign its top two selections-UCLA quarterback Ernie Case and UCLA end Burr Baldwin-who both signed with the All-America Football Conference instead. Sadly, the team’s Packer rookie, Notre Dame end Bob Skoglund, would be dead a year later. Larry Craig, Dick Wildung and Walt Schlinkman were all named All-Pro.

All custom cards are colorized, except Lambeau.