Christmas Games

Packer fans get a special Christmas present this year with today’s scheduled match against the Dolphins in Miami. It will be the fourth Packer game in history played on Christmas, and the first one on the road. Back in the day, NFL seasons ended by early to mid-December. In 1960 when Green Bay won the Western Conference crown for the first time under Vince Lombardi, the championship game was scheduled for Monday December 26, rather than play on Christmas. In fact, the 1955 title game between the Browns and Eagles was also played on the Monday after Christmas. This shibboleth was not done away with until Saturday, December 25, 1971, when the Cowboys beat the Vikings in the NFC Divisional Round and the Dolphins outlasted the Chiefs in overtime in the AFC.

The first time the Packers played on Christmas was in 2005 when the 11-4 Bears manhandled the 3-12 Pack 24-17 at Lambeau. Green Bay’s leading rusher was Noah Herron with 33 yards and the leading receiver Tony Fisher with eight grabs, while Brett Favre put the ball up 51 times, completing 30 for 317 yards, but with four interceptions and no scores.

Six years later, a Packer-Bear rematch had a happier ending with the 14-1 Pack rolling over 7-8 Chicago 35-21, Aaron Rodgers threw for 283 yards and five TDs, two each to Jordy Nelson and James Jones. Opposing QB Josh McCown threw for one score and two picks.

More recently, the 12-3 Packers squeezed by the 7-8 Browns on a Saturday game in the final week of last season. The Packers led the game from the five-minute mark, but the Browns scored the last 10 points of the game to make the Lambeau faithful sweat it out at the end. Rodgers threw for 202 yards and three scores, two to Davante Adams in his final regular season appearance in the Green and Gold. Cleveland’s Baker Mayfield threw four interceptions, two by Rasul Douglass, and was sacked five times.

Packer fans are hoping we don’t find a lump of coal today at Lambeau.

Custom cards in a variety of styles.

Other Team’s Jerseys: College All-Stars

Arch Ward, one-time sports editor of the Chicago Tribune, is remembered for creating a number of significant things in sports. He helped found the postwar All-America Football Conference, started the Golden Gloves boxing tournament and devised major league baseball’s All-Star Game. As a counterpoint to the latter in 1934, Ward established the annual College All-Star Game that pitted the current NFL champions against a team of graduated college football stars in August.

The Packers gave the All-Stars their first win in the series, 6-0, in 1937 and their last, 20-17, in 1963. Curly Lambeau spoke of the Packers 45-28 thrashing of the All-Stars in 1940 as his most satisfying victory. Similarly, Vince Lombardi was so humiliated by his team’s 1963 loss that he drove his champions to maul the All-Stars by a combined 99-17 score the next three times they played.

As the cards below indicate, the All-Stars uniforms underwent some variations over time before standardizing in the 1950s. Here are some Packers as they appeared in their first games as professionals.

First five custom cards are colorized.

Deral Teteak

Born on December 11, 1929, in Oconto, Wisconsin native, Deral Teteak was known as the “Little Bull” as a member of the celebrated University of Wisconsin’s “Hard Rocks” unit that led the nation in defense in 1951. Selected by the home state Packers in the ninth round of the 1952 draft, the undersized Teteak stood just 5’10 and weighed 210 pounds but hit like a truckload of hard rocks. Teteak wore number 66 in Green Bay and is usually identified as Ray Nitschke’s predecessor both in jersey number and position, but T. J. Troup’s film research indicates that Teteak played outside linebacker almost exclusively in Green Bay, mostly on the left side.

Teteak said of himself to the Journal-Sentinel, “I guess you could say I was a little aggressive and intense. I believe you had to be like Jekyll and Hyde. Once you put that helmet on, you became a different person.” He added, “I wasn’t the biggest guy, but I was beating up on people.” Deral made the Pro Bowl in his rookie season, and that year also was referred to at times as “Little Tonnemaker” after All-Pro Clayton Tonnemaker. Coach Lisle Blackbourn emphasized the linebacker’s fire when he told the Milwaukee Journal in 1954, “Teteak was a real goer for us.” That year, Teteak broke his ankle in training camp but returned at midseason.

After five seasons of small paychecks and more losses than wins, Teteak jumped when offered a job coaching the freshman football team at his alma mater in 1957. A year later, he moved up to the varsity as an assistant coach and remained on staff at Wisconsin through the 1968 season. In 1958, he even coached his brother Dick, who was drafted by Green Bay in 1959 but did not make Lombardi’s first team. Deral left football for business in 1969 and died December 18, 2014, in Naples, Florida at the age of 85. A high energy player and a high impact hitter, Teteak lacked size and speed but earned a spot in the Packer Hall of Fame in 1987.

(Adapted from Green Bay Gold.)

Custom cards are colorized.

Al Harris

Born on December 7, 1974, in Pompano Beach, Florida, Al Harris attended Texas A&M-Kingsville, the same school as another hard-hitting Packer DB, Al Matthews. Harris was a sixth-round pick of Tampa in 1997 and spent that year on the practice squad. Cut the following year, Harris was signed by the Eagles where he spent five years, mostly as the team’s third cornerback and gained a reputation for tough physical play and for being a hothead. Green Bay obtained him and a fourth-round pick in exchange for a second-round pick in 2003, and he started at right cornerback for the Packers for the next seven seasons.

Always a bit of a gambler, the 6’1” 185-pound Harris’ biggest highlight with the team came in the postseason following his first year with Green Bay. In overtime against Seattle, Harris anticipated an out route, undercut the receiver and raced 52-yards for the walk-off touchdown with his prominent dreadlocks flying in the breeze. At that point, Al was 29 years old and never had more than so-so speed; thus, it was something of a surprise that he was still the starting right corner six years later at age 35 in 2009. In that time, the only starts he missed came in 2008 from a ruptured spleen. He was named to the Pro Bowl in both 2007 and ’08. In 2009, though, he tore his ACL, and that ended his Green Bay tenure, although he would finish his career with a year in Miami and one in St. Louis.

Harris lived and died by bump-and-run coverage; he was not very good in zone. When he got the jam at the line, he was effective, but other times he could be toasted. In the 2007 NFC Championship game, Plaxico Burress of the Giants ate him alive. Harris also drew a lot of penalties due to his physical play. However, he was also a dedicated student of the game and a very effective bookend to Charles Woodson on the other side of the field. The two went into the Packer Hall of Fame together in 2020. For his career, he nabbed 21 interceptions, 14 with the Pack, and returned three for scores in the regular season, twice in Green Bay. He has since moved into coaching.

(Adapted from Green Bay Gold.)

Custom cards in a variety of styles.