Packers that should be in the NFL Hall of Fame - anyone ?

[woodbuck27]

I'll start with this defensive back named Bobby Dillion, a member of OUR All Century Team.

Bobby Dillon intercepted more passes (52) than any Packer in team history, and no one in the NFL intercepted more passes than he did during the eight years he played (1952-59).

From 1953 through 1957, Dillon intercepted no fewer than seven passes a season. He was among the league leaders in each of those years and led the NFL with 244 yards on interception returns in 1956.

Dillon accomplished all that despite being blind in one eye.

Perhaps the most bittersweet game of Dillon's tenure occurred against the Lions on Thanksgiving Day 1953 at Briggs Stadium. He tied an NFL record with four interceptions but had to be carried off the field on a stretcher late in the game after injuring his knees. He missed the last two games of the year, the only time he wasn't in uniform in his career.

In 1957, Dillon set a team record by intercepting at least one pass in five straight games. He opened that year with two interceptions against the Bears -- the second with less than 4 minutes remaining -- as the team inaugurated play at new City Stadium with a 21-17 victory.

Dillon was often assigned to defend an opponent's top receiver. He and the Bears' Harlon Hill tried to outmaneuver one another beginning in 1954.

Dillon played in four Pro Bowls (1956-59) and was elected to the Packer Hall of Fame in 1974. At the time of his retirement, he trailed only Emlen Tunnell in career interceptions.

Interesting enough, Emlen Tunnel was the first black inducted into the Hall and he wound up a 14 year career with his final three Seasons wearing OUR Jersey.

I believe Bobby Dillon has been too long ignored and the Hall of Fame is missing this 50's star defensive back.

[oregonpackfan]

Guard Jerry Kramer, who played during the glory Lombardi years, should be in the Hall of Fame. Not only was he an outstanding offensive lineman, he was an influential team leader.

Oregonpackfan

[Harlan Huckleby]

Holding Fred Strickland out of the Hall is a travesty. Hopefully this oversight will be corrected soon.

[b bulldog]

Kramer!

[woodbuck27]

Holding Fred Strickland out of the Hall is a travesty. Hopefully this oversight will be corrected soon.

LBer Fred Strickland played 30 games for us in 1994-95.

The 20th pick (47th overall in the 2nd rd.) out of Purdue, by the LA Rams in 1988 he played 5 seasons there. Fred Strickland was a solid LBer in the NFC for 12 NFL Season's, with stops in Minnesota, Green Bay, Dallas and ending his career in Washington.

[Deputy Nutz]

Kramer! But I think the books that he wrote for some reason are keeping him out. Or the vast number of Packers from the 60s that are already in the HAll. Take your pick

[woodbuck27]

Guard Jerry Kramer, who played during the glory Lombardi years, should be in the Hall of Fame. Not only was he an outstanding offensive lineman, he was an influential team leader.

Oregonpackfan

Of course, we also know that Jerry Kramer is a writer and I wonder if this sort of thing has played any role in keeping him out of the Fall of Fame.

fr. "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys: And Who Elected Them America's Team Anyway?" (St. Martin's Press).

The following article comes from the Nov. 20-26, 1997 issue of Packer Plus:


The Dallas Cowboys may call themselves America's Team, but calling yourself something doesn't make it so. Not by a long shot.
Remember that Smith Barney commercial in which John Houseman said, "We make money the old-fashioned way...we earn it"? Well, you've got to earn a title like America's Team, not just claim it. And then wear it with the old-fashioned respect it deserves.

Being a professional football player has always been something very special to me. When I first began playing for the Green Bay Packers back in 1958, a lot of guys in the league chewed tobacco and, to tell you the truth, wern't very professional, either in appearance or attitude. As a matter of fact, professional football wasn't really all that professional then, either.

The first television contract back then was somewhere in the neighborhood of $250,000 - it certainly wasn't a great deal more than that. But Vince Lombardi impressed upon us that we had to bring a degree of class, a degree of professionalism to the game. He would hold America's great corporations - IBM, General Motors, etc. - up as an example to us, telling us we had to perform like they did. And Packers took it upon themselves to represent pro football in a positive manner. So much so that, in the end, the great corporations were holding us up as an example - in preparation, commitment, and discipline.

I guess that's why I've always been sensitive to anything that detracts from what we tried to do in raising the image of the pro football player.

I have had occasion to be proud of several ex-NFLers - like Alex Karras and Merlin Olsen, who went to Hollywood and succeeded in a very different and difficult environment. They used intelligece and emotional maturity to compete and excel in the outside world. But I continue to be sensitive to the image of the professional football player, and to anything that undermines all the hard work of so many to overcome the image of our dumb jocks.

That's why I hate the Dallas Cowboys of today. After all those years of attempting to shed the "dumb jock" image, here they are, down on the field acting like fools and reinforcing the image so many of us have tried so hard to change. All those years of working hard to remake our image destroyed in a few taunting seconds. And every time I see them dancing and prancing around, conducting themselves like idiots, I'm embarrassed for them - and for all my fellow football players.

The Cowboys of yesteryear - the Tom Landry Cowboys of Don Meredith, Bob Lilly, George Andrie, Lee Roy Jordan, Roger Staubach, Jethro Pugh, and Calvin Hill - were a wonderful group, one possessing quality and dignity. And as such, they represented the true virtues of the cowboy in our culture, the ones we became familiar with every time we saw John Wayne up there on the screen portraying one with his quiet, strong, honesty, his integrity, his pride, his selflessness and all the other attributes of the hardworking cowboy.

Today a few, a very few, of the current crop of Cowboys possess those same attributes - players like Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Jay Novacek, and Daryl Johnston. But, unfortunately, they are trapped in a situation they can't control and have to endure most of the rest of their teammates playing with an arrogant, egotistical "me-ism" that demeans the entire club and everyone who went before them. It's an attitude I can't stand. It's easy to see why a bunch of surly, strutting, swaggering players call themselves America's Team. But I can't understand anyone else doing it.

However, there is one team now and forever, that reflects America's virtues and is worthy of the title America's Team: the Green Bay Packers.

The Green Bay Packer team of today is a special group of players and great role models. There's Reggie White, a religious man and a great leader. There's Brett Favre, as pure and as decent a kid as you could find anywhere, unspoiled by success. And then there's Adam Timmerman, an articulate sweetheart of a kid, who, after hearing of a farmer in Iowa who had cancer and never had the opportunity to attend a ballgame, arranged to have the farmer come to Green Bay, got him two tickets and look'd after him all weekend - even taking the farmer home for dinner. Adam didn't even know him, but he heard the guy was in trouble and having a tough time of it, so he stretched out his hand to help him.

These are the virtues America can identify with, the virtues of a real America's Team. And role models America can be proud of.

Compare these virtues with the virtues of the Dallas Cowboys. Charles Barkley said that "a lot of young athletes of today are great role models if kids want to grow up to be a drug dealer or pimp." Well, that's what I think of when I look at the Dallas Cowboys of today. There they are, strutting and swaggering around, giving off all the wrong signals for the kids of today.

This is not America's Team. This is more like America's children, trying to find out who they are, posturing and screaming and making idiots of themselves in front of the TV cameras. Every time I see them on TV, I don't know whether to root for the defense or root for the prosecution. No, this will never be America's Team. If this is, then woe is America.

America needs real heroes, not players who call Dial-a-Prayer and ask for their own messages. Or players like Erik Williams, who came down on the back of defensive limeman John Jurkovic's leg and ended his career in Green Bay in as lame a cheap shot as I've ever seen. I hate that. And I hate the Cowboys who play that way. That sort of stuff wouldn't play in Green Bay.

America's Team? Give me Green Bay any day. The Green Bay Packers have always been associated with pride, excellence, quality, dignity, discipline - all those wonderful qualities we have stood for over the years. That's why the Packers are America's real team, not the Cowboys. We've earned it, the old-fashioned way.

Jerry Kramer, a guard for the Packers from 1958-68, is the author of two books: "Instant Replay" and "Distant Replay." He wrote the aboce essay for a newly published book called "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys: And Who Elected Them America's Team Anyway?" (St. Martin's Press).

[K-town]

Jerry Kramer was the guard featured on the NFL's First 50 Years team (along with Forrest Gregg at tackle). If he was one of the two best guards in the first 50 years of the league, how can he be excluded from the Hall of Fame?

My personal choice for Packer deserving of the Hall of Fame - Leroy Butler. What a great story of someone overcoming incredible odds to post a long and celebrated career in the league. With the same team. If not for his untimely injury, he would have been the first player ever to get 40 interceptions and 20 sacks (I believe).

[Tony Oday]

That's why I hate the Dallas Cowboys of today. After all those years of attempting to shed the "dumb jock" image, here they are, down on the field acting like fools and reinforcing the image so many of us have tried so hard to change. All those years of working hard to remake our image destroyed in a few taunting seconds. And every time I see them dancing and prancing around, conducting themselves like idiots, I'm embarrassed for them - and for all my fellow football players.


I agree with this 100%. For this thought alone he should make the Hall...

[packinpatland]

Ditto, Ditto, Ditto.
Jerry Kramer's the man. No block, no Starr QB sneak over the goal line.

[woodbuck27]

Jerry Kramer


Gerald Louis Kramer (b. January 23, 1936 at Jordan, Montana) is a former professional American football player (and author), best remembered for his 11-year NFL career with the Green Bay Packers as an offensive lineman. As a right guard, #64 was an integral part of the famous "Packer Sweep", which featured both guards pulling out from their normal positions and lead-blocking for the running back going around the end. Kramer was an All-Pro five times, and a member of the NFL's 50th anniversary team in 1969, but surprisingly, even after appearing on the list of finalists ten times since becoming eligible, has not been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Jerry Kramer began playing football as a boy living in northern Utah and later, Sandpoint, Idaho. After graduating from Sandpoint High School in 1954, he accepted a football scholarship to the University of Idaho. In that era, Idaho was a member of the Pacific Coast Conference, the forerunner of the Pac-10. Kramer was a standout player for the Vandals, along with teammate (and roommate) Wayne Walker of Boise, a future All-Pro linebacker with the Detroit Lions. Both were drafted in the fourth round of the 1958 NFL draft. Being the first two players drafted from Idaho, they would both have their numbers retired later by the university. Both also played in the East-West Shrine Game and the College All-Star Game, in which they defeated the defending NFL champion Detroit Lions.

Kramer was the 39th player selected in the 1958 NFL draft, taken in the fourth round by the Green Bay Packers. The first four rounds of the draft were held on December 2, 1957. Two Packer Hall-of-Famers were taken in this draft: fullback Jim Taylor of LSU, in the second round, 15th overall, and linebacker Ray Nitschke of Illinois in the third round, 36th overall. Kramer played every game in his rookie season of 1958, but the Packers finished with the worst record in the league. In January 1959, the Packers hired a new head coach, Vince Lombardi, whose playing position in college was the same as Kramer's, never an easy situation for any player, but especially challenging when the coach was as disciplined and demanding of perfection as Lombardi.

With Kramer playing solidly at right guard, the Packers would win five NFL titles and the first two Super Bowls. Kramer also served as the team's place kicker in 1962, 1963, and part of 1968. As a kicker, he kicked 29 field goals, 90 extra points, for a total of 177 points. In college, he was also a kicker, with Wayne Walker as long snapper. Walker was also placekicker for the Detroit Lions midway through his career.

During his career, Kramer was often injured. Among these were surgery to remove wood fragments embedded in his body from a teenage accident, and a badly injured ankle suffered in 1961. In all, Kramer played in 129 regular season games; he also had 22 surgeries in 11 seasons, including a colostomy, which he described as nightmare most people don't know of yet. Despite these setbacks, Kramer was selected as an All-Pro in 1960, 1962, 1963, 1966, & 1967.

In his penultimate season of 1967, Kramer collaborated with Dick Schaap on his best-selling first book, Instant Replay, a diary of the season which highlighted the heretofore obscure work of an offensive lineman. It climaxed with Kramer's lead block in front of Bart Starr to win the legendary "Ice Bowl" championship game. Later, Kramer and Schaap would write two more books together. Kramer played one more year, retiring from the NFL following the 1968 season. After that season, which saw the Packers powerhouse fall apart into a losing season, he published a sequel book, Farewell to Football.

Kramer is now living in Boise in southwestern Idaho. In October 2005, he released Inside the Locker Room a c.d set that includes tapes from Super Bowl II, which includes Coach Lombardi’s final locker room address as the Coach of World Champion Green Bay Packers. As for other projects, In September 2006, Jerry will be ready to re-release one of his best sellers, Instant Replay.

He has six children and 4 Grandchildren. His sons Matt & Jordan also played football at the University of Idaho. Jordan has been a linebacker for the Tennessee Titans since 2003 and the Atlanta Falcons since 2005.

[KYPack]

Dillon
Kramer
Favre (It'll be awhile, I know)

Darkhorses
Ron Wolf He has a lot of pals around the league & his GB turnaround is legendary
LeRoy Butler A stellar safety. Inventin' the Leap outta get you something
Bob Harlan He was the the wheel in the Packer turnaround
Unca Mikey Holmgren Probably as many on here don't want him to make it as those of us who'd like to see him in. 3 Superbowls and winning 1 is an accomplishment. He's probably is the darkest of these horses

[Patler]

I agree, Kramer should be in the Hall. One of the problems Kramer faced when he first became eligible for the Hall was the general impression that guards were not as valuable and not as "good" as tackles or centers. Tackles made it. Centers made it. For years and years, guards did not. I believe the first pure guard selected from the modern era was Gene Upshaw in 1987. When guards were finally given their due by the selection committee a few years later, Kramer had been out of the league for 25 years already, and some very visible, very well-known guards of more recent times came to the forefront, like Joe Delamielleure, John Hannah, Larry Little, Tom Mack and Mike Munchak The only guard the selection committee really "reached back" for was Billy Shaw who was elected in 1999 and played the same time as Kramer, in the 1960s.

[Patler]

KYPack - Holmgren? Not a chance unless he gets back to the Super Bowl and wins some in the next few years. He had a nice career in GB, but didn' really do anything in Seattle until this year, was about .500 and even perceived as underachieving with the talent he had at Seattle.

[Harlan Huckleby]

LBer Fred Strickland played 30 games for us in 1994-95.

The 20th pick (47th overall in the 2nd rd.) out of Purdue, by the LA Rams in 1988 he played 5 seasons there. Fred Strickland was a solid LBer in the NFC for 12 NFL Season's, with stops in Minnesota, Green Bay, Dallas and ending his career in Washington.

When freddy was in G.B., the fans generally complained about him. He looked kinda slow, but he was actually pretty effective at clogging the middle. He was the most generic player I could think up, I was just being a wise guy, which is my normal m.o.