Proposed Packers Alternative Uniforms

[vince]

I'm getting a Matthews 52. Screw the kids. Their feet will callous up. That way, we can all pay homage to '29 together. I hear it was a very cold year.

[Gunakor]

Fritz, you say that as if it's a bad thing.

I bet they sell a bunch of these jerseys. If you look around the net, it seems to me that more people like them - or at least don't mind them, than hate them.

Celebrating the most storied and successful history in the NFL, and promoting what many believe is the greatest success story in all of sports - and making a few dollars in the process, which ultimately benefits the fans - is a good thing for everyone.

There was a reason those hideous things were retired so long ago. They are even MORE hideous in their return.

This specific design looked better with the smaller circle IMO - it was enlarged for TV purposes, something not given much consideration when the design was first worn. That enlarged circle is every bit as gaudy and ridiculous to me as the clock Flava Flav wears around his neck on TV.

I don't think throwback jerseys are necessary or even reasonable, to be honest. Honor the past, sure, but don't try to replicate it on a football field. The Packers have a HOF where fans if they choose can go relive what it was like a century ago. That's where history belongs, in a HOF, in a museum. Not on an NFL football field on Sunday afternoons.

[Fritz]

Hey, I like Flava Flav!

Fight the Powers that Be, Baby!

[swede]

Wouldn't it be more in keeping with the spirit of retro to purchase a Curly Lambeau, a Mike Michalske, or a Johnny "Blood" McNally jersey?

[Fritz]

I want a Don Hutson jersey...except they didn't put names on the back in them days.

[vince]

Good point, swede. Maybe I'll go with a Jug Earp or Cal Hubbard - one of the beefy guys in the trenches who were so important but never got the accolades. The game's a lot different today, but some things haven't changed.

Here are some excerpts from a book which is available free online in a bunch of different formats called, The Green Bay Packers - Pro Football's Pioneer Team by Chuck Johnson, published back in 1961. It covers each of the formative years - at least since 1919 up to the Lombardi era in some detail. Since the players from those days were still alive back then, it's probably the last and best historical chronicle of the earliest years of the Packers in the NFL.

Lambeau had trouble disguising his own enthusiasm as he assembled the 1929 team. He had reason for optimism. For all purposes, Lambeau was through as a player himself, but he was coming into his own as a coach and organizer. He pleaded and he cajoled; he paraded up down the sideline, shouting encouragement and instructions; he and he gestured. He inspired his men and he drove them, at times ruthlessly.

One of his leading players, Hubbard, said later of Lambeau, “They’ll have trouble finding six men to bury the so-and-so.”

But Lambeau got results. His Packers in the next three seasons accomplished the unprecedented.

In 1929, the Packers won their first National Football League championship.

Practice opened September 8 at Joannes Park with 2,000 spectators on hand. Within a man or two, Lambeau had his squad for the year. Few rookies tried out. Expenses were kept to a minimum.

Lambeau invited only players he figured would make the team. If they weren't good enough, neither was the team. The squad rarely numbered over thirty men and no more than twenty-five on trips.

The regulars on offense were also the regulars on defense. In close games, fifteen or fewer played. The starters usually were out only because of injury or exhaustion. Sixty-minute performers were the rule rather than the exception.

"We had to pace ourselves to go the distance and still have left at the finish," he said.

"We didn't throw too many passes, although Curly believed in the pass more than the other coaches of the time. All the backs could throw the ball, and did, but the passer had to be at least five yards behind the Ike of scrimmage.”

"In those days, there wasn't as much scoring. If a team scored a touchdown, the philosophy was, 'Well, we got ours, now you try to get yours.' There was more punting, often on third down or sooner.”

The rules on placing the ball were different. Unless you went out of bounds, the ball wasn't moved in toward the middle of the field. If you were tackled a yard or two inside the sideline, that's where the ball was put in play. "We had special sideline plays for such occasions, often with no one lined up on side of the center because there wasn't room.

"We had plays to run the ball out of bounds to get it moved in, but sometimes we'd fake to the strong side and try to go over the weak side, even if there was barely room for the runner to maneuver."

The Packers of 1929 played their five home league games first and won them all. The difficult part of the schedule, however, remained - eight straight road games. A crowd of 2,000 gathered to see the team off at the Chicago and Northwestern depot. Departure of the train was delayed for forty-five minutes because Johnny Blood was late. Then the team left for Chicago, first stop.

In Green Bay, a few hundred fans the team followed the progress of each road game with a "grid graph” at the Columbus Club. Wire reports provided scoring and information as to which team had the ball and where.

The Packers won their first four road games, then met the Giants in the Polo Grounds at New York. Both teams were undefeated and the game, it turned out, decided the championship. Before divisions were formed in 1933, all teams competed in one group. There was no playoff at the end of the season, season, unless there was a tie for first place.

Green Bay beat the Giants, 20-6, even though quarterback, Joseph (Red) Dunn and halfback Eddie Kotal were out with injuries. The Packers were alone in first place. They had won with an almost complete iron-man performance. The starters played without help until the last minute, when Paul Minnick replaced the injured Jim Bowdoin at right guard. It was Green Bay's only substitution.

"Oh, how we hated to see the substitute come in," center Jug Earp recalled, "We had wanted to go all the way without help. We told Curly, ‘We don't need him. Jim'll be all right. He just got a bump.' But Curly sent Paul in, anyway."

The Packers were held to a scoreless tie by Frankford, but whipped Providence (in their third game in eight days) and the Bears to clinch the title.

The Packers of 1929 allowed 13 league opponents a total of 24 points. In five home games, they did not permit a touchdown. The opposition scored six points in Green Bay, on three safeties.

Some 20,000 persons turned out to welcome the team home. The crowd waited for more than an hour in freezing weather before the train came in from Chicago. Five miles from the depot, rooters lighted the train's way in by burning red fuses.

Soldiers and policemen ran interference for the engine, permitting the train to reach the station platform. Signs and banners of gold and blue were waved aloft, proclaiming "Welcome, Packers" and "Hail Champions."

An automobile parade took the Packers to city hall where Mayor John V. Diener presented keys to the city to Lambeau and the players.

The next night, a victory dinner was held at the Beaumont Hotel. Each player received a watch and a check for $220, from a special players' fund sponsored and collected by the Green Bay Press-Gazette.

The Packers were champions.

[vince]

Here's one of the few available game-action pics from '29.


Your '29 Green Bay Packers


Article on the First NFL-Championship-Securing Victory in Packer History

[Fritz]

In many ways it sounds more like rugby than today's football.

I would like to have seen one of those games.

[vince]

Me too Fritz. Lambeau seems to have been the biggest innovator who was largely responsible for transforming football from its close ties to rugby into the game it's become. He made the passing game an integral part of offense and the game's popularity took off from that.

[swede]

The original Railbirds.

Practice opened September 8 at Joannes Park with 2,000 spectators on hand.

The original Paul Hornung.

Departure of the train was delayed for forty-five minutes because Johnny Blood was late. Then the team left for Chicago, first stop.

The original Packerrats.

In Green Bay, a few hundred fans the team followed the progress of each road game with a "grid graph” at the Columbus Club. Wire reports provided scoring and information as to which team had the ball and where...

This had to have been, literally, more than a third of the city.

...Some 20,000 persons turned out to welcome the team home. The crowd waited for more than an hour in freezing weather before the train came...

Thanks for sharing that, Vince.