winners and participants

[Maxie the Taxi]

Great post, KY! Jimmy Taylor was certainly a hard case. He was one of my favorite Packers back then on a team with probably 30 guys who could be favorites. (Max McGee is probably my most favorite, obviously.)

I didn't know Taylor personally, but I heard he bumped heads with Lombardi too, not on game stuff but on contracts. He left, I think, to try to cash in a bit ala the Gold Dust boys.

Anyway, he ran angry as they say nowadays. If you needed yardage in the worst way, you got the ball to Taylor. He was one of the few if not the first of the "cut" bodies. He lifted weights before weightlifting was cool. He wasn't a "finesse" back to say the least. He was hard as nails. He ran over guys. His battles with Jim Brown over the years was legendary. If I had to choose, I take Taylor over Brown and I don't think it is because I'm a homer. hahaha

[Fritz]

Absolutely true. Anderson was very well thought of as a runner, receiver, and punter. He even threw the HB option on occasion. 1000 yard runners were very rare in the late 60s because every team used a 2 back set and both ran for considerable yardage. Lombardi would have been praised for this pick.

You must not read Packerrats!

A first overall pick had better be a hall of famer, not just a Packer hall of famer. Look at the incredible careers that the guys picked behind Donny Anderson had! Check this out, from Wikipedia:

" That year's draft included future hall-of-famers Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers, Joe Namath, and Fred Biletnikoff."

He coulda taken Jack Snow or Joe Namath instead - Joe Freakin' Namath! Or he coulda traded up and gotten Sayers or Butkus!

Christ, Lombardi coulda closed his eyes and thrown a dart at the draft board at any of those other four names and done better!

Sure Anderson was okay, had a couple of decent years, but when you have the #7 overall pick you don't waste it on a "pretty darned good" player. You need a superstar, man. You need to pick a Gale Sayers or a Dick Butkus or a Joe Namath or even a Fred Biletnikoff, who was a great receiver, or an enforcer like Jack Snow. Not some guy who's okay for a few years.

What a lousy pick. Sure, if they'd picked up Donny in the second round, that'd been okay, but not as a first round pick.

Lombardi needs to be fired for fugging up that pick. He totally screwed the pooch and that's the beginning of the end for the Packer dynasty.

See? That's what Packerrats woulda looked like circa 1969.

[Maxie the Taxi]

^^^ Sir, I was a Packerrat in 1969. I knew Packerrats. Packerrats were friends of mine. Sir, you are no Packerrat.

[RashanGary]

Good stuff guys. I remember the majikowski sharpe days like that.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Lane's running mate WAS Brockington. It was the highlight of the Devine years watching those two pound the pill. As an old schooler, I loved it!!

Now Brockington and Lane's brief career together is cemented firmly in my memory. We definitely pretended to be those guys in our football games.

One Christmas I bought a John Brockington poster for my youngest brother, and it never came in the mail. Instead, I wrapped up something very disagreeable. This incident is still an open wound, and I'm not proud of it. I tried to buy a JB poster on ebay a few years ago to begin the healing process, but they are insanely expensive collector's items.

[Fritz]

^^^ Sir, I was a Packerrat in 1969. I knew Packerrats. Packerrats were friends of mine. Sir, you are no Packerrat.

Heck, I thought I nailed (some of) the Packerrats mentality perfectly. I just channeled my inner "They shoulda taken Vernon Davis with that pick; AJ Hawk sucks" and my "hell, the four players taken after ________ all ended up in the hall of fame!" and there it was: the perfect representation of what a 1969 Packerrats post on a "Donny Anderson: Lombardi's Worst Pick?" thread might look like.

Don't forget; I was a Packerrat in 1969, too. But without all the bombast of social media available, I didn't know enough to hate Vince Lombardi for wrecking the Packer dynasty.

[Maxie the Taxi]

^^^Just kidding. I was hoping you recognized the format (Lloyd Bentsen VP debate putdown of Dan Quayle). My weird sense of humor got the best of me. lol

[Fritz]

No, I got the humor and enjoyed it. I am both proud and slightly saddened to say I actually watched that debate as it happened. It was nice to see that air-headed young whippersnapper put in his place.


It's been awhile since Texas had a national politician it could be proud of.