Wynn Warned Not to Get Comfortable, Morency Questionable

[LEWCWA]

I don't know if anyone else has said it, but it is a bad day when your feeling bad about losing Noah Herron for the year.

[motife]

I think Wynn looks pretty cool.. He reminds me of my favorite all time Green Bay Packer....

[Harlan Huckleby]

I think Wynn looks pretty cool.. He reminds me of my favorite all time Green Bay Packer....

Brent Fullwood?


Damn, I am still in search of a John Brockington poster. One Christmass back in the 70's, I ordered a JB poster for a present for my little brother. It never came in the mail, and I gave him a gag gift instead that I am too embarassed to describe. The wounds have never healed, and now you simply can not find a JB poster, even on eBay.

[motife]

see what I mean?



I wasn't THAT disappointed in Brent Fullwood. He had one halfways decent year.

[Harlan Huckleby]

ya, Fullwood was quite a hard runner. Just had injuries and (the rumor mill says) a surly personality.

I think Wynn looks like he could be a player.

[gbgary]

Damn, I am still in search of a John Brockington poster...you simply can not find a JB poster, even on eBay.

man, he was great wasn't he!!!!!??

[swede]

Damn, I am still in search of a John Brockington poster...you simply can not find a JB poster, even on eBay.

man, he was great wasn't he!!!!!??

Willie Wood and John Brockington were two of the guys we always wanted to be when playing football in the backyard. What was the story on why the guy flamed out so quickly. Was it a knee injury in the time before good medical care?

[Willard]

Damn, I am still in search of a John Brockington poster...you simply can not find a JB poster, even on eBay.

man, he was great wasn't he!!!!!??

Willie Wood and John Brockington were two of the guys we always wanted to be when playing football in the backyard. What was the story on why the guy flamed out so quickly. Was it a knee injury in the time before good medical care?

I was always Brockington during our backyard games. My brother was MacCarthur Lane. Now that was a solid backfield!

[esoxx]

What was the story on why the guy flamed out so quickly. Was it a knee injury in the time before good medical care?

Brockington says factors included trading Mac Lane and taking out the Slant 37 run play he ran so well. Remember how JB would begin stutter stepping and look tentative later in his career? New plays were installed that didn't play to his strengths.

He was one of the best in the league and they take out what he did best. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Further proof of incompetence in the Packer organization during the '70's.

From the Racine Journal Times:

"It looked like he was on his way to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but then in his fourth year, he went into a decline," said Lee Remmel, the Packers' long-time executive public relations director. "And then the decline became more accentuated in his fifth year and he was never the same after that."

Brockington insists that his muscles, tendons and ligaments were no worse for the wear after absorbing so many hits for so many years. What did wear on him was the loss of Lane, who was traded by first-year coach Bart Starr prior to the 1975 season.

"When they traded Mac Lane, my attitude got real bad. I started to sulk. He was a great friend, a great football player, the best blocking back you ever saw," Brockington said. "I mean, this guy could uproot linebackers, man. He was a force."

And when Starr's offensive coordinator, Paul Roach, scrapped Brockington's favorite weakside slant play in 1975, that was the clincher. It was all but over for a man who might have had so many more yards to run with his powerful legs.

"At the same time (of the Lane trade), we had a new running backs coach in Paul Roach and he took away the slant, which was the play that Jim Taylor made famous," Brockington said. "It was my favorite play, too. And we put in the 38-39, which was running under control until you see a crack and then – boom – take it.

"I just could not slow down enough. That play just did not sit with me because I was never used to throttling down once I had the ball in my hands."

By 1978, before Brockington had even reached his 30th birthday, he would be out of football for good.

[motife]

Mcarthur Lane was built like a brick you know what. Nobody was built as good as Lane, he was like one big twisted steel torso of mucsle. He looked like Tookie Williams, I'm not kidding.

[Fritz]

Anybody remember that MacArthur Lane could also throw the halfback option pass?

I'd always heard Brockington got worn out. This stuff above is all new to me. Why would you change the offense in a way that didn't suit the skills of a guy who'd been a stud for a few years? I guess you've got to run your own offense, but then you've got to find players that fit that system. Starr didn't manage that.

[Carolina_Packer]

Cool pictures!

2 thoughts from me...

1) It's too bad that TT didn't react more quickly to the injury bug, seeing how Morency and Wynn both were out, and were getting behind. I think he hesitated and it might cost the team. I can understand that at this point of training camp, you didn't know what teams would want or accept, and there was probably no street free agent worth picking up. Then when Jackson got a concussion and Herron was injured, that further clouded the picture. It certainly didn't clear up when Wynn came back, since they told him not to get too comfortable. I take that to mean they could use his roster spot to get another running back (or perhaps a 12th D-lineman). Now Morency is slow to mend. I realize that we could still be in this situation with anyone that we might have signed and that the situation kind of got out of hand.

2) Grant must not be a stiff, otherwise why not instead go after someone who was let go in a last cutdown from some other team and not give up a 6th rounder (or whatever it was)? TT was a bit over a barrell with his fluid situation at RB, but again, I don't think he'd give up any draft pick if he thought a guy from waivers would do just as well. He must have scouted Grant and thought he fit the system well, or the dart landed on Grant.

[CaliforniaCheez]

Wynn has talent and potential and if you have that you can be warned your whole life.

Potential is a coach killer. Many players have it until they are forced out of the league. Best be apprehensive.

Wynn has a poor attitude and does not posses the mental toughness to make it in the NFL.

Before his rookie season is completed or terminated Wynn will be complaining with the B word about something.

[Badgerinmaine]

MacArthur Lane was a fantastic blocker...what a great backfield that was in '72.

Another Lane memory: I have an NFL Films VHS tape, "NFL Goes Motown"--sets game film to Motown music really well. One of the segments shows Lane, after he left GB and was playing for Kansas City, scoring a touchdown, handing the ball to a little white kid in a Chiefs stocking cap in the endzone and giving him a low ten (as opposed to a high five). Great shot...

[Badgerinmaine]

Anybody remember that MacArthur Lane could also throw the halfback option pass?

I remembered, but he did it less than I had thought. I looked it up on databasefootball.com, and his lifetime passing stats were 3 for 5 for 42 yards and 1 TD--all with the Packers (he never threw a pass for the Cardinals or Chiefs).

I wonder if that picture of Mac was from the '72 playoff game the Packers lost to Washington? I was just barely too young to remember the Super Bowl teams, so that's the first Packers playoff game I remember firsthand. It was very, very painful.