JERRY KRAMER
When you google ‘offensive guard,’ Wikipedia’s posts come up first. Then there are postings entitled, “Football 101, “Football Positions For Beginners” and other banal blather which offer good faith attempts to educate the lay person.
To cut to the heart of the matter like a hot knife through butter just a name and a number would do.
If you’re taking names and numbers then Jerry Kramer, #64 is all you need to know.
Jerry Kramer, Offensive Guard, #64 Green Bay Packers says it all.
And believe me when I tell you, it wasn’t just about Kramer’s legendary block on the Cowboys’ Jethro Pugh in the famed 1967 NFL Championship Game dubbed “The Ice Bowl,” for which he is still so vividly remembered.
(The game-time temperature at Lambeau Field on that December 31st. day just over fifty years ago was 15 degrees below 0 [F.] with an average wind chill around -48, which when adjusted to conform with the revised National Weather Service wind chill index implemented in 2001, would have warmed things up to a robust -36 degrees).
On third-and-goal at the Dallas two-foot line and trailing 17–14 with 16 seconds on the clock, quarterback Bart Starr successfully executed a quarterback sneak behind Kramer (with credit also due center Ken Bowman) for the touchdown and the victory, a prelude to their Super Bowl II win over the AFL champion Oakland Raiders, Vince Lombardi’s last game as the Packers’ head coach.
In 1969 Jerry Kramer was selected by Hall of Fame voters as the best guard in the first 50 years of the NFL.
He was named to the NFL’s All-Decade Team of the 1960s as well as to The Super Bowl Silver Anniversary Team.
A fourth round (№39 overall) draft pick in 1958 out of the University of Idaho, he was an Associated Press First-Team All-Pro five times (1960; 1962-’63; and 1966-’67) and was selected to the Pro Bowl three times (1962-’63; and 1967).
A vital cog in the Packers’ historic run of dominance during the ’60s, he started at right guard in five NFL championship games (missing 1961 due to injury) four of which were won by Green Bay and in both of their Super Bowl (I & II) victories.
A lesser known fact perhaps is that Kramer handled the place-kicking duties in 1962-’63 and briefly in his final season. He totaled 177 career points on 90 extra points and 29 field goals made.
In the 1962 NFL Championship win against the home-team New York Giants, Kramer kicked three field goals and added one PAT.
In 130 regular season games spanning his eleven-year career (1958–1968) all with Green Bay, the Packers registered winning records in all but his first and last campaigns.
He was a Hall of Fame finalist eleven times before finally being elected for enshrinement by the 48-member selection committee two ½ weeks ago, on February 3, 2018, the eve of Super Bowl LII.
The call came fifty years after his fabled block and twenty years after his Hall of Fame candidacy had last been debated.
Each candidate was required to receive at least 80% of the vote in order to be selected.
Veteran Dallas Morning News NFL scribe and seniors committee member Rick Gosselin, who helped present Kramer’s case to the panel at the beginning of the selection meeting, described him as “the most deserving player not in Canton” and the Hall’s “biggest oversight.”
When Kramer was announced as a finalist, Hall of Fame Executive director Joe Horrigan reached out to him in anticipation of his possible impending selection and quipped, “Jerry, I want you to know that [if it happens] this will reduce my incoming mail by 90 percent.”
The mystery is, what took so long?
Was there a bias against Lombardi-era Packers, as in ‘enough already?’ (And ‘enough already’ with Lombardi?)
After all, Kramer is now the 12th. player from Green Bay’s 1960s teams to be chosen, joining former teammates Jim Taylor, Forrest Gregg, Starr, Ray Nitschke, Herb Adderley, Willie Davis, Jim Ringo, Paul Hornung, Henry Jordan, Willie Wood and Dave Robinson, who was elected as a seniors committee candidate in 2013.
And he is the 25th. Packer to be selected.
He also becomes the fourth enshrinee with a significant Packers connection to be chosen in the last five years following Robinson, GM Ron Wolf (2015) and QB Brett Favre (2016).
But, so what?
What exactly does any of this have to do with Kramer’s achievements on the gridiron?
Nothing.
Ken Bowman. Bob Skoronski. Ron Kramer. John Roach. Who?
John Roach served as Bart Starr’s backup from 1961 to 1963. With the Packers he threw only 16 passes in his first two seasons but was pressed into action, starting four games in 1963 while Starr was nursing a broken hand. Green Bay won the first three, averaging better than 31 points per contest. Although he retired in 1964, he was around long enough to recognize the greatness of the offensive line.
Said he in an interview with Packers historian Cliff Christl:
“The best. That was the crown jewel of our team, the offensive line. Forrest (Gregg) was the best (right) tackle in the game. Jerry Kramer was the best right guard in the game. (Jim) Ringo was the best center. Ron Kramer was one of the best — (Mike) Ditka being the other — tight ends. Fuzzy (Thurston) was a good left guard, but he wasn’t as good as these other guys. (Bob) Skoronski also was a good one. (Norm) Masters was good, but I think Skoronski was better. Bigger. Jerry Kramer, Forrest Gregg and Ringo made all-pro almost every year.”
And Ken Bowman with all due respect to Roach?
As the center in “The Ice Bowl,” he was certainly in the mix. (He played in 123 games from 1964–1973, starting 51).
The 82-year-old Kramer, a self-effacing Idahoan born in Montana, has always preferred to take the high road — when he wasn’t going right through you, that is.
Rationalizing his interminable wait to be recognized and deemed Hall-of-Fame-worthy, he said:
“The number of things I’ve been able to do have been amazing. I grew up in a little town in Idaho of 3,500 people. And I thought I’d end up driving a logging truck someday — if I got lucky. Life is good. This has been one hell of a ride…Life’s been too good for me to worry about will I or won’t I.”
Keeping his emotions in check hasn’t been easy though.
Kramer and his fellow HOFers learned of their selections when Hall of Fame president David Baker knocked on each of the finalist’s hotel room doors (in Minneapolis) at the conclusion of the selection meeting.
Kramer was teased yet again.
“We were in our rooms from 3:30 to 4, and so 3:30 comes by, and 3:35 comes by, and there’s a knock on the door. I’ve got my family with me and a bunch of friends. So we go to the door.
And it’s the maid.
It was something I was afraid to believe in, I was afraid to hope for. So I kept trying to keep those emotions out there somewhere. But hey, I’m here and I’m part of the group.
It’s the ultimate honor in our game. It’s the top of the heap. If you make it here, you’ve made it in professional football…
It’s an incredible thrill, and I’m thinking it’ll take a few days or months or years to get over it and really understand it and see what it means to my life. But at this point, it’s one of the best days of my life.”
As for finally joining his Packers teammates in Canton’s Hall, Kramer remarked in characteristic fashion, “It’s wonderful (to join them), but I miss ’em. I wish they were here, I wish we had an opportunity to be here together. Bart has been sensational in writing letters and doing all sorts of things, and Hornung has been sticking up for me for 20 years…But I miss those guys. I’ve shared so much with them over the years and it would be nice to share this with them.”
“I still can’t put it all together. It’s just still too new. The whole thing is kind of a fantasy land. These are things you dream about and never happen. They are just dreams. But having it happen is over the top. It’s great.”
It happened! HALLELUJAH!!!
Jerry Kramer had been the only member of the NFL’s 50th. Anniversary Team not chosen for the Hall of Fame.
He had been widely regarded as not only the greatest Packer denied this honor, but also the greatest NFL player without this feather in his cap.
No more.
Kramer’s induction this summer will be celebrated by fellow enshrinees, seniors committee candidate Robert Brazile; contributor candidate Bobby Beathard (an esteemed NFL GM who built seven teams which reached the Super Bowl); and five modern era selections: Randy Moss, Brian Urlacher, Brian Dawkins, Terrell Owens and Ray Lewis.
Those seven most worthy gentlemen unveiling their busts on that memorable day should be defined not only by their accomplishments on or related to the football field, but also by the company they will keep on the dais.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in February 2018.]
