Falling Starr: Bart Starr As Head Coach Of The Green Bay Packers 1975-83

By Stanton Greene

It’s the last, great, untold story of the Green Bay Packers, the near decade the legendary Bart Starr served as head coach of the NFL’s most storied franchise. This is not just another football story. This is an epic drama told on a grand scale. After the crisis filled four year reign of Dan Devine, Starr was hailed as the team’s savior, the unanimous choice of fans and management. But Lombardi’s right hand man turned out to have feet of clay, making poor personnel choices, ignoring key scouts who begged him to draft Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott and losing All-Pro linebacker Ted Hendricks to free agency. Starr became a lightning rod as he carried on a protracted battle with the local press while alienating members of management that led to his being forced to give up the position of general manager in 1981.

But amidst the chaos, Bart slowly emerged as a competent coach, building his team around a modern passing game powered by quarterback Lynn Dickey and future Hall Of Famer James Lofton. After a playoff run in 1982, the Packers emerged with the most exciting offense in the NFL, highlighted by an epic 48-47 upset of the defending Super Bowl Champion Washington Redskins on Monday Night Football. But in the end, Starr’s 83 club fell three points short of a division title and he was unceremoniously fired, ending 26 years of service with the team.

This book reexamines Starr’s nine, tumultuous seasons as head coach of the Green Bay Packers in detail. Every game, including preseason, is examined, every personnel move, draft, trade and off field battle is detailed. Deemed a failure at the time of his dismissal, Packer historian and author Stanton Greene reaches a new conclusion, one that doesn’t whitewash the ugly, losing seasons, but brings into contrast the fact that even in defeat, Starr was a champion. He was the right man for the job in his time, a man who learned from his mistakes and became a unifying force to his players, who left behind a competitive team with a modernized scouting organization and training facilities. Beaten up by the press and fans, Starr remained, unbowed, unwavering from his commitment to excellence. Sometimes victory cannot be measured in the won-loss column. Sometimes victory can only be measured in the excellence of character.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stanton Greene
• Release date: Apr 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005756413

Book preview

Falling Starr – Bart Starr As Head Coach Of The Green Bay Packers 1975-83

By Stanton Greene

Copyright Donivan-Cross 2018

NorthernWriter.com Publishing

There are no second acts in American lives.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

"You can’t always be first, but you have to believe that you should have been – that you were never beaten – that time just ran out on you."

Vince Lombardi

Table Of Contents

Prologue Atlanta, Georgia December 1974

Part 1 Surrendering To The Chaos 1975-77

Picking Up The Pieces December 1974

1975

January 1975 The Times They Lived In

1975 Draft

July to August The First Training Camp and Preseason

1975 Preseason

1975 Regular Season

The Stat Sheet

Rebuilding The Green Bay Packers

1976

1976 Draft

1976 Preseason

1976 Regular Season

The Stat Sheet

Rebuilding the Green Bay Packers

1977

1977 Draft

1977 Preseason

1977 Regular Season

The Stat Sheet

Rebuilding the Green Bay Packers

Part 2 Hope & Despair 1978-80

1978

1978 Draft

1978 Preseason

1978 Regular Season

The Duane Thomas Incident

The Stat Sheet

Rebuilding the Green Bay Packers

1979

1979 Draft

Joe Montana, The Packer Who Almost Was

1979 Preseason

1979 Regular Season

Midseason Notes:

The Stat Sheet

Rebuilding the Green Bay Packers

1980

1980 Draft

1980 Preseason

1980 Regular Season

Rebuilding Bart Starr

Demoting Bart Starr

The Stat Sheet

Rebuilding The Green Bay Packers

Part 3 The Contender 1981-83

1981

1981 Draft

1981 Preseason

1981 Regular Season

Bart’s Epic Trade: John Jefferson

Bart’s Bullwhip

Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone – Bart Starr And The Press

One More Chance

The Stat Sheet

Rebuilding The Green Bay Packers

1982

1982 Draft

1982 Preseason

1982 Regular Season

On Strike September 21 to November 16, 1982

1982 Playoffs

1982 Post Season

The Kid And The Cheetos

The Stat Sheet

1983

1983 Draft

1983 Preseason

1983 Regular Season

The Stat Sheet

Fallen Starr

The End Of An Era

The New Prince: Forrest Gregg

Arizona Dreams

Epilog Legacy

By The Numbers 1975 to 1983

Bart Starr’s Packers

Significant Draft Choices

Significant Free Agent Pickups

Significant Trades

The Stat Sheet

Sources

About The Author

Prologue Atlanta, Georgia December 1974

In a meaningless game between two teams bound for nowhere, the most tumultuous week in Green Bay Packers history was drawing to a close before a nearly empty stadium on a cold, desolate, rain drenched afternoon in old Atlanta Stadium.

A group of players and coaches, with encouragement from rogue elements of management and the coaching staff, had fomented missing the team plane from Green Bay in the hope of causing the club to forfeit the contest and expedite the dismissal of Head Coach Dan Devine. In the end, cooler heads prevailed and the entire squad showed up, in body, if not spirit.

As the closing minutes of the game ticked away in the 10-3 loss, quarterback John Hadl, a 36 year old, sore armed, mid-season acquisition in the most infamous trade from hell in team history, sidled up to Devine offering him consolation. To Hadl’s astonishment, Devine looked up and said, John, don't worry about me. They're going to announce me as the head Notre Dame coach tomorrow.

The following day Devine, who had been named NFC Coach of the Year in 1972 after leading the Packers to a 10-4 Central Division Title, resigned his position as head coach and general manager of the team. His decision concluded a four year run that had seen the College Football Hall of Fame coach scale the heights of professional football, only to send the team spiraling back into an abyss deeper than the one he had momentarily rescued it from. In the days following Devine’s resignation, there was only one name given serious consideration to replace him; Bart Starr.

At that point in time, Starr was only three years out from retirement after a 16 year run as quarterback of the Packers that would see him elected to the NFL Hall of Fame in 1977. He had served as quarterbacks coach under Devine during the division title season in 72, calling the plays from the sidelines as the de facto offensive coordinator. The fan base naturally assumed that Starr was the power behind the throne, a notion that irked the prickly Devine and led to a schism that pushed Starr to resign after only one season. Starr reportedly turned down offers to become head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles and Los Angeles Rams in 1973 and instead spent the next two years tending to his car dealerships and other business ventures while working as a color commentator for NFL games on CBS. Starr also turned down overtures to run for political office in the nascent conservative Republican movement in Wisconsin.

During his playing days, Lombardi had called Starr a coach on the field. He seemed the natural heir to the dynasty that lay in ruins after seven years of mismanagement and failure following Lombardi’s departure. That the ex-quarterback had only one season’s experience as an assistant coach under his belt was meaningless to the faithful. Like the kings of old, he would rule by divine right, as should the surrogate son of the dead emperor.

It seemed impossible that years of epic failure lay ahead, poorer even than Bengtson and Devine’s worst seasons. Starr’s reign as head coach of the Packers was an anomaly, a study in patience and loyalty by an organization and fan base unmatched by any team in any professional sport in any era. To an outsider, it appeared a case of collective madness, an exercise in futility and self-immolation.

But in fact, Starr did, slowly, rebuild the team from the ground up, creating a solid business foundation and scouting organization and finally, most importantly, fielding a competitive team. After falling one game short of the playoffs in 1983, Starr was unceremoniously fired, capping his nine year term with a final act worthy of an Arthur Miller play. Death of a Quarterback, or more accurately, Death of a Legend might be an appropriate title for our tale. For in becoming head coach of the Packers Starr had given up his cloak of invincibility and revealed himself as mortal. In doing so, he may very well have found a richer life than had he remained aloof, on his personal Mount Olympus as a millionaire businessman in Alabama or a high minded candidate for the senate or the presidency, either of which may have been within his reach.

Perhaps Starr understood himself better than we supposed. He was a football man, born and bred, not a car salesman or a politician. The Lombardi years were grand, but Starr would have played football for sixteen years even if he’d been consigned to the bench on a losing team in Timbuktu. Sports was in his blood. He needed the scent of summer grass and falling leaves and the crackling air of a December morning in northern Wisconsin in his nostrils. He needed to compete. And so he did. On Christmas Eve of 1974, Bart Starr was announced as the eighth head coach in the 55 year history of the NFL’s most storied franchise.

Maybe there was some sort of karma in the misery of those nine years as head coach, a needed balance to offset the improbable success of the Lombardi era. It says much for the man that he took on a job he knew had crushed two men before and nearly did the same to him. Regardless, he never quit and never would have quit. If giving the supreme effort is the true measure of a man, and not simply a won-lost record, than Bart Starr proved a champion yet again during his final years in Green Bay.

He was Sisyphus pushing that rock up the hill, Atlas shouldering the weight of the world. It was a hero’s epic adventure played in a minor key in a backwater town in an unremarkable era. He was Jason in search of the Golden Fleece, only to fail at the penultimate moment with success in his grasp. But this is not a tragedy, rather the triumph of one good man who came through a trial of fire, not unscarred, but unbowed and unbroken; serving as proof that ultimately the salvation of the individual sometimes does supersede the group.

I have attempted to tell this story with the respect I honestly feel for Bart Starr who is, by all accounts, a great man. But at the same time, the events that took place between 1975 and 83 often revealed Bart as a man, not unlike you or me, capable of poor judgment and ill temper when his back was against the wall and his professional life was teetering on the abyss. In those times, I have tried to tell the story in context with honesty and humor. At the same time, some episodes are too insane not to address as pure farce, which is not a bad thing. As Howard Cosell once said, Sports is the toy box of life. If a book about football in a small town in late twentieth century America doesn’t bear witness to the absurd, then nothing does.

This account is drawn from the public record, newspapers, magazines, books and interviews. Their words and actions will speak for themselves. They are, like the overused title of the Clint Eastwood film, the good, the bad and the ugly. Winning can disguise many unpleasant truths. Losing will reveal the moral center of a man.

Prolog Notes

Devine quote to Hadl, 2004 Pete Jackel of RacineSportsZone.com

Part 1 Surrendering To The Chaos 1975-77

Bart Starr Comes Home

Starr says he was talked into accepting the job when he knew he wasn't ready. It was a mistake and I almost knew it from the start. I didn't have the guts to say 'no. I hadn't trained to be a coach. That takes great training. Being an assistant under a Coach Lombardi or a Tom Landry, or whoever, that prepares you to do a better job when you become a coach. I hadn't received that training. It showed.

Source: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel September 28, 2013 by Tyler Dunne

Team President Dominic Olejniczak later said that the Executive Committee had to hire Starr because of the groundswell of support for the ex-quarterback in Green Bay. Forty years on, Olejniczak’s conclusion cannot be disputed. After seven years of failed regimes under Phil Bengtson and Dan Devine, the hometown fans were convinced that no one but Bart could return the Packers to glory. Many of Starr’s former teammates had tried to warn him off the job, concerned at both his inexperience and the depth of the team’s problems. Their warnings went unheeded.

The search for a new head coach in Green Bay had been a coronation. Out of courtesy, the Executive Committee interviewed Defensive Coordinator Dave Hanner, but the pretense of searching for the best man for the job ended there. No other candidates were considered. Starr showed up, handed out printed brochures detailing his plans for the team, which impressed the hell out of the committee, and he was hired. The Packers would not conduct another search for a head coach for nearly a decade and then choose yet another Lombardi man, Forest Gregg, not looking to an outsider to run the team until 1988. This begs the question, who might the Packers have tapped if they’d behaved as if they were a real football team and not Lombardi’s mom and pop grocery store?

Don Shula was the premiere coach in the league. His top assistants, Bill Arnsparger and Howard Schnellenberger had already moved on to head coaching jobs in the NFL, though neither would prove successful at the pro level. Tom Landry’s program had yet to graduate Dan Reeves and Mike Ditka to the head coaching ranks. That was more than half a decade away. Minnesota’s offensive coordinator, Jerry Burns, might have been a good choice. Burns had been an assistant under Lombardi during his last two years and had instituted an innovative passing game in Minnesota with Fran Tarkenton that presaged the California offense in many ways. Bill Walsh was just emerging in Cincinnati and being badmouthed by Paul Brown in order to keep other teams from poaching him. It would be four years before Walsh got his shot in San Francisco. The one excellent coach out there was Ted Marchibroda, George Allen’s offensive coordinator in Washington. The Colts hired him going into the 1975 season and Marchibroda promptly led Baltimore to three consecutive division titles. He would be named NFL coach of the year in 1975 after taking the Colts from 4-10 to 10-4 in a single season. Of course, he had Bert Jones at quarterback which didn’t hurt.

Dick Karbon, a regular sports columnist with the Green Bay Press-Gazette (GBPG), said in a December 27, 1974 story, that the choice of Starr was both excellent and inevitable. He went on to elaborate that any other coach, even one as highly regarded as Don Shula, would have stood in the shadow of Starr. In essence, the fans in Green Bay would not have been satisfied until Bart had his turn. Len Wagner, a GBPG sports editor, had written this two days earlier about the new Packer head coach:

"When Bart Starr walks into a room, the atmosphere changes. People pause in mid-conversation. The noise becomes a hush. Heads turn. There’s a new excitement. People feel his presence. He commands respect. The aura about him is one of those qualities few men have. It’s an unexplainable thing, but it’s there. It says you must respect this man."

The die had been cast, Bart Starr, the winningest quarterback in NFL history, was about to embark on an odyssey unlike any he had ever experienced in his life. At his side was Cherry, his wife of 21 years and his two sons, Bart Jr., an avid golfer age 17 and Bret 10. Starr was already one of the highest profile citizens of Green Bay, population 87,000, but he and his family were about to descend into the fishbowl of local media attention and criticism that had nearly destroyed Dan Devine and his family.

Picking Up The Pieces December 1974

Despite the Packers’ 6-8 finish in 1974, there was a conceit that the team was only a player or two away from being Super Bowl contenders. In fact, four of the team’s eight losses had been by a touchdown or less and among the six victories had been upset wins over Los Angeles and Minnesota who would meet in the NFC Championship Game. The razor’s edge between contenders and bums was considered to reside under the cap of the man at the helm. Lombardi had resurrected a 1-10-1 team to winners in a single year and champions in three. Surely Starr, galvanized with a talented squad, could do no less. But a quick assessment of the team Bart inherited reveals a squad on the edge of the abyss.

The defense had finished sixth overall in yards given up and fifth in points in the 26 team NFL in 1974. The unit’s major strength was at linebacker. Ted Hendricks was acknowledged as the best outside linebacker in professional football. He’d had a career season in 1974, intercepting 5 passes and blocking a league record 7 kicks culminating with his teammates naming him club MVP. Fred Carr was solid on the other side and in a post season poll among NFL personnel directors he was named 13th best at his position in the league among 52 players on the outside. Jim Carter was solid in the middle, but middle linebackers aged quickly in the NFL. The position tore up knees and Carter was no exception. Dick Butkus had lasted only seven years at the top of his game. Carter had put in five and was about to go into decline. The defensive backfield was led by shutdown cornerback Willie Buchanan and his three time Pro Bowl running mate Ken Ellis. The safeties, Jim Hill and Al Matthews, were buoyed by Ellis and Buchanan. The line was good at run stopping with huge Mike McCoy in the middle, but it was a mediocre group that provided virtually no pass rush in an era when defensive lineman held all the advantages in rushing the quarterback. The weakness of the line had been concealed by the exceptional play of the linebackers and defensive backfield. If the unit remained stable and healthy, they ranked among the elite in professional football.

On offense, John Hadl was coming into his 14th year as a pro. After an all-star season in 1973, the Rams had known he was on the backside of his career and unloaded him on a desperate Dan Devine. He was a savvy field general, but at age 36 was lacking in arm strength and mobility. With a great supporting cast, he might have taken a team to the playoffs. With the group he had around him, he was reduced to mediocrity. Behind him was Jerry Tagge who had been benched after starting twelve games in 73-74, precipitating Hadl’s acquisition. Tagge, a hometown Green Bay boy, had quarterbacked two National College Football Championships at Nebraska, but lacked the quickness or arm strength to succeed at a high level in the NFL. Behind him was veteran Jack Concannon who was essentially an older version of Tagge.

John Brockington had been the first player in NFL history to rush for more than 1,000 yards in each of his first three seasons in 1971-73, but his production had fallen off the cliff early in 1974. By mid-season he had rushed for only 354 yards on 123 carries, averaging less than 3 yards a pop. He rebounded late, tearing off 203 yards from scrimmage in an upset win over the Vikings in late November and finished the year with 883 yards rushing, giving him more than 4,100 yards in four years. Devine had understood the short shelf life of a running back and had considered trading Brockington before the 1974 season. He hadn’t for fear of repercussions from the fans for dealing the only true star the team had. After Brockington threatened the Packers with jumping to the rival WFL, Tony Canadeo, a former Packer and NFL Hall Of Famer who served as a senior member of the Executive Committee, had reportedly gone behind Devine’s back and given Brock a guaranteed five year contract.

Brockington’s running mate, MacArthur Lane, had torn off 823 yards rushing in 1972, but fallen further with each succeeding season culminating in a dismal 1974 outing in which he had picked up only 362 yards, averaging 2.6 per rush. Number one draft choice Barty Smith had blown out a knee in practicing for the College All-Star game before the season, robbing the Packers of a potential successor to Brockington. Behind these three were only journeymen.

At wide receiver the talent was non-existent. 1973 number one pick wide receiver Barry Smith had demonstrated an inclination to avoid contact, eliminating his effectiveness after a brilliant college career. Jon Staggers had shown occasional flashes of talent, but would be gone before the 1975 season began. Rookies Ken Payne and Steve Odom had their moments, but were inconsistent. Tight end Rich McGeorge was solid, if slow, a knee injury in 1972 having robbed him of the potential of being one of the premier tight ends of the decade.

The offensive line was old and getting older, except at center where the undersized Larry McCarren was just beginning a decade long run at the position. Perennial All Pro guard Gale Gillingham had destroyed a knee in 1972. He was named to the Pro Bowl the following year, but had slowed noticeably by 74. Another former All Pro guard, Bruce Van Dyke, had been acquired by Devine from the Steelers early in the season, but a knee injury had sidelined him for the entire year. The rest of the line was mediocre at best. Devine had benefited from the last of Lombardi’s obsessive drafting of offensive linemen at the expense of other positions. The power blocking of center Ken Bowman, guards Gillingham, Bill Lueck and tackles Bill Hayhoe and Dick Himes who had keyed the 1971-72 teams were all carryovers from the sixties.

The punting position had been handled magnificently by Ron Widby, a Devine pickup from Dallas in 1972, until a career ending injury had wrecked him in 73. The job had been filled by Randy Walker in 1974. He would be gone by the opening gun of Starr’s first season. Place kicker Chester Marcol was the best in the league, having led the NFL in both scoring and field goals in 1972 and 74.

This was the team Starr inherited. Hadl put in his two cents worth during the off season, opining that the team needed two young wide outs and a couple of offensive lineman. His assessment was on the money, those positions seeming the only true weak spots on the team. But denuded of their draft choices by the trade that had brought Hadl to Green Bay, the Packers had little chance of filling those gaps. Still, an 8-6 record or better seemed well within reach. All that was needed was better coaching. Or so it seemed.

All was well again in the kingdom of Lombardi. The prodigal son had returned. Well, calling Bart a prodigal is like calling Pat Boone a radical, more like the return of the prince. The papers were full of Bart Starr interviews airing on local TV, Bart Starr hosting charity events, Bart Starr hiring a secretary, Bart Starr meeting the Russian ski team. Bart’s wife, Cherry, revealed in an interview that every night before bedtime, Bart relaxed with a big bowl of chocolate almond ice cream. It was all very bland and very boring, like eating vanilla ice cream. Excuse me, chocolate almond ice cream. But this was a genuinely nice guy. Starr was cutting a fine figure in the press, fashionably dressed and trim as in his playing days. He seemed, by appearance, more a corporate executive than a football coach.

1975

The Times They Lived In

The country at large was suffering under a recession coupled with inflation which would give rise to the term stagflation. Interim President Gerald Ford, who had assumed the office following Richard Nixon’s August 1974 resignation, struggled with a crisis of confidence after pardoning the ex-President. A propensity for unintentional pratfalls coupled with a speaking style guaranteed to cure insomnia, saddled Ford with a public image that gave rise to ridicule and would lead to an insurgency in his own party before the coming 1976 election.

Starr, a staunch conservative, had met with Ford in the Oval Office for a photo op in September of the previous year along with ex-NFL quarterback and now congressman, Jack Kemp. If Starr’s ambition had lain in that direction, he may very well have earned the Wisconsin governorship that was won in 1978 by Republican Lee Dreyfus, or the Senate seat that Robert Karsten took in 1980.

As Green Bay disappeared into another long, Wisconsin winter, a band of Menominee Indians occupied a Catholic novitiate over a dispute concerning a medical and educational center in Gresham north of Green Bay. Marlon Brando showed up at one point to offer support to the Native protestors. Though violence was threatened, the dispute was peacefully resolved in early February. The number one television show in the country was All In The Family. Close on its heels was The Waltons. Rock and Roll still ruled radio, but Disco was lurking in the wings. Though the country was going through a sexual and cultural revolution in the seventies, they were innocent times compared to the decades to come.

Coaches

At the Lambeau Field offices, Starr began assembling his coaching staff. Every member of Devine’s staff except Dave Hawg Hanner had been released. Considering the success of the defense, it seems odd that Hanner was content at letting go of his assistants. But a complete housecleaning was made, which would presage a similar, if less comprehensive purge of the roster six months later. Hanner had played defensive tackle for the team from 1952 to 64 and joined the coaching staff under Lombardi in 1965. Devine had elevated him to defensive coordinator in 1972. Hanner retained his position with the added title of assistant head coach under Starr. The promotion was a major prestige position as only one other coach in the NFL, New England’s Hank Bullough, held the dual title. While Devine had found Hanner a contentious subordinate, Starr would rely on his old teammate, leaning on him heavily during his early years as head coach.

With Starr and Hanner at the reigns, in quick succession, the new staff was assembled. It relied heavily on Bart’s former teammates. Zeke Bratkowski, Starr’s back up from 1963 to 68, was the first hire, brought in from Chicago where he had coached the Bears erratic quarterback Bobby Douglas who preferred to tuck the ball under his arm and run before passing. Zeke had been, perhaps, the greatest relief pitcher in the NFL, coming off the bench to win 8 critical games during the Lombardi era, including a 1965 playoff contest against the Colts. He would remain with Starr through the 1981 season, overseeing the long and torturous path to the resurgence of the Packers passing game. Zeke would go on to coach quarterbacks around the league into the 1990s. The local press questioned the hiring of Bratkowski, wondering why the team needed a quarterback coach with someone as experienced as Hadl. The absurdity of the question highlights the primitive nature of quarterback coaching in the 1970s.

Lew Carpenter, a running back with the team from 1959 to 63, was brought in to coach the receivers and the passing game. Carpenter had bounced around the league after retiring, working under Norm Van Brocklin in Minnesota and Atlanta before following Lombardi to Washington in 1969 and finally Sid Gillman in Houston before returning to Green Bay. He would remain with the packers through 1985; two years after Starr had left. Late in life, Carpenter suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), He passed away in 2010. His daughter, Rebecca, produced the award winning documentary film, Requiem For A Running Back to help bring to light the plight of ballplayers suffering from head trauma.

Billy Kinard, defensive backfield coach under Devine, was retained, but moved to a position called Research and Development. The position was later described as assessing personnel and methods of operation. The job seemed ill defined at first glance, but in a September 21 write up, it was revealed that Kinard was assembling and transmitting information to APEX, a California based computer firm who would return a three inch thick computer printout concerning opponent’s tendencies. Kinard appeared to be trying to create a computer based approach to game planning. The idea may have been too far ahead of its time to make an impact in 1975. Kinard moved on after a single season to Cleveland where he worked under Forrest Gregg for two years and later in New England. The position of Research and Development was dropped after the 75 season.

Jim Colbert was hired in early January to take over special teams, but shifted to defensive backs when Bob Lord, a linebackers coach with the Bears, was hired and slotted to the position instead. Colbert had coached in the WFL in 1974 and small colleges before coming to Green Bay. He was the only African-American coach on the staff and only the second in team history. The first had been Johnny Roland the previous year on Devine’s staff. Bob Lord was moved to the offensive backfield in 1977 and left the team in 1979. His career continued into the 1990s and 2000s, coaching German teams in the European football league.

John Meyer was hired to coach linebackers. He came to Green Bay from Detroit with previous experience in New England. He had never been part of a winning coaching staff in the NFL. Meyer would eventually replace Hanner as defensive coordinator. Leon McLaughlin was hired to coach the offensive line. He’d played for the Rams as a center in the early fifties and coached in the NFL for a number of years. After Green Bay, he would continue in the league, closing out his career in 1989 after a 12 year stretch with the Cardinals organization. Meyer and Carpenter would be the only two coaches to stay with Starr through his entire nine year run as head coach. The day after the draft, Paul Roach, an assistant with the Oakland Raiders, was named offensive coordinator to complete Starr’s staff. Prior to his three year stint with the Raiders, Roach had coached at the nearby University of Wisconsin.

It was noted by the local pundits that Starr was stocking the team with lower level, unknown coaches. But Bart faced a major problem in hiring; the Packers did not pay into the NFL’s pension fund for coaches. While the team had its own fund, vestment was not transferable between the two. Many coaches were wary of leaving the security of the NFL plan.

Scouting

Lombardi had hired Pat Peppler as director of player personnel in 1963 and recommended him to become general manager when he left for Washington in 1969, but the Packers Executive Committee was in love with the notion of one man as head coach and GM and passed him over to give full control of the team to Phil Bengtson. Devine had continued in the same capacity as Bengtson. He and Peppler put together strong drafts in 71 and 72, but Peppler had left for Miami in the spring of that same year. With the exception of the Hendricks trade, Devine never made another good deal or draft as witnessed by the Hadl debacle. The Packers scouting department was said to be in ruins.

Starr’s repair efforts began with shifting Red Cochran, an assistant coach under Lombardi and Devine, into scouting where he would remain into the nineties. Dick Corrick was named Director Of Pro Player Personnel, a position he would occupy until 1987. Starr said in his autobiography that he came to regret firing Devine assistants Rollie Dotsch and Red Cochran and that he could have used their experience. It seems likely that Hanner was instrumental in pushing Devine’s coaching staff out the door. Bob Harlan, a Devine front office hire, was moved from assistant general manager to corporate general manager where he would oversee direct negotiations of player contracts.

Before opening day, Lambeau Field and the surrounding facilities would undergo what were considered major renovations for the era, including a new scoreboard and locker room for visiting teams and an 80 yard patch of Astro-Turf on the practice field next to the stadium.

1975 Green Bay Packers Coaching Staff

Head Coach: Bart Starr

Defensive Coordinator and Assistant Head Coach: Dave Hanner

Offensive Coordinator: Paul Roach

Quarterbacks: Zeke Bratkowski

Receivers/Passing Game: Lew Carpenter

Offensive Line: Leon McLaughlin

Linebackers: John Meyer

Defensive Backs: Jim Colbert

Special Teams: Bob Lord

Research and Development: Billy Kinard

1975 Draft

The NFL Draft was held on January 28-29. Devine had traded away the team’s number one, two and three choices as part of the deal that had brought Hadl to Green Bay, but the Pack had a number two Devine had acquired from Washington in exchange for Dave Robinson. Starr used his first ever pick on Bill Bain, a Southern Cal guard. Running back Willard Harrell was the number three choice, part of a trade that had sent defensive tackle Bob Brown to San Diego the previous year. Safety Steve Luke was taken with the fourth pick. All three would prove NFL caliber players. Number twelve choice, quarterback Carlos Brown, held down a roster slot for two years, but was out of his depth when called on in 1976. College free agent safety Johnnie Gray would prove to be the best addition to the rookie squad.

The Off Season

In March, the Cold War reared its ugly head when North Vietnamese forces began the final assault on South Vietnam. American warships moved into the region to take part in refugee rescue operations. South Vietnam’s final collapse was the lead story on the network news throughout the spring. Indelible scenes of helicopters escaping the U.S. Embassy in Saigon laden with refugees imprinted themselves on the national psyche. On April 30, the final surrender took place. With the fall of Saigon, a decade of turbulence at home and abroad came to an end. The ensuing collective amnesia allowed us to slip comfortably into the Me Decade.

The Towering Inferno and The Longest Yard were playing at the local theaters in Green Bay, but so was the X rated Emmanuelle. Jaws would become the first Hollywood blockbuster that year while Donna Summer’s erotically charged Love To Love You Baby led the first wave of Disco. Green Bay still had the image of a sleepy little village, but it wasn’t the sixties anymore as Bart was about to find out. The landscape of 1970s America was changing at lightning pace.

In April, the Starr’s team convened in Scottsdale, Arizona for their annual spring training session. Devine had started the off season gathering, the first of its kind in the NFL, and Starr continued it for several years. Guard Malcolm Snider retired two weeks after the spring training camp to pursue a degree in medicine which he completed, going on to a career as a surgeon. Center Ken Bowman, who had spent the entire 74 season on injured reserve, was let go after he failed his physical. Like Snider, Bowman had another, more prestige profession before him. He had earned a law degree during his playing days and went on to a judgeship before retiring.

The teams’ highlight film from 1974 was released the same month. It was cut so that Devine appears for only a brief second with miniscule clips of the two upset victories over Minnesota and Los Angeles the only evidence that Green Bay actually fielded a team the previous season. These were intercut with long, loving shots of Bart and his new coaching staff, smiling and looking benevolent as they embarked on their journey to Valhalla. Dave Hanner, Devine’s chief nemesis, looked especially cheerful, like the cat that ate the canary. Packers beat writer Cliff Christl reviewed the film in an April 17 column, pointing out the new coach’s image consciousness and sharp business suits in the strange little highlight reel that wasn’t a highlight reel.

The team’s financial report for 1974 showed an anemic $128,000 net income for the year, the lowest since 1960, down more than half a million form the previous year. Player salaries had increased $400,000. If interest on investments income and payments from ex-AFL clubs from the 1970 merger were factored out, the team had actually lost $678,000 dollars on its basic football operations. Without the deep pockets of a millionaire owner to fall back on, the sickly income statement likely contributed to Starr and Harlan’s decision to play hardball on rising player contracts.

The Ted Hendricks Saga Begins

Number one on the Packers agenda, or least it should have been, was the status of the team’s most valuable player from the previous season, the year which could not be named in the highlight reel. Outside linebacker Ted Hendricks had been acquired in a sweetheart deal by Dan Devine for marginal Linebacker Tom MacLeod and an eighth round draft choice when Hendricks had signed a contract with the Jacksonville Sharks of the World Football League for 1975. You’ll find it stated as gospel in some Packer histories that Devine screwed up by not signing Hendricks to a long term contract in 1974, but he was committed to the WFL until May of 75 when the Sharks failed to make good on the contract and he was declared a free agent.

But this was the 1970s and NFL free agents were subject to the arbitrary intervention of Commissioner Pete Rozelle whose draconian awards of players and draft choices in compensation for a quality player like Hendricks made free agents poison to most clubs, effectively neutering the option. The rumblings of an impasse were in the air, but the Packers were seemingly unconcerned due to the Rozelle Rule which from past awards, virtually guaranteed them two number draft choices should Hendricks sign with another team, which seemed unlikely. At the same time, the Rozelle Rule was being challenged in the courts.

On June 7, Hendricks’ agent, Tony Roberts, declared negotiations with the team over and that the Packers were attempting to trade the All-Pro linebacker. Roberts said that the Packers offer was actually a pay cut. There is someone who was with the organization last year who is definitely interested in cleaning house. He said that person was not Starr. Bad blood was simmering as it was revealed that Hendricks, a Devine loyalist, had stated at the end of 74 that he would not play for the Packers if Devine left the team. It was also said that another player, likely Brockington or Hadl, had been paid a bonus in 74 that was larger than Hendricks’ entire salary for the season. Roberts closed out his appraisal of the situation with the assessment that the Packer front office was an amateur affair.

Hendricks personally spoke out, saying he was disappointed that Starr had not spoken to him or his agent during the negotiations, leaving the deal making to Bob Harlan. Starr reported to the press that they were hundreds of thousands of dollars apart. He later added that guaranteed, or no-cut clauses, as it was referred to in that era, were the real sticking point. Hendricks had come to the conclusion the Packers were not serious in wanting him back. Meanwhile, several clubs, including Oakland and