The Sorry Years

A pretty good read for those who didn't live through those years.

I was so blessed to be playing soccer on most fall Sundays from around '78 'til '89 or so, so I missed a lot of sucky football.

 They didn't even talk about Loften or the issue that caused him to be shipped out of Green Bay.

There were a lot of issues during those years. 

I lived and was a fan during the Lombardi years.  When those ended and things started going south, I thought to myself "that was that" and prepared for a life time of who knows what.  The hiring of each new coach brought renewed optimism.  But the results were the same.  So when Wolf was hired there was no reason for optimism.  But the results improved.  I never thought I'd live to see 3 HOF QBs in my life time.  After a while I thought Starr was going to be it. 

It sounds like the executive committee over that 25 years of  suck was a pod of mini Jerry Jones, only with less football acumen.

Bob Harlan deserves so much credit for persuading them to get out of the way.

Oh man are you guys right I can remember growing up in the 70's and 80's I hated the talk about the glory years. I was too young to remember those years all I knew as a Packer fan was mediocrity or suckitude and all I wanted was a winning season that led to the playoffs some day. I think that every fan who cannot remember the gory years needs to read this article http://www.the-kramerfamily.co...CKERS-GORYYEARS.html to really grasp how hard those years were.

I wouldnt exactly call us the "laughingstock of the NFL",  I remember alot of mediocre 8-8 years in the 80s

What drove me crazy was the dominance by the Bears. They really punished us.

Thats been one of the best parts about the last 25 years.

the "sorry years" are what made me the resilient and optimistic fan I am today.  character building at its finest. 

Devine was the WORST! A dispicable human being, a selfish egotistical loser. Horrible hire.

Ditto.

And, with each new coach there were the draft picks every year. Barry Smith... Barty Smith... Willard Harrell... Mark Koncar... Mike McCoy... Mike Butler... Ezra Johnson... James Lofton... John Anderson... Eddie Lee Ivery... Bruce Clark... George Cumby... Rich Campbell... Ron Hallstrom... Tim Lewis.... and on and on.  A lot of dashed hopes and busted dreams.

If Eddie Lee Ivery doesn't blow out his knee on the terrible surface in Soldier Field in his rookie year, the late 1970s and early 1980s would have been a lot different. I was a kid when they drafted him and the level of excitement he created during that first training camp was the most excitement there'd been in Green Bay in 5-6 years. They had a HOF WR (Lofton), a decent QB (Dickey), and finally looked like they'd get beyond the Hadl trade.

The Hadl trade and some key injuries really hampered Starr the coach. I so wanted him to continue after the '83 season. I thought they really had something going and he was the guy to continue it. Absolutely hated the Gregg hire.

The Eddie Lee Ivory knee injury pretty much summed up the bad luck this team had back then.  I can remember him running wild on the Bears and boom it was all over.  I can also remember the jokes during that time.  My favorite was "did you hear Randy Wright is going to work for the CIA when he retires?  Because he can overthrown anyone" 

Or the Bart Starr polka.  A one, and a two, and a three and a punt

I think Starr was similar to Norv Turner. He'd have been a great offensive coordinator and as a head coach was at least average. His last year three years he was 22-20-1 including 1-1 in the playoffs. In this last year, his team averaged 27 PPG, but also gave up 27 PPG.

His downfalls were in personnel and, in the later years, in hiring a decent defensive coordinator.

  Awesome find!   gosh, the Randy Wright years!!!!!!  I remember asking my parents all I want for Christmas was a QB for my Pack!!!!

anyone one remember the other joke...Did you hear that the Packers signed an Asian QB?..... Wynn One Sohn.

Great post, CA. Agree with you on nearly everything, especially about Bob Harlan. Saved the franchise and transformed it into perhaps the most admired franchise in American sports. First class all the way.

In his MMQB article this morning Peter King thinks Eliot Wolf has a GM job in 2 years, if he wants it. Thompson is 61 (maybe 62), how much longer does he want to be a GM? 

IIRC Ted's recently signed extension is through 2019.

I think it is through 2018 season (March of 2019). 

I think they will do everything they can to keep Eliot in-house.

I think it's more than luck. First, you need the organizational priority to get a QB. What's the first thing Wolf did? Traded for Bert. What's the first thing Ted did? Drafted AR. Those moves are useless, however, if you don't have the infrastructure in place to develop those QBs. Remember what a trainwreck Bert was in ATL? Remember how bad AR looked as a rookie? Wolf and Ted had Holmy and MM in place to develop these guys. That's not luck - that's a lot of folks performing at a high level - the GM who sets the tone, the scouts who find these guys, the head coaches who work with these guys and the assistants who fine-tune them. IMHO this is not luck. That's why, to your other point about the next Ted, you may see GB draft another QB a couple of years before folks start thinking that AR is over the hill.

When GB was a disaster, I'm sure you like me remember all of these stiffs who were touted as the next big thing at QB.  The only guy they drafted high was Rich Freaking Campbell.  Other than him, who was an awful pick that was a story in itself, we saw rejects, late-round picks and general stiffs.  Anthony Dilweg, Vince Ferragamo, Jim Zorn, Mike Tomczak... oy.  Majik was lucky - a late-rounder with a lot of athletic tallant but obviously someone whose career was derailed by injury.  

It was a total paradigm shift and that's why we are where we are rooting for this team.

"The Future."

Yes, but not completely out of the way.  It was Harlan who saw that Sherman couldn't handle the GM responsibilities.  He didn't hire TT become the previous GM quit.  He was overseeing the operations and saw the change needed to be made. 

The full story has never come out but I'd bet Harlan had a lot to do with the truncated reign of his first successor, John Jones. Lots of whispers back in the day about Jones' suitability for the job. Handled quite quietly and professionally. Per Wikipedia, here is the story for public consumption:

John Jones... held the position of President and Chief Operating Officer of the Green Bay Packers, an NFL franchise. He was to assume the titles of President and Chief Executive Officer in May 2007, replacing a retiring Bob Harlan.

On May 26, 2007 the Packers announced that John Jones would be taking an indefinite "leave of absence" only days before Jones was scheduled to succeed Harlan as new CEO of the organization. Health concerns were the major reason sited for Jones' departure. In late July 2007, the Packers and Jones officially cut ties and on December 3, 2007, the Green Bay Packers announced Mark H. Murphy as its new President and CEO.

In January 2009, Jones openly discussed his medical situation. In June 2006, Jones underwent a heart surgery operation to correct a dissected aorta, a procedure he was told later that only 10 percent of patients survive. He suffered a stroke during the surgery that continues to affect his short-term memory and his physical stamina, which ultimately caused him to leave the team.

To appease Favre and shut him up, beyond the Moss thing, there is a rumor in the war room TT was getting pressure to draft Roddy White over AR. Many really liked him and thought he'd be a productive WR in TOG's last years.

Wouldn't have been a bad pick but in comparison to who fell to TT's lap, well..there is no comparison.

I also think that Harlan is THE guy who should get way more recognition that he has over the years.  I think for a team to be successful it has to start at the top with management making the right hires and getting out of the football people's way.  All during the Sorry years I never understood why the team always seemed to have the head coach being dual hatted with being the GM.  I am not sure if that was how it was usually done league wide in that era or not but it sure didn't seem to work.  Even Lombardi mentioned that it was a tough job doing both roles.

That to me was Harlan's biggest accomplishment was to get Wolf in there to run the show.  I still to this day remember hearing that they hired Ron Wolf and thinking "ho hum here comes the latest savior for the team"

Here's an interesting question:

If Johnny Manziel had a 1992 version of Mike Holmgren and under the guise of a Ron Wolf drafting talent around him would his career have a chance in Cleveland?

Because the drunken party idiot in Favre could have been a fart in the wind if not for Holmgren, Wolf, and playing in this city without the temptation of big city ills. It truly was the perfect storm.

He'd have had a much better chance than he does now IMHO, but I don't think it's even debatable that Manziel isn't even in Bert's galaxy as far as pure physical tallant is concerned.  He's small and his arm is nowhere near what Bert's was.  Bert could also run really well too when he was younger.  

I don't think that John Football is a good enough player and doesn't have the skills to be a legitimate NFL QB.  

I think he'd be better than he is/will be under a good head coach like Holmgren, but I don't think he'd be anything special.  

The perfect storm part with Favre doesn't happen if he's not an incredible physical talent.

I think Manziel is simply a world class **** up. Brett also had two intangibles Manziel lacks. Toughness and a howitzer for an arm. That arm got Brett into and out of some tough spots early on.

There isn't anything you look at in Manziel and think, it's a bag of **** now, but at least there's a few things to build on.  What exactly would those things be?

Thompson makes moves before they are needed. No knee-jerking.

RE: Manziel and from what I recall, Manziel was considered/listed as an ATHLETE when coming out of HS, not a QB. I think that says a lot about his potential to become a pro-style QB. Texas was recruiting him to play DB.

Manziel and Doug Flutie are interesting comparisons. JM might be faster but Flutie probably had a better arm. Also IMO more intangibles. A hell of a competitor who after all is said and done carved out a pretty damn good pro career. JM will have to work a hell of a lot harder than he's shown to this point to accomplish what Flutie did, who at peak was a middling NFL QB.

If the NFL had any brains they would make TT the next commish.  I would hate to lose him as GM but if it would be for the good of the league I'd be all for it.  They need somebody with more football IQ not a pure business sense to run things now. After all the NFL is the National Football League.  If Elliot is ready in a couple of years to take over as GM TT would make a great commish to save the league from itself.  Back in 1960 they was talk of Lombardi being the next commish when Bert Bell died. Dom Oleiniziak would not allow it so Pete Rozell got the job by default when the owners had voted 23 times on other candidates.

I don't see TT wanting anything to do with the politics and face time required to be commish.

He barely likes talking to the press the way it is and prefers to be on the road scouting the corners of the states.

Born in 1969 and began seriously watching and following the Pack in 1978.  I was probably lucky that I missed that period from 1970-1977 in terms of following them as it sounds like that was a brutal time period, similar to 1986-1991. 

I guess what made it bearable for me was that at least from 1981 - 1985, the Packers never had a losing season.  Lots of 8-8s, but 5 seasons where they weren't truly losers.  They were mediocre, but did just enough to give you hope and think that maybe some good things were right around the corner. 

I particularly remember after the Pack finished the 1984 season going 7-1 the final 8 games, that 1985 would be their year.  To really twist the knife in, not only was 1985 not the Packers' year, it was the Bears year.  The talent gap between the Packers and Bears was so great at that time, it was kind of amazing the Pack could even compete with them when they went head to head.  I think it was just Forrest Gregg's pure hatred for the Bears that fueled the Pack to play their toughest against them.  Unfortunately, it never led to wins, just closer games. 

Here it is about 30 years later and the Packers are one of the "haves" and about 24 other teams in the NFL are "have nots" as they don't have the 1 key ingredient that the Packers do, an elite QB.  We got a brief dose of what life might be like without Rodgers last year, and it won't be pretty.  When he hangs them up, another '70s or '80s type time period could easily set in as there are no guarantees the Pack will find another Favre or Rodgers.  Let's enjoy what hopefully will be a bit of a playoff run this year, because there are no guarantees in life and certainly not in the NFL.

That is something you almost never hear about those years too, but from me or you.  That was the result of the Dickey/Coffman/Lofton/Jefferson group.  Remember those reverses to Lofton!  They generated a lot of fun highlights during their time but like you said, it was just enough to give you false hope for something better that never came or just fell short of a playoff birth.   I was the only Packer fan in the family during the 80's when even my older brother gave me **** for it.  Good times.

This game always sums it up for me. As much fun as the Monday night game against the Redskins was when Mosley missed the last second field goal, this game was painful. They could not get out of their own way. Gerry Ellis and Jesse Clark. The announcers are laughing. Classic.

This is actually fun to watch and see just how far things have come. Dandy Don with the winter hat on is pretty classic as well.

WOW.  I had realized Dickey's and Elway's careers actually overlapped.

Has there ever been a quicker first 14pts scored in an NFL game?