The 1966 Green Bay Packers

The 1966 Green Bay Packers were one of the greatest teams in professional football history. Led by legendary head coach Vince Lombardi and 10 future Hall of Famers--including Bart Starr, Jim Taylor, Forrest Gregg, Willie Davis and Ray Nitschke--they were the decisive winners of Super Bowl I, defeating the Kansas City Chiefs and upholding the superiority of the National Football League over the upstart American Football League. This book tells the story of the hard-working '66 Packers on the gridiron and their legacy in Titletown, USA.

The Big 50: Green Bay Packers is an amazing look at the fifty men and moments that have made the Packers the Packers. Longtime sportswriters and radio host Drew Olson and Jason Wilde recount the living history of the team, counting down from number fifty to number one. The Big 50: Green Bay Packers brilliantly brings to life the historic franchise's remarkable story, from Vince Lombar­di and Bart Starr to Brett Favre, Reggie White, Aaron Rodgers, and beyond.

Some athletes never stop playing. Some rivalries transcend the gridiron. Some games last forever. The Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys engaged in a fierce rivalry in the 1966 season, culminating in the Packers defeating the Cowboys to win the NFL championship. The next year, they clashed again, and the result is a game that only needs three words to evoke lasting images from every player, every coach, and every fan who witnessed it: “The Ice Bowl.” The final game of the 1967 season has become one of the most storied contests in NFL history, and sportswriter Mike Shropshire, author of SEASONS IN HELL, brings it all back to life in his panoramic look at the events leading up to the game and how the game influenced both franchises going forward. With photos and insight into the players who battled, as well as those who witnessed, THE ICE BOWL is a must-read for fans of every down.

Highlighting each of the 27 Green Bay Packers enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame--including such luminaries as Earl "Curly" Lambeau, Bart Starr, Vince Lombardi, Brett Favre and Charles Woodson--this book takes a comprehensive look at each player. Biographical information, key facts and figures, anecdotes and little-known facts are provided, along with their own recollections of their biggest games. Appendices cover Packers of honorable mention (who should be or perhaps will be HOF inductees), and player stats.

The Packers are world champions once again, and Green Bay Packers: The Complete Illustrated History is the ultimate, authoritative look at this storied and beloved sports franchise. In addition to offering a comprehensive history of the team and in-depth profiles of its greatest stars, the book features more than 200 rare and iconic photographs as well as chalkboard diagrams of key plays from team history. It tells of the legends who have defined the Packer legacy for more than 80 years, from Bart Starr to Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers, Ray Nitschke to Reggie White to Clay Matthews, Curly Lambeau to Vince Lombardi to Mike McCarthy. This fully updated third edition highlights the team’s triumphant journey to Super Bowl XLV and includes profiles of the latest Packer stars. Chock full of stats and stories, Green Bay Packers is a book that no Packer fan will want to be without.

In 1967, when Jerry Kramer was a thirty-one-year-old Green Bay Packers offensive lineman, in his tenth year with the team, he decided to keep a diary of the season. “Perhaps, by setting down my daily thoughts and observations,” he wrote, “I’ll be able to understand precisely what it is that draws me back to professional football.” Working with the renowned journalist Dick Schaap, Kramer recorded his day-to-day experiences as a player with perception, honesty, humor, and startling sensitivity. Little did Kramer know that the 1967 season would be one of the most remarkable in the history of pro football, culminating with the legendary championship game against Dallas now known as the “Ice Bowl,” in which Kramer would play a central role. Nor could he have anticipated that his diary would evolve into a book titled Instant Replay, first published in 1968, that would become a multimillion-copy bestseller and be celebrated by reviewers everywhere, including the Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley, who calls it “to this day, the best inside account of pro football, indeed the best book ever written about that sport and that league.” This groundbreaking look inside the world of professional football is one of the first books ever to take readers into the locker room and reveal the inner workings of a professional sports franchise. From training camp, through the historic Ice Bowl, then into the locker room of Super Bowl II, Kramer provides a captivating player’s perspective on pro football when the game was all blood, grit, and tears. He also offers a rare and insightful view of the team’s storied leader, Coach Vince Lombardi. Bringing the book back into print for the first time in more than a decade, this new edition of Instant Replay retains the classic look of the original and includes a foreword by Jonathan Yardley and additional rarely seen photos from the celebrated “Lombardi era.” As vivid and engaging as it was when it was first published, Instant Replay is an irreplaceable reminder of the glory days of pro football.

The 1972 Green Bay Packers were not expected to challenge for a playoff spot, or even to top their four victories from the season before. But the players were an eclectic group of over-achievers, 20 of whom were brand new to the team. Despite disheartening decisions by a questionable head coach, they gelled almost immediately and by season's end became the only Packers team throughout the 1970s to earn a division title. This book details how they succeeded beyond all expectations and tells one of the great stories in pro football history.

The book takes the concept of computer-based simulations for predicting American football gameslike the Madden video games for exampleand attempts to devise a simpler method. With just a word processor, some spreadsheets, a fundamental understanding of percentages and probabilities, and a few hours of work, anyone can achieve results that are remarkably similar to those of the more sophisticated computer models. Chapters 1 to 5 outline the method and its rationale. Chapters 6 to 9 detail an actual simulated contest play-by-play. Chapters 10 to 11 and the appendices utilize the method described to determine which professional football team of the past fifty years was truly the best.