CORNER CONCERN? NOT WITH HART FOR HERB

FEB 8 (Green Bay Press-Gazette) - With the strong probability that one Herbert Adderley will not be wearing the green and gold come September, some Packerphiles have expressed concern over the cornerback prospectus, particularly if understudy John Rowser should also depart the scene. There doesn't appear to be any real cause for alarm, however. As one veteran observer sagely put it, "There never has been a football player who couldn't be replaced." And a dispassionate examination of the situation, which must be undertaken with the assumption that Adderley will be traded away, indicates the accuracy of this assessment. Although there is no intent to demean Adderley's considerable talents, it is felt that Doug Hart could move in at the eft corner without any significant drop off in performance....'A FIFTH REGULAR': Though presently counted upon at left safety, Hart has excellent credentials for the assignment. In fact, he held forth at the right corner throughout the 1965 season, in which the Packers launched their second triple title streak, with more than a modicum of distinction. There also is the possibility, of course, that Rowser will be invited to return. Although he is not yet an Adderley, and may never be, the former University of Michigan athlete has weathered three National Football League seasons, which would suggest the coaching staff has confidence in his potential. In fact, secondary coach Wayne Robinson last season described Rowser as "a fifth regular," thereby intimating he could well have been a starter but for the presence of the veteran Adderley and Bob Jeter at the corners. The knowledge that the position could well be his also might be the making of Rowser, labeled "a tough kid physically" by Robinson....HARDEN CANDIDATE, TOO: Should both Adderley and Rowser not return, the Packer board of strategy might be tempted to employ Leon Harden at the corner. A member of the taxi squad last season, the former Texas-El Paso performer is highly regarded in the Pack's inner circle. If it should be found necessary to transfer Hart, that obviously would leave a void at strong safety. The latter assignment then presumably would fall to either Gordon Rule, the rawboned hardnose from Dartmouth, or Harden. The Packers' No. 2 draftee, jet-like Alvin Mathews of Texas
A. & I., also could figure here, as well as whomever the Packers acquire for Adderley in the anticipated trade, should one of them happen to be a defensive back. "Phil," Carroll told the Tribune scribe, "didn't want any letdown." Commenting on Herb Adderley's recent public statements, Dale said, "Now, don't get me wrong, I think Herb is a great guy and I admire and respect him. But I think he hurt himself a little bit. I don't think any veteran should say things like that about a coach. He's been in Green Bay a long time and it appears to the public like he's being ungrateful."...The Baltimore Colts' John Unitas, just named as the Football Athlete of the Decade in an Associated Press poll last week, promptly leveled a blast at the current quality of the game. ''Football players today should be better because of their physical attributes and improved coaching," Unitas said. "But they're not. Few young players coming into the game now have the proper attitude or desire. When it comes to dedication and self sacrifice, forget it. A lot of young players seem to have more on their minds than what they're being paid for. They don't want to spend any time and effort to improve. The majority seem satisfied just to make the team." Unitas contends the formation of the American Football League and the expansion of the National Football League also have contributed to a "saturation of the market with players of lesser ability, who wouldn't have been signed previously."..."Vincent Lombardi, the don of the Redskins, is a big man in areas other than football," columnist Morris Siegel notes in the Washington Star. "He was easily the hit of the post-theater party in New York celebrating the opening of Art Buchwald's play. In a room wall-to-walled with the likes of Sen. George McGovern, Mayor John Lindsay, Ethel Kennedy, Ambassador Averill Harriman, George Plimpton, Jimmy Breslin, David Brinkley and other headliners, our man Vince was the smash guest. 'I just met Vince Lombardi,' " gushed director Gene Saks to playwright Buchwald. " 'How'd you talk him into coming?' Lombardi, incidentally, might soon become an ex-resident of Potomac in favor of apartment living in Washington. Too much grass to mow, he protested, confessing, 'I'm a concrete man.'"...William N. Wallace, writing in Pro Football Weekly, estimates that the National Football League's new four-year television package sold for a slightly incredible $150 million. This means, he pointed out, "that each of the 26 franchises would receive over $1.6 million per year through 1973." The four-year figure includes an estimated annual income of $18 million from CBS, $15 million from NBC and $8.6 million from ABC. Commissioner Pete Rozelle declined to confirm Wallace's appraisal but the New York scribe noted he was "pleased as punch, no matter what the real figure may be. " 'We've got that out of the way for years,' " he said again and again. " 'Four years.' And then he went off on a vacation to Acapulco. "It was well deserved. By my accounting in the 10 years he has been the commissioner, Pete has negotiated television contracts for the owners, the players and the player pension fund with a total worth of $29 million."...Harry Hulmes, former general manager of the Baltimore Colts, has been named assistant to the general manager and director of public relations for the New Orleans Saints. Hulmes was replaced as Colt GM late last season by Don Klosterman, previously in the same capacity with the Houston Oilers.

PACK, OAKLAND SET SERIES

FEB 10 (Green Bay Press-Gazette) - The Packers, who heretofore have confined themselves to familiar foes in such exertions, this year will meet a representative of the "old" American Football League in pre-season play for the first time. GM-Coach Phil Bengtson today announced completion of a home-and-home series with the Oakland Raiders, the AFL's Western Division champions in 1969, beginning with an invasion of Oakland Saturday night, Aug. 29. The Raiders will return the favor in 1971, with the site (Green Bay or Milwaukee) to be determined later, Bengtson said...TIME TO BE SET:  Next August's match will be the first meeting between the teams since 1968 Super Bowl, in which the Packers claimed their second consecutive world title by dispatching the Raiders, 33-14, with the aid of four Don Chandler field goals. The time (afternoon or evening) remains to be set. It will depend upon whether the game is to be televised, since TV dates have not yet been assigned because all of the National Football League's pre-season schedules have not been formulated. Paced by Player of the Year Daryle Lamonica, Oakland forged the AFL's best overall record in '69, a 12-1-1 mark. The Raiders, who led the league in scoring with 377 points over the 14-game route, defeated eventual Super Bowl champion Kansas City twice during the regular season before losing to the Chiefs in the league's title playoff. The Packers presently are negotiating with several other former AFL clubs - the 10-year-old league officially was absorbed by the NFL Feb. 1 - for additional exhibition dates this
year but no contracts have yet been signed...EXPECT TWO OTHERS: They are expected to play two additional ex-AFL teams during the 1970 grapefruit league season, although there has been no indication of who their opponents will be. One other pre-season contest was announced previously. It will find the Packers invading Dallas Saturday night, Aug. 22, for their annual Dallas Salesmanship Club exchange with the Cowboys. They also are committed to a renewal of their Midwest Shrine
Game series with the Chicago Bears at Milwaukee County Stadium and a rematch with the New York Giants, 22-21 victims in the Bishop's Charities Game at Lambeau Field last August....PACKER PATTER:  Two former Packers are valued members of the Oakland cast - Ben Davidson, the Raiders' mammoth defensive end, and defensive back Howie Williams. Davidson, 6-foot-7 and 275 pounds, has been an all-AFL selection the last three years after being cut by the Giants, Packers and Redskins before finding a home in Oakland. Also prominent on the Raider scene are two Wisconsin-grown athletes, running back Pete Banaszak of Crivitz and center Jim Otto of Wausau, a perennial all-NFL choice....In his Chicago Tribune column, "Sports Patter," Sports Editor Cooper Rollow reports, "A high St. Louis football Cardinal official confided he would have dealt tight end Jackie Smith to the Bears for Chicago's No. 1 draft pick but the Bears liked their deal with Green Bay better (Elijah Pitts, LeeRoy Caffey and Bob Hyland). There still may be a deal pending between the Bears and Cards." The Packers, of course, acquired the draft rights to Notre Dame's mountainous defensive tackle, Mike McCoy, in that exchange with the Bruins. Speaking of the Cardinals, former Packer coaching aide John (Red) Cochran has left the Big Red's staff to become offensive backfield coach of the San Diego Chargers. Cochran left the Packers following the 1966 season to enter private business, then joined the Cardinals in 1968.

UNITAS CHOICE AS TOP ATHLETE NOT UNANIMOUS

FEB 15 (Green Bay Press-Gazette) - The recent selection of Johnny Unitas as Pro Football Athlete of the Decade has evoked a number of fan and editorial reactions on sports pages across the nation, not all of them favorable. To be sure, the choice of General John drew support in some quarters, particularly in his native East, but there also are those who have taken substantial issue with the voters' judgment. Not the least of these, veteran sportswriter Dave Brady informs in the Washington Post, are Washington's University of Alabama alumni. They, he notes, "have come to share the attitude of Ted Williams toward certain members of the writing profession since an Associated Press pool delivered the consensus that Johnny Unitas was the Pro Football Athlete of the Decade. "They have been lording it over other grads as favorite sons Bart Starr and Joe Namath won the first three Super Bowls, two by the Green Bay Packers and the other by the New York Jets. "The Jets even beat Baltimore although Unitas did not take the Colts to the National Football League championship last season, because he had arm miseries, and was not up to bailing out Earl Morrall after the Colts fell behind 13-0, en route to a 16-7 loss. That," Brady noted, "is the dissenters' crab against Unitas - that he had not won an NFL title in a decade, not since he took the Colts two in a row, in 1958-59? By his own admission, the Colts got the hell kicked out of us' as overwhelming favorites over Cleveland in 1964, with Unitas being shut out, 27-0. "Starr beat those Browns for the championship the next season, 23-12, and began an unprecedented string of three straight title conquests. He had led the Packers to three Western Conferences and two league championships before that, and when the Super Bowl was concocted,
he went two for two. "The charge that he was the Pygmalion creation of coach Vince Lombardi was resurrected after the Packers finished third in 1968 and 1969, coincidental with Lombardi's two-year absence from the coaching lines at Green Bay," the Washington scribe points out. "Lombardi's successor at Green Bay, Phil Bengtson, suffered the Packers' first drop below second place since 1959 - Lombardi's first year - but he says, 'If I had a vote, Starr would have gotten it because of his overall record and because he won more championships. "I hate to take anything away from Unitas because he was ... and is a great quarterback. But I think he got more recognition as an individual at Baltimore. In our success -the Packers' - other individuals received more recognition than was the case at Baltimore. The team did, and the coach (Lombardi)." Brady goes on to observe, "Members of the Unitas fan club, as do the champions of Ted Williams, go to the NFL record manual to support their argument for Unitas the individual. The statistics of the top 10 all-time passers show Unitas, Sonny Jurgenson, Starr, Y. A. Tittle, Fran Tarkenton, Norm Van Brocklin, Frank Ryan, Otto Graham, Sammy Baugh and Don Meredith in that order." He also could have noted that passing figures are not the only measure of quarterbacking skill, of course, which indicate a quarterback's ability to diagnose and victimize a defense, an art at which Starr has had no peer. And even in Unitas's specialty, Starr compares very favorably in two of the most important categories. He owns the best career passing percentage in NFL history, 57.5 for a 14-year span, and the lowest interception percentage on record. These, together with the five titles to which he escorted the Packers in a seven-year span, a performance without parallel in NFL annals, make an impressive case for Mr. Quarterback. Brady reports, in his effusion, that "a respected observer not associated with any club but so situated in the sport that he could not permit attribution insisted that Starr had to be regarded as the best of the decade. "Asked whether he would adhere to that standard and pick the all-time winner, Otto Graham, over Unitas, Starr, Jurgensen, Van Brocklin, Layne, Baugh and Bob Waterfield, he tried to temporize but stuck to his premise and backed Graham. As a reminder to those who might have missed the balloting for the Pro Football Athlete of the Decade, Unitas got 233 votes, Starr 1241/2, Jim Brown 105 and Namath 7. His memory jogged that the voting was not restricted to quarterbacks," the observer said, 'In that case I would have to pick Brown. He was the best; no question about it.' "...NFL NOTES: The Minnesota Vikings, who voted 52 shares, are receiving $7,929.77 for each full share for having won the 1969 NFL title, Commissioner Pete Rozelle has announced. The losing Cleveland Browns collected $5,117.80 each for 54 shares. Net receipts for the game were $1,231,781.38...The Los Angeles Rams have signed placekicker Clint Scott from the University of Puget Sound. Scott, the NCAA college division's all-time second high scorer, will compete with holdover David Ray to succeed Bruce Gossett, traded to San Francisco recently for defensive back Kermit Alexander, as the Rams' kicking specialist.

ROZELLE SEES NFL EXPANSION IN YEARS AHEAD

FEB 16 (Milwaukee) - After a period of stability, pro football may expand to Mexico, Hawaii and even Canada, Commissioner Pete Rozelle said Sunday night. "We are not planning on expansion now. But within 10 years, it's very possible we will get to 32 teams-two 16-team conferences," the football czar told the second annual Wisconsin chapter, Pro Football Writers dinner. Any move into Canada will not upset the Canadian Football League, Rozelle emphasized. "There have been many changes in the last 10 years," Rozelle said. "Pro football has gone from 12 to 26 teams. The sport has developed where 60 million people watched the Super Bowl between Kansas City and Minnesota, the largest viewing audience of any single sports event."...NEW STADIUMS:  Of the 26 teams in pro football now, he said, 19 are either in new, enlarged or planned stadiums. "This coming season will find Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Cincinnati in new stadiums, and San Francisco playing in a remodeled Candlestick Park," Rozelle said. "In 1971, Kansas City and Dallas will have new stadiums." Earlier, at a news conference, Rozelle said he hoped the Boston Patriots will not move their franchise to another city. "The fan support of the Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics have shown the sports desire of the Boston fans," he said, referring to Boston's teams in the American League, National Hockey League and National Basketball Association, respectively. Rozelle was one of seven award recipients at the dinner. He was given the writers' distinguished service award. Joe Kapp, Minnesota Vikings quarterback, received the Vince Lombardi award for dedication; Vikings Coach Bud Grant, coach of the year, and Gale Sayers of the Chicago Bears, comeback of the year award. Dave Robinson and Travis Williams were named the Green Bay Packers defensive and offensive players of the year, respectively, and running back Dave Hampton was honored as the Packers top rookie.

ROZELLE GAUGES MERGER SUCCESS ON GROWING ATTENDANCE

FEB 16 (Milwaukee-Green Bay Press-Gazette) - Pro Football Commissioner Pete Rozelle has a simple formula to gauge his success. A barometer, he said after receiving the meritorious service award at the second annual Wisconsin Pro Football Writers dinner here Sunday night "is what the public thinks." He then proceeded to illustrate his point. "Since 1966 and the merger between the National and American football leagues," he said, "attendance has increased over 60 per cent. In 1965, pro football attracted 8 million fans the last season before the merger. This past season we have gone over 13 million...so we feel developments have borne out the system of creating the merger." Rozelle went on to extoll the Packers' new situation, which finds them remaining in the NFL's Central division with Chicago, Detroit and Minnesota. "This alignment preserves the old element and brands them with the excitement of a new," he said. "The Packers will be in with good old-timers like the Bears, Lions, plus the Vikings, which takes care of six games. They also will play three games with teams from the American Conference and five games with other teams of the National Conference. This type of schedule will give the fans a great variety. There will be an opportunity to see the Kansas City Chiefs and O. J. Simpson. I think it will be very exciting." Turning to TV, Rozelle added, "As far as television is concerned, we hope we have harnessed it for a few years (after signing a recent four-year, $450 million contract) and we are pleased to have our program as an entity in all fields at the same time. This is the first time this has happened, outside of our moon launching or something of that kind." Looking ahead to the 70s, the commissioner said "I think we have to expect expansion but we are not counting on it now. It is likely, however, that we will
see expansion to 32 teams within the next 10 years. It is likely that we will expand into Mexico and, conceivably, into Canada." Summing up, Rozelle observed, "For the time being we would like to stabilize what we've got and we would like to see emphasis returned to what is happening on the field. According to a recent poll, most fans are tired of reading about disputes between players and management and things of that sort."...BANQUET BANTER: Recently retired defensive tackle Henry Jordan served as master of ceremonies and he may have launched a new career with a droll performance. Ex-Packer Coach Gene Ronzani and former Bears Johnny Sisk and Don Kindt were among those introduced from the floor, along with Packer great Charles (Buckets) Goldenberg, President Allen (Bud) Selig of the Milwaukee Brewers, and Coach Larry Costello of the Milwaukee Bucks, Bud Lea, Milwaukee Sentinel sportswriter, was the banquet chairman. Allen Miller, general counsel of the National Football League Players Association, spoke on behalf of President John Mackey, who was unable to be present, and predicted the 1970s will see "a new era of cooperation between the players and the owners."

ROBBIE SAYS PACK IN ADJUSTMENT ERA

FEB 16 (Milwaukee-Green Bay Press-Gazette) - Dave Robinson's primary concern, as an outside linebacker, is the Packer defense. But the 28-year-old Penn State product, unanimous All-Pro in 1969, addressed himself to the potential of the offense here Sunday night while he was being honored as the Pack's "Outstanding Defensive Player of 1969," by the Wisconsin Pro Football Writers Association Chapter at the second annual dinner at the Pfister Hotel. "I think the Packers are in a period of adjustment," Robinson said at a pre-banquet press conference. "I think we are rounding into a real fine ball club. But the Jim Taylor-Paul Hornung era is over, and the Travis Williams-Donny Anderson-Dave Hampton is just beginning. Bart Starr is adapting very well to this change, and he will probably play another year, possibly two, and we have a young quarterback coming up in Don Horn who has the quick release and throws the bomb and will fit right in. We are going to be a different type of team in the future."...SELLOUT CROWD: Later, at the dinner attended by a sellout crowd of more than 650 fans in the hotel's grand ballroom, Robinson implemented this by declaring, "I think the Packers will be back, but we are a changing team - it will be a team with a different look." Robinson also paid tribute to Willie Davis, seated in the audience, for "teaching me to play defensive football in 1965, one of my first years with the Packers." Joe Kapp, the Minnesota Vikings' swashbuckling quarterback, should have been the star of the show, on the basis of his 1969 performance and in consideration of the fact that he was receiving the Vince Lombardi Dedication Award. But Gale Sayers of the lowly Chicago Bears, who settled for a miserable 1-13 record last season, won the hearts of the banquet audience. Sayers, who made a dramatic comeback last season when knee surgery threatened his career, termed his "Comeback of the Year" citation "the most gratifying award I ever received because during the early part of the season many of the Chicago writers buried me - they said I wasn't running like I used to...NEW DAY: "I want to say to all sports writers and so called experts on my injury," Sayers said, "that this is a new day." His remarks, delivered with obvious sincerity, drew the longest sustained applause of the evening. Kapp, who led the Vikings to the NFL title but had his problems in two meetings with the Packers, was to fill his efforts against the Pack and then humbly observed, "as you can see from the film I didn't do anything against the Green Bay Packers (19-7 and 9-7 Minnesota victims in a home and home series in 1969). "They are not fooling me," Kapp added. "These awards go to the winning quarterbacks but there are a lot of people who are good enough for it." Travis Williams, saluted as the Packers outstanding offensive player, watched himself scoring repeatedly on film, then was quick to point out, "it took 10 other men to make those plays possible." Dave Hampton honored as the rookies of the year, was equally discreet. After acknowledging his thanks, he closed out by reminding, "I want you all to remember the Pack will be back."...FIRST APPEARANCE: Coach Phil Bengtson, making his first public appearance since suffering a broken hip on Christmas. Eve, pronounced himself "very pleased with the draft." He added, "I have been comparing notes with Bud Grant - it's about two weeks after the draft and that's the time they look the best." In accepting the writers' "Coach of the Year" award, Grant pointed out, "the Vikings have had a good teacher. We have lived next to the Packers for all of our existence. We have seen how it was done and we tried to do it very similarly." "I might add, if the Vikings can't do it our first choice would be the Green Bay Packers.

STARR STILL PACKERS' NO. 1 QUARTERBACK, BENGTSON SAYS

FEB 18 (Green Bay Press-Gazette) - Last season, 14-year veteran Bart Starr missed 27 quarters because of injuries and his youthful understudy, Don Horn, staged a strong finish, rallying the Packers to a pair of closing victories and a final 8-6 record. Inevitably, in the light of these developments, there has been widespread speculation among the faithful about the 1970 quarterback assignment. GM-Coach Phil Bengtson, making a strong recovery from a broken hip and a bout with ulcers, clarified the situation during a Tuesday appearance at the Mike & Pen Sports Club's weekly luncheon in the Beaumont Motor Inn. "I would have to say that right now, on the basis of his experience, Bart Starr has to be our number one quarterback," said Bengtson, who expects to shed his crutches within two weeks' time. He added, "I don't think there is any reason to assume, because of what happened to him last season, that Bart is injury-prone. I think he just ran into some freak injuries." Starr was beset by a bicep injury on his passing arm early in the season, then was sidelined for the last four weeks by a shoulder separation suffered in a 16-10 loss to the Detroit Lions here Nov. 23. In his analysis, Bengtson explained, "Naturally, we know Horn is going to move in there one of these days, but we don't know when that will be." He also indicated he is not automatically eliminating him from consideration for the No. 1 assignment next season. "There always is competition for positions," Bengtson pointed out, "and you always play the best man available. At quarterback, your number one concern is experience and Starr has more experience. Last year, we tried to play Horn half the time during the pre-season, and I believe we just about achieved that objective. At the end of the pre-season, we felt Starr was No. 1. We will do the same thing next year." Bengtson also made these replies to other questions:

"Mike McCoy, our number one draft choice, is the type of guy you have to have. You have to have outstanding defensive ball players, defensive linemen, and there just aren't that many available when you start distributing them among 26 clubs. This year, for example, we felt there were five outstanding ones available. Drafting 16th, we wouldn't have had much chance to get one of them. That's why we had to trade to get a low draft choice.

"Bob Brown has played both end and tackle while McCoy is more typically a tackle, although that doesn't mean he can't play outside. If McCoy takes over at tackle, it will be a question of Brown or Carr at end.

"Although Rich McGeorge, our number two draft choice, is from a small school (Elon, N.C., College), he has the size and speed needed to be a receiver and that minimizes the competition angle, although he played in a pretty competitive league... He was rated the number two tight end in all the ratings we saw, so we felt fortunate to get him.

"If we can trade Herb Adderley, we're going to 'trade him. If we do, we'd like to find some backup strength at his position.

Donny Anderson is still a good football player and can play either halfback or wide receiver. He could figure as a wide receiver if the player limit is reduced, as has been suggested by some. We could save a player by considering him a wide receiver, but right now we consider him as a running back.

"Skip Butler, the kicker we drafted from Texas-at-Arlington, is supposed to have a real strong leg. He was supposed to be the best college kicker available...Kickers are hard to come by through trading. Each team has only one. We almost had a deal for David Ray of the Rams, but then they traded Bruce Gossett and decided to keep him. But he, of course, was not the regular kicker.

"We thought Booth Lusteg did real well for the time he was with us last year. He has a pretty strong leg. But it's hard to evaluate a kicker in that climate and that late in the year. We had the same thing with Mike Mercer the year before.

"We don't have to make a decision on Forrest Gregg's status until we come to 40 players - the last cut. We found that out last year. As time goes on, he comes closer to being a coach every day. He's available as a player, but I think it's more likely he will be a coach.

"Yes, Rich Moore did get a little tired last season, but that happens all the time. Individuals get tired, teams get tired, mentally tired. Moore had a little dip in performance during the middle of the season, but he came back the last few games and did a good job...We would hope this would not happen to McCoy. We might try to guard against it by relieving him more.

"The merger agreement provides that we should play four pre-season games with American Conference teams this year, but I don't know how well it's going to be enforced. We'll find that out at the league meeting in March...It looks like we will have three and three (three each with National and American conference teams).

"The Central Division race looks tough. Detroit came along way last season and Minnesota, of course, is going to be tough. And there is no way to keep the Bears down where they were last season."

GRID'S AGE OF YAWN OVER?

FEB 20 (Green Bay Press-Gazette) - As far as Packerphiles are concerned, the Lombardi Era ended a year ago, when the Pack's erstwhile major-domo departed the Green Bay scene to begin resuscitating the long dormant Washington Redskins. That, however, did not end his impact on the game which he and his philosophy dominated for a memorable decade. It continued as imitators attempted to emulate the methods which brought the Packers an unprecedented five National Football
League championships during a seven-year span. But now, suddenly, that era may be all but over - a casualty of the Super Bowl in which the Minnesota Vikings, unashamed Lombardi disciples, underwent a somewhat disastrous experience at the hands of Kansas City's innovative Chiefs. Such, at least, is the conviction of the New York Times' erudite football writer, William N. Wallace...INJECTION OF GIMMICKS: "There may be conservatives in the government at Washington and Vince Lombardi coaches the local team there," he observes in the latest issue of Pro Football Weekly. "But Hank Stram won the Super Bowl and since football is full of copyists, the Great American Game is now going to experience a healthy injection of multiple formations and other gimmicks made popular by Stram and his Kansas City Chiefs. It's about time. Lombardi's success with the Green Bay Packers caused the 1960s to be the age of the yawn when it came to football offenses. And before Lombardi, there was Paul Brown in the 1950s. These great thinkers were convinced, and rightly so, that the way to win football games was to execute as few plays as nearly perfectly as possible. They won a lot of games and high school coaches in Podunk and Pottsburgh slaved at making the Green Bay sweep work for them and open up the run to daylight. I can't say that I was ever bored watching the Packers win. Their execution was something to behold, especially when Bart Starr faced a third down and long yardage. However, there were a lot of dull but successful teams in the old NFL which had terribly unimaginative offenses that leaned so heavily on execution. The Cleveland Browns whom Blanton Collier inherited from Paul Brown come quickly to mind...LANDRY DESERVES CREDIT: "Tom Landry in Dallas deserves a lot of credit for attempting new ways to attack the 4-3 defense. He brought the multiple offense to pro football. However, he never did beat Lombardi and many people continued to scoff. Lombardi himself once said that the Packers would start training camp each year with the idea of putting in a multiple offense but by Aug. 15 they had thrown everything out as unworkable. It is ironic that Stram rather than Landry is the reason for the vogue of the multiple offense which now will hit football like a tidal wave beginning with spring practices in the colleges. The reason is that Landry's Cowboys have never reached the Super Bowl and Stram's Chiefs have, twice. Hank Stram is the most pragmatic of coaches. He is quick to say that multiple offenses and formation sets in themselves do not win football games. Execution is still No. 1 in the priorities. However, it is nice to have all those plays and their mere presence does burden the defenses. That is the idea in Stram's terms - to put as much load as possible on the defense." Wallace predicts that "certain pro coaches henceforth will be thinking less of the old Green Bay sweep and more of the I, the moving pocket and even the end around if they think they can get away with it. That will be the new trend. Lombardi football is yesterday football because this sport is one of trends. The pacesetters are the winners of the moment. We applaud the trend because the multiple offense is good theatre and pro football is basically show business."

PACKERS DELAYED AFL EQUALITY

FEB 23 (Wausau) - If it hadn't been for those doggone Green Bay Packers, the American Football League would have been nationally recognized as an equal to the National Football League a lot sooner, Al Davis contends. Davis, general manager and part owner of the AFL's Oakland Raiders, addressed about 400 persons Saturday night at a hometown testimonial for the best-known member of the Oakland club, Jim Otto. Davis described the 10-year pro center and Raiders offensive captain as "the AFL personified." But, despite outstanding talent like Otto, the AFL never got the citations it deserved, thanks to Green Bay, Davis said. The younger league was sluggish about selling its image, he said, and after Green Bay won the first two Super Bowl games, the public tended to scoff at the AFL. When the New York Jets won the interleague title for the AFL, the public called it a fluke, he complained. Not until Kansas City won it did people begin believing in the AFL, he said. "The rest of the NFL thrived on the Packer victories when it really was the Packers who were super," Davis said. The AFL was equal to the NFL three years ago, "but the Packers were a super team that could beat anybody." Otto, who was only a second-string all-state selection when he played for Wausau High School, has won some degree of all-AFL status in every year of his pro career. He told the dinner in his hon- or he had left Wausau determined to keep the community proud of him. George Blanda, a quarterback for two decades with both leagues, declared Otto and Chicago's Bulldog Turner to have been pro football's two finest centers.

ELIJAH PITTS DISCUSSES PACKERS' MORALE PROBLEM

FEB 25 (Wisconsin Rapids Tribune) - The Green Bay Packers of 1969 suffered from a "morale problem" because many team members thought the best personnel was not being used, former Packer Elijah Pitts said here Tuesday night. Speaking at the Brotherhood Week dinner at the Elks Club, Pitts made the comments in answer to questions from the audience. The nine-year veteran of the Packers who was traded to the Chicago Bears in January said much of the morale problem centered around Coach Phil Bengtson. "He just didn't take over the way he should have." Pitts said. Pitts said he and other members of the team thought Travis Williams and Dave Hampton should have been the starting backfield during the 1969 season. He said although Donny Anderson was a fine athlete, "he didn't play up to his potential" last season. Pitts also told the group he asked to be traded because Bengston "wasn't going to give me any more money" to play next year and because it appeared he would get little playing time again in 1970. The former Packer said being traded to the arch-rival Bears was a "shock" at first, but he feels he'll have a better chance to show himself, hopefully as a starting fullback in the same backfield with all-pro Gale Sayers. In response to another question, Pitts said Packer defensive back Herb Adderley definitely will not play with Green Bay again. Adderley, too, has had differences with Bengston and the defensive standout announced last month he did not want to return to play for the Packers. Much of Pitts' football talk dealt with former Green Bay Coach Vince Lombardi, whom Pitts described as "one of the greatest psychologists" ever." "He made you want to win," Pitts said. "We were a club that won championships strictly on desire and team effort." "You'd have to know the man, see the man, to realize the desire he could instill in you," Pitts said.