Word: lombardi
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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More than ever before, this season professional football needs its rookies to fill up its ranks. Injuries are ripping through rosters so steadily that sports pages read like medical reports. Even sanguine Coach Vince Lombardi of the Green Bay Packers admits: "These days, we're happy to get out of games with our lives...
...Lions. "Why, they're just an average team. They're going to get beat often." In past years, such talk would have drawn a chorus of mirthless laughter in any N.F.L. locker room. This season, Karras may have a point. In their first five games, Coach Vince Lombardi's Packers, champions in four out of the past six seasons, hardly looked like the terrors they were cracked...
...Injuries. Lombardi's defense is the same solid rock, allowing just 54 points in five games, fewest in the league. The offense is the rub. In five games the Packers scored only 87 points to rank a lamentable twelfth out of 16 teams; 22 times they lost the ball on fumbles and interceptions v. 24 times for the entire 1966 season. Injury-benched Fuzzy Thurston is no longer opening up truck-size holes at guard; age appears to be robbing Forrest Gregg, Jerry Kramer and Bob Skoronski of their speed and timing. In the backfield, the Packers sorely miss...
...that, to say the least, will take a load off Coach Lombardi's mind. "We're having a helluva time," admits Vinnie. "But this is going to be a great club, maybe next year, maybe this year. Or," he added, "maybe next week...
...There is no Sam Huff riding down the enemy's key runner, no Big Daddy Lipscomb flattening the quarterback, no Erich Barnes crawling inside receivers' shirts. And yet,-over the last 24 games, Harvard has held its opponents to 7.2 points a game, an average that would make Vince Lombardi green with envy...