Green Bay Packers linebacker Nick Barnett shows off his mouth guard before an NFL game against the Buffalo Bills in Green Bay, Wis. The Packers won 34-7. (AP photo/Mike Roemer)It wasn't a holiday special; Barnett wore the custom mouthguard all season long. He wore a blue version when picked up by the Buffalo Bills, I don't know if he has a burgundy one now that he's with Washington.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (12) runs toward the end zone in the second half of an NFL football game against the Minnesota Vikings, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt)Sheesh. Purple is a fine color in moderation, but that's just nasty.
Green Bay Packers running back James Starks (44) runs against Minnesota Vikings cornerback Xavier Rhodes (29) and defensive end Brian Robison (96) for a touchdown in the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)This has been going on for several years. The effect reminds me of the first version of this uniform, from 1959; for one season only, Vince Lombardi's first season in charge, the Packers wore white socks with stripes to match their road jerseys:
I'm not a big fan of the look today. White socks on all players would be one thing, but this homemade customization ruins the "uniform" part of the uniform:
Green Bay Packers wide receiver Jordy Nelson (87) and the rest of the team warm up before an NFL football game against the Minnesota Vikings, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)The Packers look best when they all look the same.
Minnesota Vikings tight end Kyle Rudolph (82) gets tackled by Green Bay Packers' M.D. Jennings (43) and Morgan Burnett (42) after making a reception in the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt)I've heard that these types of individual aesthetic gestures are against the NFL's uniform rules, and that fines may be handed down. I'm curious if we'll hear anything about these socks from the league.
1940's Charley Brock Game Worn Green Bay Packers Leather Helmet. An esteemed member of the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame, Charley Brock was also named as part of professional football's 1940's All-Decade Team, and was a key player of the offense on the Packers' 1939 championship squad.
Offered here is Brock's yellow leather helmet from the 1940's, complete with his number "29" stenciled in green ink on the back and "Brock" noted in the interior.
Exhibiting great wear throughout, it is one of only a handful of game-worn leather Packers shells ever sold at auction. "Rawlings" is branded in the front, while "Rawlings VMI [SIZE] 7 1/4" and the player's numeral is in the rear. Style-matched to a 1943 photo of teammate Don Hutson, with the notable four large airholes on top and rounded front piece, this is a superb artifact from the days of Curly Lambeau, Tony Canadeo, Hutson and the like. LOA from MEARS. LOA from Heritage Auctions. Guide Value or Estimate: $3,000 - up.Brock was a center who played 90 games for the Packers from 1939-1947. He was selected out of Nebraska by the Packers with the 24th pick in the third round of the 1939 draft. In his rookie year, he played eight games for the squad on its way to the World Championship. He was one of eight players to pick off nine passes against the Lions on October 24, 1943, setting an NFL single-game mark. The record was tied in 1965 by the Philadelphia Eagles against the Steelers, a record which the teams share to this day. After missing the last half of the 1943 season due to appendicitis, he returned to play all ten games in 1944 on the way to his second (and the Packers' sixth) title.
Green Bay Packers' Aaron Rodgers looks to pass as Cleveland Browns' Paul Kruger applies pressure during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Oct. 20, 2013, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Mike Roemer)Today, the Packers wore their navy blue 1929-inspired throwback uniforms, the first time since Nike took over the manufacturing contract. And, as I reported yesterday, the standard gold shells required by new NFL regulations were accompanied by the regular green facemasks.
Green Bay Packers running back Eddie Lacy (27) is tackled by Cleveland Browns' Tashaun Gipson during the first half of an NFL football game Sunday, Oct. 20, 2013, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Tom Lynn)As much as I appreciate the attempt to replicate leather helmets with brown polycarbonate shells, I prefer the look of the gold helmets. They certainly brighten up what could otherwise be a drab uniform, especially under cloudy, rainy skies.
Aaron Rodgers threw for 260 yards and three touchdowns.(AP Photo/Tom Lynn)Speaking of the helmets, Jermichael Finley took a hard hit to the head, suffering a neck injury that required him to be carted off the field and already leading to much speculation about helmet safety. Here he is earlier in the game:
Green Bay Packers' Jermichael Finley reacts after catching a pass for a first down during the first half of an NFL football game against the Cleveland Browns Sunday, Oct. 20, 2013, in Green Bay, Wis. (USA Today Sports Images)The Packers looked pretty good, as they always do in these throwback games. These will remain the official Packers alternate uniform through next season, although I don't know if we'll see them worn again.
Green Bay Packers' Jordy Nelson (87) celebrates his touchdown catch with teammate Jarrett Boykin (11) during the second half of an NFL football game against the Cleveland Browns Sunday, Oct. 20, 2013, in Green Bay, Wis. The Packers won 31-13. (AP Photo/Mike Roemer)The on-field uniforms were only part of the story. There was also a surplus of blue and gold on the sidelines:
And, when I got my win-or-lose postgame email from the Packers Pro Shop, they made sure to tell me where I could pick up all that gear:
The Green Bay Packers will wear the team’s third jersey, a re-creation of the historic 1929 uniform worn by the franchise’s first NFL championship team, during Sunday’s Packers-Cleveland game.Although the NFL prohibits teams from wearing alternate helmets, there is no such rule requiring them to use the same facemasks in every game. We saw this in Week 2 when the Bears wore their throwbacks against Minnesota:
Due to new NFL helmet guidelines, the team this year will utilize its regular gold helmet without the logo and stripes. A similar helmet arrangement was used by the Packers during NFL “throwback” games in 1994 and 2001.
That's their regular navy helmet, stripped of its logo, but a throwback gray facemask.
They've also created a retro logo to promote the game (as well as assorted tie-in marketing opportunities).
1930 Chicago Bears Vs. Green Bay Packers Broadside. By consistently outplaying and outsmarting their opponent, the Green Bay Packers convincingly defeated Red Grange and his Chicago Bears, 7-0, in front of a City Stadium crowd on September 28, 1930. Offered here is an original broadside that promoted the big game, and it is one of only a few that survived the test of time. Affixed to a sturdy cardboard backing, and framed at 19.5x26", the ultra thin paper poster exhibits light paper loss and the proper folds throughout. An absolutely amazing artifact representing Curly Lambeau and the '30 championship Packers. Guide Value or Estimate: $2,000 - up.Remarkable. Really wish I could chase that one myself.
Green Bay Packers wide receiver Jarrett Boykin dives from extra yardage over Baltimore Ravens inside linebacker Daryl Smith (51) and free safety Matt Elam (26) during the second half of an NFL football game in Baltimore, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Green Bay Packers wide receiver Randall Cobb, right, takes a hit to the knee in a tackle by Baltimore Ravens free safety Matt Elam during the first half of an NFL football game in Baltimore, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013. Cobb left the game with an injury after the play. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)It was these towels that caused the NFL to retire their pink penalty flags, since they were causing confusion every time one landed on the field.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers looks for an opening to pass during the first half of a NFL football game against Green Bay Packers in Baltimore, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)Good to see that somebody has some sense.
Tenderizing the Tundra With Some Light and HeatA reminder that it's not just the Packers' green uniforms that look good throughout the season....
By JOHN BRANCH
Published: January 13, 2012
The “frozen tundra” is a myth. The ground at Lambeau Field, legendary home of the Green Bay Packers, is heated. It has not been frozen during a football game since it was dubbed the “frozen tundra” more than 40 years ago.
And that impossibly green grass these days, despite the calendar turn to January? Trace it, in large part, to a new system of artificial lighting employed to counter the meek late-autumn sunshine in Wisconsin.
Green Bay’s famed “frozen tundra,” besides being redundant — tundra is, by definition, frozen — is downright tropical, even during the N.F.L. playoffs.
“It’s just like playing in the summer on the grass,” Green Bay offensive lineman T. J. Lang said. “It’s never hard, it’s never frozen.”
When the Giants play the Packers at Lambeau Field on Sunday, they will face more than the team with the league’s best record (15-1). The Giants (10-7) will enter the setting of the league’s most impenetrable mystique. The winter weather in Green Bay has a reputation for ferocity, as much a part of the franchise’s identity as Bart Starr and Brett Favre.
The images are etched: fans bundled in layers, players removing helmets and releasing steam that rises from their heads, Giants Coach Tom Coughlin with a face so red during the N.F.C. championship game four years ago that some viewers may have adjusted their televisions.
The air at Lambeau Field might occasionally be frigid. But the tundra, hardly tundra at all, is decidedly not.
The ground below Lambeau Field has been heated since 1967, when Coach Vince Lombardi oversaw the installation of electric coils that zig-zagged under the turf like wires in an electric blanket. The aim was to keep the ground soft enough so that cleats could grab hold and players could keep their footing.
For 30 years, those coils kept Lambeau Field soft, with one exception. That came months after installation, when the Packers played host to the Cowboys for the 1967 N.F.L. championship. Temperatures well below zero were too much for the system. The field grew stiff and slick. The game was nicknamed the Ice Bowl. Writers in the aftermath dubbed the playing surface the “frozen tundra.” The term stuck. It remains frozen in time.
The electric coils were replaced in 1997 by a system of pipes filled with a solution including antifreeze. These days, the temperature of the soil is controlled by the field manager Allen Johnson. With temperatures Sunday expected to be in the 20s, Johnson will probably set the soil temperature to about 40 degrees. That will be enough to offset the subfreezing air temperature and keep the field soft.
It is not warm enough, he said with a hearty laugh, to entice players to linger on the grass for an extra moment or two at the end of a play, soaking in the warmth of the ground. Even on the coldest days, players are not likely to feel heat rising from beneath their toes.
While heating the soil at Lambeau Field is a concept about as old as the Super Bowl, the artificial lighting system used there is a burgeoning technology, designed by the Dutch firm S.G.L. — Stadium Grow Lighting. The founder of the company, Nico van Vuuren, tweaked a system he built for growing roses. He plans to attend his first N.F.L. game Sunday in Green Bay.
In essence, the system is a complex grid of retractable arms lined with hundreds of greenhouse-type light bulbs. After a trial run in 2010, the Packers bought nine MU360 units, as they are called, enough to cover half the field.
The contraption fools Mother Nature. Johnson used the lights 24 hours a day from October to early December, moving them every other day between games. Because the lights hang about six feet above the grass, other groundskeeping duties — mowing and watering, mostly — can continue, though the blast from a high-pressure sprinkler can occasionally shatter one of the long, clear incandescent bulbs.
Not only did the lights cast a warm and eerie glow from inside Lambeau Field through the night, they extended the growing season for the grass well past the normal date of dormancy.
Johnson said grass needs three vital elements to grow well: warm soil (check, thanks to Mr. Lombardi), good light (check, thanks to Mr. van Vuuren) and warm air (hmmm). By mid-December, when daytime temperatures rarely rise above freezing in Green Bay, the lights and warm soil are not enough to offset the frigid air. But the results linger.
“The payoff and the benefit is now,” Johnson said. “We have a more full canopy and more grass than we would without it. The green color is a side benefit. That’s aesthetic. The main benefit is stronger, healthier grass, thicker grass in places where it’s usually difficult to grow.”
The system was not in place at Lambeau Field in 1967 when the Packers played the Cowboys in the Ice Bowl. The low temperatures overwhelmed the system used to warm the ground.
S.G.L., which does much of its business on European soccer fields, is just now making inroads in North America. Many soccer stadiums are built like boxes, a field surrounded by steep stands and a partial roof to help shield fans from rain. Some fields, or parts of them, get little or no sun.
The New York Red Bulls purchased three of the units for their soccer-specific stadium in Harrison, N.J. The southern end of the stadium rarely gets sunlight most of the season, which extends from March to November, and the penalty box area — a high-traffic, critical area of the field in front of the goal — required new sod several times before this past year.
“The year before, it was definitely brown and it didn’t look right,” said Dan Shemesh, director of grounds for the Red Bulls. “You could always tell the south end: the air was colder, the soil was colder, the grass was thinner. It didn’t need to be mowed much.”
That changed in 2011, thanks to 24 hours a day of artificial sunlight provided by 1,000-watt bulbs, used mostly in the spring and fall.
“This past year, actually, that end was better than the other end,” Shemesh said.
Other North American franchises have expressed interest in the systems, particularly Major League Baseball teams that play in stadiums with retractable roofs. The Houston Astros have joined the Packers and the Red Bulls as the only professional American franchises to use the system.
The Packers, mostly fighting the cold and a short growing season, do not have a shade problem. But it is coming. Construction of new bleachers has begun on the south side, now the open end of the stadium, which promises to block sunlight in a couple of years.
“Getting lights was our answer to combat that,” Johnson said.
For teams like the Giants, there are plenty of things to combat during a January visit to Green Bay: quarterback Aaron Rodgers, linebacker Clay Matthews, the likelihood of cold weather and an energized crowd among them.
The notion of the frozen tundra, despite the constant reminders, is one thing they can try to forget.
“PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL PLAYERS DO NOT SUSTAIN FREQUENT REPETITIVE BLOWS TO THE BRAIN ON A REGULAR BASIS.”The best news, if there can be anything resembling good news in this story, is that Fainaru-Wada and Fainaru understand the real issue. As dangerous as concussions are, an equal danger comes from the relatively repetitive hits that players regularly sustain throughout their career. Those are what's going to force the NFL into real change. All the emphasis is on concussions—witness the subtitles of both documentary and book—while the real danger goes largely unremarked.
So concluded the National Football League in a December 2005 scientific paper on concussions in America’s most popular sport. That judgment, implausible even to a casual fan, also contradicted the opinion of a growing cadre of neuroscientists who worked in vain to convince the NFL that it was facing a deadly new scourge: A chronic brain disease that was driving an alarming number of players -- including some of the all-time greats -- to madness.
League of Denial reveals how the NFL, over a period of nearly two decades, sought to cover up and deny mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage.
Comprehensively, and for the first time, award-winning ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru tell the story of a public health crisis that emerged from the playing fields of our 21st century pastime. Everyone knew that football is violent and dangerous. But what the players who built the NFL into a $10 billion industry didn’t know – and what the league sought to shield from them – is that no amount of padding could protect the human brain from the force generated by modern football; that the very essence of the game could be exposing these players to brain damage.
In a fast-paced narrative that moves between the NFL trenches, America’s research labs and the boardrooms where the NFL went to war against science, League of Denial examines how the league used its power and resources to attack independent scientists and elevate its own flawed research -- a campaign with echoes of Big Tobacco’s fight to deny the connection between smoking and lung cancer. It chronicles the tragic fates of players like Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, who was so disturbed at the time of his death he fantasized about shooting NFL executives; and former Chargers great Junior Seau, whose diseased brain became the target of an unseemly scientific battle between researchers and the NFL. Based on exclusive interviews, previously undisclosed documents and private emails, this is the story of what the NFL knew and when it knew it – questions at the heart of crisis that threatens football, from the highest levels all the way down to Pop Warner.
"Reflecting by the pace of the game, these concept uniforms are punctuated by accents of vibrant orange and volt."Silly under the best of circumstances, the assertion borders on the farcical when applied to the overblown touch-football game that is the Pro Bowl.
Today's take: St. Norbert art prof lays claim to famed Packers 'G'
by Paul Srubas
Local artist and art teacher John Gordon was killing time in a bookstore a few years ago when he found himself idling through a book on the history of the Green Bay Packers.
John Gordon |
He came upon an old photograph of the team’s Lombardi-era equipment manager, Gerald “Dad” Braisher, tinkering with a helmet. The photo caption explained how Braisher was responsible for creating the famed Packers “G” logo emblazoned on the sides of the team’s helmets since 1961.>
“I looked at it, and I said, ‘I designed that,’” the 73-year-old Gordon told me last week.
The Packers, as you may have heard, have developed some mystique in their 90-some year history. They’re kind of like a boulder rolling down a mountainside, picking up debris and snow and getting bigger and bigger along the way, until pretty soon you have a million people attending one little Ice Bowl.
But in this case, even though Gordon can’t prove it, his claim smacks of legitimacy.
The Packers G, along with maybe the Nike swoosh, might be among the most recognized logos in sports history, but it’s not like Gordon is standing in front of the Mona Lisa and saying, “You know, a lot of people think Leonardo did this, but in fact …”
In the end, it’s just a squashed G inside an oval. Gordon, an adjunct professor of art at St. Norbert College and a man who counts Cezanne and Velazquez as major artistic influences, is a serious enough painter that an NFL logo would hardly serve as a needed feather in his helmet.
“My 15 minutes, wasted on an oval,” Gordon says with a smile.
But still, the record needs to be set straight.
As an art student at St. Norbert in the early 1960s, Gordon worked part time for Braisher. It wasn’t his artistic aspirations that got him the job; he spent a lot of his time rolling up jock straps, T-shirts and towels and putting them in the players’ lockers each day. Ars gratia artis.
But as a sideline, Gordon also painted portraits of the players and their families and even did a nice one of Braisher himself, which can be seen in a photograph now in the Neville Museum’s collection.
Braisher came to him one morning and assigned an artistic task: Draw a team logo, to go on the sides of the helmets.
Gordon doesn’t know if it was Braisher’s idea, or if it came directly from on high. He suspects the latter, because “Lombardi was a micro-manager,” Gordon says.
In those days, helmets — in college and the pros — didn’t have logos.
“It was remarkable that the idea itself came to be,” Gordon says.
Brimming with youthful enthusiasm, Gordon instantly wanted to embark on a creative brainstorming session, but Braisher cut him off at the knees: The logo shalt be a football shape, with a football-shaped G inside.
“I said, ‘C’mon, Dad, that’s boring,’” Gordon recalls.
No dice. Football shape. Football-shaped G inside. End of discussion.
Gordon set to it. He agonized. He worried about having the great and powerful Lombardi scrutinize his work. It’s also a lot harder than you think to free-hand draw a nice little tapered football-shaped G inside the matching taper of a football.
The next morning, he turned in his work.
Touchdown. Braisher and Lombardi gave it their blessing.
Gordon also remembers getting the finished silk-screen decals back from the printer, and working with Braisher to stick them on the helmets.It's commonly reported that the University of Georgia first modified the logo to make it rounder, but I've never seen anything to support it. I'd like to hear more from him.
After that, Gordon put the whole episode out of his mind. It was no big deal, just another task that Braisher had assigned him. It wasn’t until 50 years later, that Gordon saw the photograph in the Packers history book attributing the design to Braisher that it dawned on him: “I designed that.”
Gordon has contacted historians at the Packers Hall of Fame to tell his story, and while no one has dismissed it out of hand, the Packers’ official web site continues to credit Braisher with creating the original design.
Elsewhere, some are beginning to acknowledge that Gordon at least helped.
Wikipedia admittedly isn’t the last word on the topic but relates the story as Gordon tells it: “Lombardi asked Packers equipment manager Gerald ‘Dad’ Braisher to design a logo for the team's helmets. Braisher then had his assistant, St. Norbert College art student John Gordon, come up with potential designs. After Braisher and Gordon were satisfied with the design, a football-shaped letter ‘G’, they presented it to Lombardi who then approved it.”
Epilogue: The logos you’ll see on the helmets during the game today are not as Gordon says he designed them. His was a simple line drawing of the letter G enclosed in a line drawing of a football. The colors were added later, at the printers.
Also, the design morphed over the years. Gordon remembers his original as being pointier on the ends, an actual football shape, but the logo grew into more of a straightforward oval. He thinks that happened in 1964, when the Georgia Bulldogs asked for and received Lombardi’s permission to use the same logo on their helmets. The Bulldogs’ ended up with a rounder shaped logo, and the Packers soon moved in that direction, too.
“I don’t like this,” Gordon says of the newer design. “It lacks the symbolism of the football shape.”
Other times, not so subtle.
The Packers have one more home game in October, and unfortunately it's the throwback game against the Browns. I hope the team doesn't double-up the promotions; the only other October throwback game was in 2011, in which the team eschewed the pink accessories.
