He was the starting middle linebacker and defensive signal-caller for the Packers in six NFL Championship Games and two Super Bowls. Green Bay went 7-1 in those games, the only loss coming in the very first title game against the Philadelphia Eagles in 1960. The opposition scored a paltry 13 points a game, on average, in those games. And in those eight games collectively Nitschke was the leading Packer tackler. Only once during those eight games was the MVP a defensive player—Nitschke, in the 16-7 whipping of the Giants in the 1962 championship game—and afterward Vince Lombardi said to his team. "Today you were the greatest team in the history of the National Football League. And I mean it." His teammates voted him the Most Valuable Packer in the championship year of 1967. And when the NFL's 50th anniversary team was named in 1972, Nitschke was one of the three linebackers selected.
Nitschke, though, had lots of maturing to do when he entered the league in 1958 as a third-round fullback-linebacker prospect from Illinois. By the time he was in high school both his parents had died, and he began to go through life seething with anger at the hand he had been dealt. Because Nitschke was in and out of trouble at Illinois, the Packers took a chance when they picked him so high in the draft. But Lombardi thought that if he could just harness that boundless aggression and anger, he would have himself a heck of a player. It wasn't easy. In 1959, frustrated at being on Lombardi's bench, he would shout in the locker room, "Just call me the judge. Call me the judge. 'Cause I'm always on the bench."
A full-time starter beginning in 1961. Nitschke began controlling games by sheer force of will, and the anger he had inside him was coming out at the opposition now. But Lombardi still treated him like a dog on a leash. According to Vince: A Personal Biography of Vince Lombardi, Lombardi would often scream on the practice field at the chattering, hyperactive Nitschke, "Hey, Nitschke! Shaddup!"
Later Nitschke said, "He helped me to turn around as a person. He inspired my by his determination in what he did."
And he always hated being called an animal, although that's how people treat guys like Nitschke and Butkus and Lambert, the great linebackers of our generation. "Linebackers, by the nature of their position, that's where you want to be," Nitschke said. "But you're not an animal. That's a sportscaster tag, and they say a lot of the wrong things."
Still, you've got to figure Lombardi got away with something pretty risky after the Packers beat the Cardinals 31-23 in 1967. So taken with the moment was Lombardi, and so taken with the brute-force play of Nitschke that day, that Lombardi went to Nitschke in the locker room and kissed him. Smack on the cheek. There was never much of that soft stuff around Ray Nitschke.
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