Packers Legend Dave Robinson on Vince Lombardi, Dad Braisher, and Playing in Green Bay

Pro Football Hall of Famer and Green Bay Packers great Dave Robinson recently took a few minutes of his time to share some thoughts and memories of his time with the Packers. You can listen to the full conversation above. Below is a transcript of that conversation, edited lightly for clarity.

What was it like to play football in Green Bay?

Jon Meerdink: So you got to Green Bay in 1963 after you played at Penn State. At the time, the Packers had already run a couple championships. What was it like to come into that culture with the team and with the city?

Dave Robinson: Well, I played offensive and defensive end in college, and was named All-American, and all that. When I came to Green Bay, they wanted to make me a linebacker. And, one of the things I had done was at Penn State is that Dan Currie, the left linebacker [for the Packers], he had written an article in Sports Illustrated about linebacker keys. [Note: the passage in question is a subsection of this larger 1961 article about the Green Bay Packers’ defense.] And I had taken that article, and I laminated it, and I used to read it before almost every game to get myself together. 

So I'm reading the linebacker playbook and all that, and I was all set to play linebacker now. I ain't never played it before, even though the way we played defensive end was very, very similar to the way the pros played their linebackers at that time. And I walk in and see the guy who wrote the article I read every day in college. I said, "There's no way I can beat him out." 

And then, Ray Nitschke, Nitschke had a big rep even then. He had been MVP of the 1962 Championship Game, Nitschke had. And the other linebacker was the oldest and smartest of them all, Bill Forester. So, Bill Forester came in and told me, he said, "I got a son that's sick in Texas and I'm going to retire, and go back to Texas. But Vince won't let me retire." So he said, "I'm going to teach you everything there is to know about linebacker," he says, "You're my ticket out of here." And that's how I learned to play linebacker. 

Every night, if you were caught outside of your room after 11 o'clock curfew, it's an automatic $500 fine, which is not that big today, but it was in those days. In the hall where we stayed [in training camp], the veterans were on the first floor and all the rookies had to sleep on the second floor. So, after 11 o'clock, I'd sneak down the back steps and go into Bill's room, and he would go over the defense that we were going over in practice. See, there's a difference between just the Xs and Os, and where to go, and where not to go. But why do you do this and why do you do that, and what can you expect from this guy, and what can you expect for that guy, and what do you think they're going to do you? There's a lot more to linebacker than just taking up, getting a playbook, and playing the play. And that's the things he taught me. And, the year Bill retired, I got his spot.

Jon Meerdink: So, you come in and you learn from Bill, but you still have a little bit of a learning curve there. When did you realize you could get it done in the NFL?

Dave Robinson: Well, Thanksgiving Day, Ray Nitschke, the fullback was coming down the line and Ray Nitschke went to hit him with his arm, and he did, and hit the guy's helmet, and broke his arm. That was a bad break for Ray, but a good break for me, because I got to start then. And, when you’re on the sidelines and come in just to sub, you really can't learn, you got to play to learn. You’ve got to really play to get your bearings. And, so I played, from Thanksgiving Day on, I played the rest of the year. 

We lost that year so we went to Runner-Up Bowl and I got a chance to play against the Cleveland Browns, and the famous Jimmy Brown. And I came out of that game, that's when I knew I had a job in the league. I met Jim Brown one time, one on one. And, he hit me and I hit him, and he went down, and he went for no gain. And I said, "Oh my God," I said, "I can tackle Jim Brown. Somebody's going to give me a job." That was about it. See, that's the kind of guy Jim Brown was. He was the greatest, yeah.

[Note: no footage of this game seems to exist online, but a wire photo from the contest does show Dave lending a hand in bottling up Brown during a goalline plunge.]

Jon Meerdink: Well, I wanted to ask you about that. Who would you say is the best player you played against? Was it Brown or was it somebody else?

Dave Robinson: Well, running backs, Jim Brown is probably one of the harder running backs. Gale Sayers and Hugh McElhenny, they had the movements, they'd shake to get you off. O.J. Simpson was the fastest I ever played against. And then, the best tight end I played against was Ron Kramer who was with us and then went to Detroit. He was by far the best tight end I played against. Second would be John Mackey and something like that, yeah. And then, best offensive lineman, Big Jim Parker, head and shoulders above anybody else. You can't say who's the best you played against, you got to say what position. The best quarterback I played against? I thought Bart Starr was the greatest quarterback I saw, but Johnny Unitas, was the greatest I played against. Every position has got somebody. As great as John Mackey was as a tight end, he couldn't play quarterback. As great as John Unitas was, he couldn't play running back. You got to ask me by position, not who the greatest guys were.

And then, a guy I didn't play, just I saw play twice a year was Dick “Night Train” Lane. Only one that came close to Night Train Lane in the league when I was there was Herb Adderly. Herb and Night Train Lane played very similar. In fact, Herb studied Night Train and tried to emulate him.

What made the Vince Lombardi-era Packers so good?

Jon Meerdink: You had the incredible run of three straight titles from '65 through '67. It's one thing to win a championship, but I think the impressive part there is the sustained success. How did you maintain focus as a team through that run? What was it like internally?

Dave Robinson: Vince Lombardi, that's what I can say. He was the key to all of our success and everything. He never let us get a big head. He stayed on us and he was just, I just can't say enough about the man. He was the ultimate coach. He knew what was he doing and he knew how to keep us in line. But that was the key. 

But the other thing, on the other side of the coin, when you go out and have a great day, and maybe pull off an upset, the team comes back and they're high as a Georgia Pine, and they think now they've arrived, they've got it together. The coaches think the team is coming together. You go home to your wife or girlfriend and they think you had a great day. And, you walk down the street and then you walk into a restaurant or a bar, or even a grocery store, and somebody pats you on the back, and what a great game you had, and whatnot, and everything else, and the papers say it and everything, you tend to think that you got it made now and you can take it easy. Well, Vince Lombardi knew that when a guy gets too high, you got to bring him down, and get him back down to normal if he's going to play ball for you the next week. And that's what he did. 

So I think one of my best games I had, we went to play the Giants in 1967 in Yankee Stadium. At that time, the New York Giants were the number one offensive team in the league and we were the number one defensive team in the league. And, this was called the Game of the Week. And I had two interceptions, a sack, and a partially blocked punt, and I got AP Defensive Player of the Week. We were down at halftime, we came back in the second half, and crushed them. 

But, the very first play of the game, they had a play that they had designed just for me. And they took advantage of some of the things I did, they took advantage of the way I played certain plays. And they made it about seven, eight yards, but as soon as they made it, I knew what was going on.

So, I went to the huddle as you always did and I talked to Lee Roy Caffey, the other linebacker, and I told him what happened, what they had done. And, we had decided how we were going to handle it. And so, everything was fine and they didn't run anymore the rest of the day. Well [after that game], I told my wife, I said, "Honey, I don't want to go practice." She said, "Why?" I said, "Vince is going to chew me out." She said, "You had a great game." I said, "I know that," she says, "He's not going to chew you out, you had a great game." I said, "No, you don't understand. It's because I had a great game, that's why." And she didn't know, of course, she couldn't understand what was going on.

But sure enough, man, I went in and the first thing he did was chew me out, and told the defensive coordinator, Phil Bengston, "I want you to run that play that New York ran against Dave 1,000 times this week because he's going to see it this week." And then, sure enough, I don't know who we played the next week, but the first play of the game, they ran the same play at me again the first play of the game. And of course, I was ready for it, so everything went smooth. And then, I'm going to say four or five weeks later, we're playing another team, and Vince came to me in the locker room and told me, "Dave," he says, "You remember that play the Giants ran on us?" "Yeah, I know it, Coach." He said, "I'm going to have them run it on you 1,000 times this week," he said, "Because you're going to see it again." And, sure enough, first, second play of the game, there it came and I was ready for them, and stopped it, and I never saw it anymore. They didn't run it anymore. 

You see what happens, when you play a game, the team you're playing, you have to send them your last two games [of game tape]. It used to be on film, now it's on video tape. But they have your last two games. So what Vince had done, he realized that the team we were going to face after the Giants had that the film. So he saw, and knew they saw as well, how well [the Giants] ran against us, and he just decided that they were going to run it. And sure enough, they brought at us, we stopped it, and I never saw it again. And that's the thing Vince did. Vince was that type of guy and so when he came and told you something, like he told me they were going to do something and I want you to do this next week, you just respect it. You knew Vince knew what he was talking about.

Vince Lombardi was a guy who had been part of the Seven Blocks of Granite. He played right guard, as small as he was. And you knew when he told you to do something, you knew that when he played he had done the same thing. So, I had a great deal of respect [for him], but I had no respect for some of these coaches coming in and trying to tell me to do things that are impossible. They can't do it themselves and they try to make me think it's a thing I should do. And, so Vince Lombardi, I think he was the key to everything. He was the key to our success, that was it. I don't think we would've been as successful had we not had Vince Lombardi. We had a bunch of guys, we probably would've had some success, but not as much as we got with Vince Lombardi.

Was Robinson really graded negatively for a key play during the 1966 NFL Championship?

Jon Meerdink: You mentioned Coach Lombardi chewing you out there and I want to see if we can confirm something for the historical record, because there's a notable play where he supposedly chewed you out afterward. It happened right at the end of the 1966 NFL Championship, because you affected Don Meredith's throw on the last play.

Dave Robinson: Right.

Jon Meerdink: And, Lombardi supposedly criticized you for being out of position. Is that true?

Dave Robinson: Yes and no. See, here's the thing. Everybody knows what happened on fourth down when I got him. But, it goes back to first down. They had first and goal on our one-yard line. And the quarterback rolled out, to my side by the way, and then somebody else had the force. And the force, the way you play the force, you come up in front of the quarterback and a there’s a guard there blocking, and the quarterback has to decide to run or pass. But the run, he's going to follow the guard in for it. But if you're there, he's going to pull up and throw the pass. Well, the other guy fronted the guard like he's supposed to, he pulled up, he threw the pass, and hit the tight end right in the chest, and he dropped it. Just dropped the ball.

Then, three plays later, now it's fourth and two. They line up, and Bob Hayes came in tight. When the weak side end comes tight, that's one of our keys that they're going to run on your side and the tight end's going to block it. But, Bob Hayes couldn't block me, so I wasn't worried about that. But anyway, when the play started, I tied up Bob Hayes. So, when the guard pulled, I had played guard in college so I knew what the guard's keys are, he comes down the line, and if somebody shows, he takes him. Nobody shows, he keeps running and leads the quarterback into the end zone.

Well, I held behind Bob Hayes and the guard passed us up. When he passed us up, I sheared Bob Hayes and went between the guard and Don Meredith. And, I wrapped up Don Meredith, and on his way down, he flipped the ball, just flipped it to try and just get rid of it. And, that was it. So, like I told a lot of people I talk to, I said I knew that if I did things the way it's designed, they know how we play that play. They probably got films all over the place. “Dave's going to come up and play it, and front the guard. Then you, Don, pull up, either pass or run a pass. If you front it, pass it.” Because now think, if you always do what you've always done, then you're always going to get what you always got. 

So I said “If I do it that way I know he's going to throw the ball and what are the chances of the tight end dropping two balls? They're not very good.” So, with that little tidbit under my belt, I made the play. 

And after the play, Vince came up to me in the locker room and he says, "What a play, but that's not the way it was drawn up. That means you get a minus two," and just laughed, and walked away. So I wasn't sure if he was kidding or for real, but that was it. 

Now, we get a grade on every play. Every play you get between a plus two and a minus two. Plus two is the best you can play it and that's like an interception or something, and a minus two is the worst, you made a mistake. And, he said I was going to get a minus two on that play. I don't know because it was the last game of the season and we went to the Super Bowl [after that], and I never saw my grade for that game. But, I may have gotten a minus two. But I didn't care because we won game and we're going to the Super Bowl. 

And it was the first Super Bowl, to me, the most important one. Think of what would've happened if we had lost that game [the 1966 NFL Championship]. Then, [Tom] Landry was going to go in the Super Bowl. They might've beaten Kansas City. In fact, I think he probably would have. They beat Kansas City, and that beautiful trophy they got now would be the Tom Landry trophy and not the Vince Lombardi trophy.

So, then another thing that's interesting about that play too. When I had ahold of Don and Don was trying to get rid of the ball, he just kind of threw the ball. He was falling and he just threw the ball to get rid of it, which was interesting because he'd have been better served to have spiked the ball or something. Because, when he threw the ball, we intercepted it in the end zone, brought it out to the 20, and we took a knee. If they had done something and we had gotten the ball on our own one-yard line or two-yard line, you can't take a knee, because you take a knee, you lose a yard. So if he had taken the knee, he would've been a safety, we would have to kick the ball to Dallas. Well, I ain't going to think about what would've happened then.

So, the fact that he threw the ball, that was the best thing that could've happened to us. So, hey, football's a funny game. You got to play all the angles all the time.

Should Packers’ equipment manager Dad Braisher be in the Packers Hall of Fame?

Jon Meerdink: We got connected, you and I, about some work you and Royce Boyles are doing on behalf of Dad Braisher, the team equipment manager during your time with the Packers. He's noteworthy for essentially creating the logo or being a key part of creating the logo. What's the story there?

Dave Robinson: Okay. I'll give you the story I've always heard. [The Packers] came in, they went to the championship in 1960, Vince's second year, and they lost to the Philadelphia Eagles. And, their helmets looked just like the Cleveland Brown's helmets with nothing on them, just a yellow helmet, right? And Vince had been in New York, and they had that NY on the helmet. And he felt that that was good luck to have the NY and New York on it. So, he had decided he was going to put GB on our helmets and he had a guy design it, and showed it to the equipment manager, Dad Braisher. And Dad said, "That's ugly."

And Vince said, "Well you think it's ugly, show me something better." So, he said, "Okay," and he took it. As the story goes, he went back to his hotel room, because he lived in a hotel — that's another story in and itself —  and he's been up all night designing this, taking this G and elongating it into a football shape, and calling it the Green Bay G. And the next day, Vince said, "I don't like it," and he said, and Dad said, "It's great." And Vince said, "Well, I'll tell you what. We'll let the assistant coaches vote on it." And the assistant coaches looked at it, and they all liked it too. And so, Vince said, "Okay, we'll give it a try for one year and see what happens."

Well, they won the championship and that's what happened, and that was it. And Vince was very superstitious. So if you ever get pictures of Vince Lombardi when he has a baseball cap on, you look on the hood of the baseball cap and you'll see what that GB looks like. That's the only one he wore. GB on a baseball cap. He didn't wear one with just the plain G. And so, he stuck with, Vince always liked that GB. But, that was Lombardi. And who was going to argue with Vince Lombardi? I wasn't.

Jon Meerdink: Dad is not in the Hall of Fame. Do you think he deserves to be in or the Packers Hall of Fame?

Dave Robinson: Sure, I do. I don't know if it's true or not, but I think that people like Dad have fallen through the cracks. People, a guy today who was an equipment man or a manager, or something, he'd get a lot more publicity than Dad got. Consequently, he could get in the Hall of Fame in the future where Dad didn't make it. And so, that bothers me a lot. I'd like to see Dad in the Hall of Fame.

Jon Meerdink: He's obviously not a coach or a player, but an equipment manager might not be somebody that people think of first and foremost as someone who deserves to go to the Hall of Fame. And you've mentioned a couple of times here the integral part that he was behind the scenes. What's so important about a guy like that to a team like the Packers? Like when he was interacting with you guys on a daily basis, what made him such an important part of the team?

Dave Robinson: Well, I'll tell you this. He did everything. I was going to say he did the small things, but they weren't small things. They were little things you would never think about. Like Jerry Kramer once had used some tape, and he taped his ankles with it. And, when he got done taping his ankle, somebody picked his tape up and used it. And he broke his leg that day. And Dad made sure tha he always had a fresh roll of tape every day when he went out, and no one ever used his tape. I mean, the little things like that. They're not big things, but they're little things. But, you don't know how important that was to Jerry.

He also, when we went on the road, he knew just what kind of razors and shaving cream everybody used. And, when we went on the road, in the shower room, our razor blades would be the same brand, lather would be the same, instant lather and everything, we had at home. He did as much as he could to make the road trip like a home trip. 

When you go to a locker room, the other team has their people in the locker room. Their locker room's got this man when you come in there. For the home team, the people who man that locker room are usually the sons of the coaches or the secretaries, or somebody.

Anyway, the people who do that, they're avid fans. Let's say you're playing the Chicago Bears. They're Bears fans. And, if they would have their way, they would just give you a hard time because they want the Bears to beat you. But Dad Braisher started a system where he left money for the equipment guys, the locker boys. And, if everything was good, there were no complaints, I don't know how much it was, if it was $10, $100, or $1,000 dollars, I don't know what it was. But, he left the money there for them. 

However, if perchance we had trouble, we didn't have the same lockers, or something was wrong, then he got nothing. Because you go to a lot of places and the locker boys are so upset, man, they want to see you get beat. They want the home team to beat you. And, Dad set that system up and I think Vinny paid for it. But, it was just little things like that. 

So, when we went to the locker room, you couldn't tell that it wasn’t our locker room. You used to think it was just the same as if we were just at home, in home field. No problem. And that's the things Dad did, little things like that. And to me, that was a big thing, because I felt comfortable in the locker room. Everybody has little idiosyncrasies and something they do different, and Dad took care of them.