I don’t know if he meant it this way, but early in Chapter 10, David Maraniss wrote this of the 1956 New York Giants: “In the evolution of many great teams, there comes a tipping point when success suddenly seems expected.”

That’s an accurate description of that Giants team, but it’s also a fair way to characterize Lombardi himself. Sooner or later, it seemed inevitable that momentum would take over in Lombardi’s career, and he’d ride it to success no matter where he ended up.

It just so happened that the first big stop was New York, and his presence there seems to have sparked a key understanding in Lombardi’s coaching journey: at some point, you have to just trust your players to execute. In a fit of insight, Lombardi realized that his soon-to-be legendary power sweep depended in large part on players making the right choices: “That was the first time that I realized that in the pro league it is to your advantage to run to daylight and not a specific hole. And that’s the way I began coaching it.”

I think Lombardi has something of a reputation as a coach who wanted robots on the field, but the opposite is actually true. He wanted players who could think for themselves within the structure he set up. The power sweep is the ultimate example. That single play has dozens of moving parts, and its success depends on players making the right call at the right time to make it go.

It’s also worth pointing out that the NFL itself seemed to be at a tipping point, and television was the perfect accelerant to increase national attention on this growing sport. This chapter gives us a lot of opportunities to see what amounts to modern football broadcasts in video form. The

1956 NFL Championship is available essentially in full on YouTube. If you look closely at 25:42, you can see Giants’ quarterback Charlie Conerly wearing the golf gloves Maraniss described.

YouTube also gives us a look at Pat Summerall’s epic kick in the snow to beat the Browns in 1958, and I can’t help but wonder how he’d have called his own kick had he had the chance.

I want to credit Maraniss, too, for accurately describing the incredible trick play the Giants pulled to beat the Browns in their rematch. Maraniss wrote it this way: “Conerly took the ball and handed off to Webster, who handed it back to Gifford, who camera round the end on a double reverse and soon lateraled to the trailing Conerly, who hobbled in untouched from the eight.” And here’s how it looked. Incredible play design, if you ask me.

The NFL tipping into the TV era also gives us the chance to review controversial calls — and the tiny little details that may have affected them. Could the decisive measurement that ruled Frank Gifford short late in the 1958 Championship have played out differently if Gino Marchetti didn’t get hurt? The video isn’t really good enough to tell one way or another, so pull it up for yourself here. Did Gifford get it?

Most importantly of all, though, is the opportunity that all this success provided for Lombardi. By the end of the 1958 season, all the pieces were in place for Lombardi to take on his biggest job yet. 

Interesting Notes

• We’ve talked a lot about near misses throughout Lombardi’s life, and in this chapter, we get to see a similar story for Sam Huff and Don Chandler, both of whom were ready to give up on football before Lombardi intervened. There’s an entire alternate universe of possibilities where Lombardi doesn’t chase them down, and that version of the NFL is a lot less interesting.

• Maraniss notes that a Clifton model television retailed for around $600 in 1956 (and probably looked something like this, though that’s a 1947 model). It’s funny to think of the caliber of TV you could get for $600 today, much less for the inflation-adjusted figure of more than $6,600 that the $600 Clifton set cost in the 1950s.

• I didn’t know that famous football writer Tex Maule’s real name was Hamilton Prieleaux Bee Maule. I’d have gone by Tex, too. Heck, I’d have gone by just about anything else.

• Lombardi seemed to understand something even modern coaches struggle with: the game’s not over until it’s over. Killing the clock is one thing, but trying to kill it just to kill it can get you burned, as he learned in a 17-17 tie in the 1956 season that should have been a win for the Giants.

• I find it interesting that Lombardi, in Maraniss’ estimation, was “seeking absolution his decision to dedicate his life to a game rather than to the priesthood, law or business.” I have that same struggle sometimes. Is all the work I’ve put in covering the Packers making the world a better place? Or is it just a pleasant distraction?

• Not to belabor a point, but this chapter provides quite a bit more fodder for discussion about Lombardi’s shortcomings as a father. The world would have certainly been different if Lombardi hadn’t focused on coaching football and devoted the same attention to being a father, but I wonder if it actually wouldn’t have been better. It sure seems like it would have to two little kids who didn’t see very much of their dad while they were growing up.

Packers Connections

• The NFL’s network of buddy hires was alive and well even at this point in NFL history, and the connection forged between Lombardi and Don Chandler paid off for both later in their respective careers.

• Billy Howton, the Packers’ great pass catcher, garners a mention in this chapter for his involvement with the budding NFL players’ union, which would ultimately be one of the reasons he left the Packers when Lombardi arrived.