When Pride Still Mattered Chapter 26 - The Empty Room
One of the defining features of being a Green Bay Packers fan is watching legends leave. Three times in the 21st century alone the Packers have shown future Hall of Fame players the door, and historically that looks a lot more like the rule than the exception. It’s true that players are always going to change teams, but for a franchise as decorated as the Green Bay Packers, that has often meant watching some of the game’s greatest players finish out their playing days somewhere other than Green Bay.
Coaches aren’t exempt from this either. The Packers’ last two Super Bowl-winning coaches finished their careers on opposing sidelines (wave to Mike McCarthy on Sunday if you get the chance), and so maybe we shouldn’t be terribly shocked that Vince Lombardi falls into this category, too.
On balance, Lombardi’s departure from Green Bay feels inevitable. Maraniss lays out a good case for “Lombardi as striver,” the never-satisfied workaholic who always felt the need to prove himself to…someone. That he left the Packers is less an aberration in his career than it is in keeping with everything he’d done to that point. Other than his underwhelming and frustrating stint at Fordham, Lombardi succeeded everywhere he went, then left. He succeeded at West Point, then left. He succeeded with the Giants, then left. He succeeded with the Packers, then left. When you’re chasing perfection but only getting excellence, I guess that’s just what you do.
Maybe that’s just the benefit of hindsight, but it couldn’t have been that much of a mystery to Lombardi’s contemporaries. And yet, Maraniss repeatedly uses language that suggests Lombardi’s departure was a huge shock to almost everyone in Green Bay — not just that he’d leave, but that he’d even want to.
It’s interesting, then, how both sides approached this. Lombardi tries to portray his departure as something altruistic, done for almost mystical reasons. In his resignation letter, he writes of the need for a challenge and how Washington will provide that challenge. That may have been partially true (I’m perhaps more generous to Lombardi than Maraniss is), but he could have just said “Washington made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, financially” and most people would probably understand, perhaps grudgingly. I think that’s something people understand! Most people given the chance to make more money or less money will choose more money.
From the Packers’ side, you get the sense of some very loud behind-the-scenes feelings of betrayal. Didn’t he choose to stop coaching? Didn’t we give him what he wants? Isn’t he under contract? All of that is true, but it’s hard to not encourage those same people to look at his career history and his family. Can you really expect that man to just call it quits and sit on his hands for the rest of his life? Could you really ask that a man who asked his wife to sacrifice so much for their family and career to not throw her a bone with a move to cosmopolitan Washington, D.C. from Green Bay? Come on, be realistic.
That’s why it’s so cool to me that even armed with a contract that could have extracted heavy compensation for Lombardi (on top of very justified and perhaps even righteous indignation), Dominic Olejniczak chose to…do nothing. He wished Lombardi well, let him walk, and turned the page for the franchise. He looked to the future rather than trying to extract a heavy price for the past. The Lombardi era was over and he knew it, so best to let it end.
Interesting notes
In 2023 terms, it’s wild that Washington would wait until after the draft to bring Lombardi aboard. You have this unique football genius and you’re just going to let some other guy handle a big part of your player acquisition?
Great journalists have a knack for being at the right place at the right time, and look: here’s W.C. Heinz just happening to run into Vince Lombardi right as he’s making one of the most important decisions of his career.
I’m touched by Lombardi’s great tribute to the good son, Bart Starr. After seeing Paul Hornung’s career dwindle into retirement and all but sending Jim Taylor out the door, Starr was the last of Lombardi’s backfield remaining, and his last gift to Lombardi was all the information he’d compiled over the years as Lombardi’s right-hand man on the field.