The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Packers legend Kramer's long wait is finally over
Jerry Kramer has basked in the attention on his key block on the winning play in the Ice Bowl for more than half a century.
He sure w as u neasy, though, when Vince Lombardi told Bart Starr to run “31 Wedge” from a yard out, the Green Bay Packers’ dynasty dangling by a thread with 16 seconds remaining on that 1967 New Year’s Eve afternoon so frozen in time.
It was a play Kramer him- self had suggested, almost sheepishly, to Lombardi after finding a flaw in Dallas’ short-yardage defense during film study 72 hours earlier.
He noticed that while Bob Lilly was so close to the ground “you couldn’t move him with a D-9 CAT” bulldozer, fellow Cowboys defensive tackle Jethro Pugh stood too high in his stance, making him vulnerable.
“Coach,” Kramer blurted out, “we can wedge Pugh if we have to.”
Come again?
“We can wedge Pugh if we have to.”
“Run that back,” barked Lombardi.
“So, we run the film back about four different times and he watched Pugh and he said: ‘That’s right. Put in a wedge on Pugh,’” Kramer recalled recently as he prepared for his long-awaited Pro Football Hall of Fame induction Saturday.
Like the star pupil earn- ing brownie points with his teacher, Kramerwasproud of his suggestion. But when the Packers were trailing 17-14 with 16 seconds and no timeouts left, he found himself wishing he’d kept his mouth shut.
Starr called his last tim- eout after halfback Donnie Anderson’s second straight slip, trotted over to the side- line and suggested to Lombardi that he run a sneak because of the poor traction.
“Then run it and let’s get the hell out of here,” Lombardi replied.
Starr called out the play in the huddle.
“31 Wedge.” Kramer’s heart sank. It’s one thing to suggest a play. It’s another for it to get called in a do-or-die situation with an NFL championship on the line.
“You really wish they’d call something else maybe,” Kramer recalled. “Maybe we’d rather run a sweep. Or maybe we ought to run over there.”
Lilly kicked the ice away from the goal line. Pugh pondered calling a timeout to have someone from the Cowboys sideline bring out a shovel.
“The other guys were slip- ping and sliding because it was icy,” Kramer recalled. Not him.
“There was an area almost like a golf divot where my left foot went, it was about an inch deep, three-quarters of an inch deep,” Kramer said. “And my left foot just snuggled down into that divot and gave me like a starting block.”
Pugh thought Kramer false-started.
Years later, Kramer would admit he moved a split-second before Ken Bowman’s snap, taking some of the heat off Pugh, who died in 2015, and was long blamed by Cowboys fans for the loss in the Ice Bowl.
Kramer hit Pugh first and Bowman spun him around as Starr knifed into the end zone behind them, followed by fullback Chuck Mercein holding his hands high, not to signal touchdown but to show the officials he hadn’t aided his quarterback into the end zone.
CBS had a monitor in the Packers’ locker room afterward and showed Kramer’s block in slow motion, sparking whooping and hollering from his teammates and praise from his coach.
“That’s a fine block,” Lombardi said.
Kramer played another season and in 1969 was the only guard voted to the NFL’s 50th Anniversary Team, someth in g he expect ed would be a prelude to a hasty call from the Hall of Fame.
That invitation finally came this year. At 82, he finally has pro football’s highest honor.