Cliff Christl is adamant that Verne Lewellen should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The Green Bay Packers’ official historian, and author of The Greatest Story in Sports and other books, points out that not only was Lewellen, who played halfback, a star on Curly Lambeau’s first three-peat Championship teams, based on subsequent research, he scored the most touchdowns of his era and amassed the second-most points.

In addition, he was one of the best punters of the time, in an age when punting was a far more important part of the game. Unfortunately, at the time he played, the NFL didn’t keep stats, which sort of hamstrung Lewellen’s bid for the Hall as time went by.

“He was an unquestioned star from 1926 to 1931,” Christl, sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Green Bay – located, appropriately, in the historic Bellin Building – told me last week. “Go back and read every game story (from his era) – it’s so obvious that Lewellen dominated just about every game he played.”

Christl, who grew up in Green Bay watching the Packers during the Lombardi era,  added that he believes Lewellen was superior even to Packer legend Don Hutson, who is in the Hall of Fame.

“The Hall of Fame is so exaggerated,” he said. “It’s just a shame how little knowledge people have at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and my impression is they don’t care.”

Brett Favre Memories

Christl said he has two early distinctive memories about Brett Favre. The first goes back to training camp in Favre’s first year in Green Bay.

“I was standing on the sidelines and he was spraying a fair amount of balls,” he said.

He then referenced a notoriously inaccurate former Chicago Bears quarterback: “I said, ‘Holy shit, did they trade for another Bobby Douglass?’ You couldn’t turn your head standing on the sidelines or you’d risk getting hit in the head.”

The second distinctive impression of the player who came to be known as “The Ol’ Gunslinger,” the historian recalls, is when Favre threw the game-winning touchdown to Kitrick Taylor to seal the momentous 24-23 comeback win over the Bengals in 1992: “I was close enough to see what kind of a zip there was on the ball, and how close those defenders were to being able to make a play. I watched and said, ‘They’ve found their guy.’”

Super Bowls and Quarterbacks

Christl (pictured above) believes that Favre and Aaron Rodgers are the two greatest Packers of all-time. The old question that is asked often is, with 30 years of Hall of Fame quarterback play in Green Bay, why are there only two Lombardi Trophies to show for it?

“Favre and Rodgers, neither one was surrounded by Hall of Fame talent,” he said.

He reasons that, when you hit on a quarterback, you get good suddenly – and then you spend the forthcoming seasons with low draft picks, making it extremely difficult to stock your team with high-caliber players. 

“Wolf never had a high draft pick to give Favre the kind of supporting cast he needed,” Christl said. “The greatest team (Favre) ever played for was the Vikings.”

As an example of a notable lack of surrounding talent for Favre, Christl recalls attending the 2007 NFC Championship game at a frozen Lambeau Field – it was Favre’s final game as a Packer, and in overtime he threw a horrendous interception to seal the Packers’ playoff exit. The New York Giants won moments later on a field goal, 23-20.

“It was midway through the first quarter or so,” he said. “I could hear [the Giants defense] coming off the field, just screaming at top of (their) lungs, ‘They can’t fucking block us! They can’t fucking block us!’ I don’t blame that loss on Favre’s interception at the end. I blame that they got their butts beat at the line of scrimmage.”

The Losing

Life was not good for the Green Bay Packers in the 1970s and most of the 1980s. 

When Bart Starr was hired as head coach in 1975, Christl, who began covering the team in 1974, said the first public intrasquad scrimmage was nearly unwatchable, with something in the neighborhood of 25 penalties. And as for the John Hadl trade in ’74, he called it “crippling” – not that he believed Starr was a good coach or a good general manager.

“Bart had no experience as a coach,” he said. “He wasn’t a good coach and was a terrible general manager.”

As revered as Starr rightfully is for his playing days, especially in the playoffs, he made some head-scratching decisions as a GM, such as passing on Joe Montana in the 1979 NFL Draft … for three rounds. He also drafted quarterback Rich Campbell in 1981 in the first round – Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott went two picks later.

“He would listen to his assistant coaches rather than the personnel people,” Christl said. “His personnel guy begged him to draft Ronnie Lott.”

Christl also shared the story of a local bar owner who was known for selling game tickets across his bar. Unfortunately, during the 1970s, the tickets were not, shall we say, in huge demand.

Cliff said one day a patron walked into the bar with a handful of tickets he was trying to get rid of, but couldn’t. He asked the bar owner, a man named Boots Baker, what he should do with them.

Baker’s response was, “Do you have a fireplace?”

“Sometimes,” Christl said, “you get better stories from a losing team, especially a bad losing team, than you do from a winner.”