In the era before offensive linemen were allowed to open their hands and extend their arms, for both run and pass blocking, Gale Gillingham was an unusual combination of power and technique. Gillingham died on Thursday at his home in Minnesota. He was 67. A few thoughts:
In the 1967 postseason, Green Bay’s young guard, Gale Gillingham, faced the Rams’ 300-pound, six-time pro bowler, Roger Brown; the Cowboys’ future Hall of Famer, Bob Lilly; and Oakland’s quick and agile all-pro, Tom Keating. Three outstanding defensive tackles, each with a different style. And yet Gillingham, in his first year as the full-time starter, neutralized all of them and more, as the Packers won their third consecutive N.F.L. championship and their second straight Super Bowl. By 1976, his final season, Gillingham was the last remaining Packer of the Lombardi era.
Gillingham played fullback in high school but he made the transition to both offensive and defensive tackle so well at the University of Minnesota that Green Bay selected him in the first round of the 1966 draft (13th over all). He spent his rookie year mostly on special teams, but it was clear that he was so smart and talented that he would soon be taking the job of one of the veteran guards, Jerry Kramer or Fuzzy Thurston.
The next year, when Thurston, who was about two years older than Kramer, hurt his knee in training camp, Gillingham became the starter at left guard. Kramer reflected on the change years later:
Gilly was such a good kid, had such a good attitude that none of us who had been on the offensive line for so long… really resented his arrival. It was just the natural progression of life. Fuzzy was aging, slowing down a bit. Gilly was young and swift and strong. Of course we all envied him his youth and his speed and his vigor, hated him for having all the things we’d lost. Until he showed up, Forrest (Gregg) and I had always been the fastest offensive linemen on the team. Suddenly, we no longer were. (Jerry Kramer, “Distant Replay”, Putnam, 1985)
Over his 10-year career, Gillingham played in 128 regular-season and 5 postseason games, all with the Packers. He moved to right guard when Kramer retired in 1968 and made first-team All-Pro in 1969 and 1970. He was selected for the Pro Bowl 5 times, from 1969 to 1971, and in 1973 and 1974. He was inducted into the Packers’ Hall of Fame in 1982.
Gillingham had the ideal build for a guard: thick, strong and powerful. He started his career at about 255 pounds and ended it closer to 275. He was one of the few players at that time who lifted weights in the off-season.
Gillingham had good balance, was quick and explosive off the ball, and he had exceptional pulling speed in either direction, especially early in his career. He would take off running low and hard, with his arms pumping, looking for someone to hit. His ability to adjust, in a split second, to the movement of a defender, made him an effective downfield blocker.
By the mid-1960s, the Green Bay power sweep, with both guards pulling, was well established as the most famous play in football. Lombardi installed it every year in training camp with the same energy and enthusiasm. The photographs of Kramer and Thurston leading Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung are some of pro football’s iconic images of the decade. Over time, one of the ways that developed to counter the sweep was to have the defensive end take a hard rush upfield to cut off the guards and force the runner back into the pursuit. The Packers would answer with the play that provided the turning point in the divisional playoff against the Rams in 1967: the Long Trap.
Coming into that game, many believed that time had run out on the Packer dynasty. Too old and banged up, they said. Green Bay struggled to go 9-4-1. The Rams finished tied with the Colts for the N.F.L.’s best record, 11-1-2, and had beaten the Packers in Los Angeles two weeks before. Even though the game was played in Milwaukee, the Rams were favored.
Green Bay preferred to run the sweep to the right. This was especially difficult against the Rams because their left defensive end, Deacon Jones, was so quick and fast off the ball. Now, trailing, 7-0, in the second quarter, with the ball on the Ram 46, Bart Starr called for the trap play, right at Jones.
This time, however, Jones took an inside move and was driven out of the hole by Forrest Gregg, Green Bay’s right tackle. Kramer blocked Merlin Olsen to the inside. Gillingham pulled to his right, flat down the line of scrimmage, and executed the trap on the first defender who showed, outside linebacker Jack Pardee. Travis Williams was no more than 10 yards downfield with the ball when Kramer raised his arms over his head, signaling a touchdown. He was right. The Packers went on to win, 28-7. Through the years, many of the players have called that victory one of the proudest moments of their careers.
After Lombardi retired, Green Bay finished with a winning record in only two of Gillingham’s remaining eight seasons, and never won a playoff game. Just before the start of the 1972 season, with the Packers short of defensive linemen because of injuries, Dan Devine moved Gillingham, his best offensive lineman, to defensive tackle. In Week 2, he seriously injured his right knee and missed the rest of the season. The next year he came back at right guard. Frustrated with losing, Gillingham sat out the 1975 season and asked to be traded. When the Packers refused, he came back for one more year, in 1976, and then retired for good.
In the years after his playing career ended, Gillingham’s ex-teammates sensed, although he never openly expressed it, that he was disappointed at not receiving the recognition he believed he deserved. The public might not have known, but the players did. Gregg, who ended his Hall of Fame career in Dallas, said recently that Bob Lilly told him that “Gale Gillingham was the best guard he’d ever played against.” (Forrest Gregg, “Winning in the Trenches: A Lifetime of Football”, Clerisy Press, 2010). Mike Reid of the Bengals said that Gillingham “hit me so hard, I almost couldn’t fall.” (Kramer) “When you played football and you’re concentrating and you get hit,” said Eagles middle linebacker Bill Bergey, “it never hurts. When Gillingham hit me, it hurt.” (Kramer) As Jerry Kramer wrote: “I always used to measure guys, look in their eyes, see if they were there. Gilly was always there.”
Ten of Lombardi’s Packers are members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Gillingham, Kramer, left tackle Bob Skoronski and outside linebacker Dave Robinson are worthy of election as well.
In the mid-1980s, Kramer went to Little Falls, Minn., to see Gillingham for “Distant Replay”, the follow-up to his best-selling diary of the 1967 season, “Instant Replay.” Just before he left, Kramer asked his old teammate what he remembered best about his football career. Gillingham didn’t talk about any particular play or any specific game, like the Ice Bowl or either of the Super Bowls. What mattered most to Gale Gillingham was the feeling of anticipation in the moments leading up to the opening kickoff. “I love my kids dearly”, he said, “but I have never been as close to people as I was every Sunday when I walked through that damn tunnel to the field. I thought so much of those guys walking with me, I didn’t want to do anything to let them down. We would kill for each other. We would die for each other. We would do anything for each other.”
Andy Barall writes about pro football history for The Fifth Down.
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