Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A unusually candid inside look at the franchise., October 28, 1998
By A Customer
Simply one of the most intriguing books ever written about an NFL team, Polling and Kramer offer interviews and "where are they now" biographies of players thoughtout various eras of Packer history. Each era is defined by a different head coach. Any fan of the NFL and the team will find the candid discussions and topics entertaining and often surprising. Much of the discussion is critical of the coaching style of Dan Devine, Bart Starr, and Forrest Gregg. The book lifts the veil of mystery from the infamous years when the team was poorly managed, poorly coached, and stuggled to compete. We find out why and how things went wrong from the players point of view. An unusually frank history.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Some substance, but not a lot of style, January 4, 2002
By A Customer
So that's what happened to Chester Marcol. And that's John Brockington's view on why his career never really took off. And can someone as famous as Willie Wood really have turned his back on football altogether? For those who remember the Packers as either part of the Lombardi legacy or enduring an almost unbroken 30-year string of under-achievement after his departure, Polling's interviews with players from that era (which pretty much make up the book) can't help but be interesting. Obviously some stories are more interesting than others, and there are some curious omissions (the fate of the late Travis Williams is surely worth revealing - and what, no Donny Anderson or Jim Grabowski?). My only real criticism, though, concerns Polling's writing style; presumably a newspaper journalist by trade, his chapters are devoid of any style, often simple recitations of facts combined with quotes from the ex-players. The whole thing has the feel of a small-town newspaper article. I would have preferred Polling interject a bit more of his own self into the book. That said, all but the most narrow-minded Packer fans should find it an interesting stroll down memory lane.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
For Packer Fans, February 2, 2002
Die-hard Packer fans who followed the team through the 70s and 80s (when the Packers were so routinely awful that only the most fanatical of fans could follow them) will probably enjoy this book. Young fans, unless they're Packer history scholars, won't recognize most of the players in the book. The book confirmed for me how ineptly the Packers were run in the 1970s and 1980s after enjoying so much glory during the Lombardi years. Being a publically owned team, the board of directors took back for themselves the power that they had ceded to Lombardi and since they were guaranteed sell-outs at home regardless of how bad the team was and they were guaranteed profits due to revenue-sharing, they had little incentive to field a decent team. So years were wasted while the Packers struggled under Packer hero Bart Starr who had almost zero coaching experience, only to see Bart get fired just as he was finally becoming a decent coach. Forrest Gregg is brought in and the destruction of the team is completed. Big surprise that the Packers in the 1990s didn't start turning around until the inept directors finally started giving real authority to football professionals like Ron Wolf and Mike Holmgren. The book itself is just where-are-they-now stories but they do provide a realistic look at pro football. Dan Devine, the coach before Starr, takes a beating in the book by many of his former players as does Gregg. The person I felt most sorry for in the book was John Brockington. Brockington was the first RB to gain 1000 yds each of his first three seasons and was All-Pro. Most people considered him the best RB in the game at that time after OJ Simpson. Then, inexplicably, Brockington's production fell off to almost nothing and the team dumped him. "Downfield!" describes how the Packer executives decided to put Brock in his place, so to speak, and how there was practically a concerted effort by management and the coaching staff to ruin Brockington's career. Outside of Packer fans, almost no one even knows about John Brockington now and the man, had he been treated right, probably would've gone to the Hall of Fame. Brock, if you're reading this, you deserved much better! If "Downfield!" does anything else, it exonerates John Brockington for his fans. Be sure to read QB Jim Del Gaizo's scathing comments on Dan Devine, too.
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by Jerry Poling
