Packers: Top 10 Green Bay Packers not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame
By Phil Watson
Jerry Kramer, shown in Super Bowl I.
2. Jerry Kramer, G (1958-68)
The Packers selected Idaho’s Jerry Kramer in the fourth round in 1958, with no idea he would become a five-time All-Pro and three-time Pro Bowler.
Kramer was another member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s All-1960s team, along with teammates Jim Ringo and Forrest Gregg, San Francisco 49ers guard Howard Mudd, Cleveland Browns guard Gene Hickerson, Dallas Cowboys tackle Ralph Neely and Philadelphia Eagles/Los Angeles Rams tackle Bob Brown on a star-studded offensive line.
Kramer also kicked for the Packers in 1962, 1963 and 1968.
After his career ended, he was a Hall of Fame finalist nine times—1974-76, 1978-81, 1984 and 1987—but never got the necessary votes for induction.
Even as fans and his daughter, Alicia, fight for Kramer to gain induction to the shrine in Canton, Kramer himself seems at peace with the whole thing.
“The game of football has been very, very good to me,” Kramer told the Green Bay Press-Gazette last month. “And it’s just been a wonderful ride. I was pretty emotional about it 30 years ago when my guys went in. I got my lip out and boy if they call me I’m going to tell them where to put it, I ain’t going.
“But you do a lot of gymnastics mentally. But I am pretty comfortable right now.”
Kramer turned 79 in January, but still felt spry enough to come from Idaho to Wisconsin for the Packers’ spring tour of the state. And he says if he gets the call, great. If not, that’s great, too.
“There’s just a wonderful groundswell of support here in the state for that and it’s just wonderful, but it’s lost a lot of its glamour to me,” Kramer said. “So many of the guys that I played against or played with are no longer there, so there’s a bunch of young guys that I don’t know.
“It’s like coming to a ballgame here with a bunch of guys that I don’t know and have no relationship with and never really spent much time with it. It’s OK and it’s fun and it’s great to be with them, but there’s not that relationship that you had with Bart Starr and Paul Hornung and Max McGee and Fuzzy Thurston. It’s just a totally different thing.”
Kramer was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1975.
Realistic Hall Chances: Probably around 50-50. There is a groundswell of support for the idea, but Hall of Fame voters are notoriously stubborn and Kramer hasn’t been a finalist in almost 30 years. But a senior committee nod could fast track him back to finalist status and from there, who knows?
Next: More Worthy Than Jerry?