In a lot of ways, this book—and really any book about the Green Bay Packers at this point—is a testament to Brett Favre, Ron Wolf, and Mike Holmgren and the marvelous job they did in resurrecting a franchise that had been so dormant and in such terrible shape for so long.
When they came to town, we were coming off a 24-year period where we had four winning seasons and two playoff appearances. Our fans were actually giving up on our future. Ron came to town and took charge of the football operations side. First, he hired Mike as coach. Then, he sent a first-round draft choice to the Atlanta Falcons for Brett. Then, he signed Reggie White. And the character and dignity were restored to this franchise immediately. We started winning right away.
Thanks to those three gentlemen for what they started in 1992—after having a 24-year period where we were down, dormant, and mediocre—we were a team that was a contender every year and had one of the best winning percentages in the NFL. I’m so proud to know those gentlemen. I thank them for what they did for this franchise to make us legitimate again.
When I hired Ron, I thought we needed a change and we needed to bring in a strong football person and guarantee him there would be no interference from the executive board. I had my eye on Ron for a long time. I visited with George Young, the longtime general manager of the New York Giants. And about two months before I hired Ron, I told George I wanted to make a change in our leadership and go after Ron. And he told me I was making the smartest hire I could make.
I knew what Ron needed—full authority. Without offering him that, I knew he wouldn’t leave the job he had with the New York Jets. Once we gave him that, the negotiation was very short. We hired him on November 27, 1991.
He obviously had his eye on Brett from the moment he took the job since he had wanted to draft Brett to the Jets, but the Falcons had taken him one pick earlier. It just so happened that a few days later we were playing the Falcons in Atlanta. I was in the press box that Sunday, and Ron came up and put his briefcase down next to me. He said, “I’m going to go watch Atlanta’s backup quarterback.” I had to look and see who the backup was. It was a third-stringer named Brett Favre.
Brett was the greatest competitor I’ve ever been around, and he played with the passion and enthusiasm of a kid on a sandlot. I was thrilled and privileged to work with him and watch him play in Green Bay for 16 years. When he played against us when he was on that other team, I didn’t listen to the game. I didn’t watch the game. I turned on the radio two hours later to find out who won. I didn’t want to see him play against Green Bay. So I’ve never seen him play against Green Bay—and I didn’t want to. I wanted to remember him as a Packer.
Two weeks after that game in Atlanta, Ron came into my office after watching practice. “We’ve got a problem on this practice field,” he said to me. “This team is 4–10, and they think they’re 10–4.” So in two weeks on the job, he had decided that Brett was going to be our quarterback and that Lindy Infante was not going to be our coach. It convinced me even more that bringing him in in November was valid.
For his coach he wanted an offensive-minded leader. Ron said, “The league is going offense. We need to go offense.” Mike was the hot item in the league at that point. Ron came to me and said, “Mike’s the guy I’m going after.” Every time he’d go after one of these things—trading for Brett, firing Lindy, hiring Mike—he’d say, “Are you okay with it?” And I said, “Absolutely. You have total authority.”
Years later, I was approached at a league meeting by Charley Casserly, who’d run the Washington Redskins and Houston Texans for a long time. He said, “How did you ever get those two guys?” Well, I found Ron, but Ron found Mike. They just worked so well together. It was outstanding leadership in our football operations. It was such a different culture than we’d had in all my years here. And five years later, they won the Super Bowl.
There’s no doubt that success helped us in the stadium referendum to renovate Lambeau Field in 2000. As tight as that stadium referendum was, I heard from people that the fact that we were playing so well again was a huge factor. I mean, it was a tough sell anyways. We won by a margin of 53 to 47 percent. I think it would have been an impossible sell if we would’ve been playing the way we were in the ’70s and ’80s. So yeah, without what they did, we wouldn’t have this stadium.
The worst thing I ever heard came after we won the referendum. Paul Jadin, who was the mayor at the time, called me and said, “I felt that if you lost that referendum, the Packers wouldn’t be here by 2015.” I’m not sure how we could have competed in that old stadium. We were making about $2 to $3 million a year in the old Lambeau. The first year in the new Lambeau, we made $25 million. We were actually talking in the late 1990s about having to borrow money in a few years to fund our operation, as we looked at where player costs were going and what kind of money we were going to make from the old stadium. A stadium just produces so much revenue, and we were just dropping like a rock behind the teams moving into new ones.
And then when we hired Ted Thompson in 2005, we made sure that success continued. He drafted Aaron Rodgers, he hired Mike McCarthy, and by 2010 we had another Super Bowl championship. The reason I went after Ted so strongly was because I watched Ted work for Ron for eight years. When Mike Holmgren went to Seattle, the first person he took was Ted. Both in the hiring of Ron and Ted, I really felt that I knew what I was going to get. I knew both men, I respected both men, and they came in and did the job.
Two of the most critical things to happen with this organization in the last 30 years were Ron getting Brett and Ted getting Aaron. I can’t tell you the negative mail I got when Ron traded a first-round draft choice for Brett. And when Aaron kept slipping down, Ted took me out of the draft room and said, “This isn’t going to be a popular decision, but I’m going to take Rodgers.” And we got a lot of angry mail then. But we went through more than 30 quarterbacks in the 24 years we couldn’t win. To have those two and have them play at the level they’ve played is unbelievable.
That’s why all the credit has to go to the football people. I have a lot of respect for them and am just very thankful for what those men did. Those guys truly did resurrect the organization. They lifted it right out of the ashes.
In this book you will read some of those stories—and many others. When Jason asked me to write the foreword to this book, I told him that it would be a true honor for me to be a part of this work. And it is. I hope you enjoy The Big 50: Green Bay Packers.
—Bob Harlan Packers chairman emeritus Packers president 1989–2008