Green Bay Packers · History

The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The club was founded in 1919 and joined the NFL in 1921. It plays in the NFC North and has used Lambeau Field as its home since 1957. Green Bay has won 13 league championships, more than any other franchise, and is the only NFL club owned by its supporters.

1919 and the name on the jerseys

Curly Lambeau and newspaperman George Whitney Calhoun started the team in August 1919. Lambeau worked for the Indian Packing Company, which put up 500 dollars for jerseys and let the players use its field, and the name Packers stuck. That first year the team won ten of the eleven games it played against clubs from the region. It entered the American Professional Football Association, later the NFL, in 1921. With about 105,000 residents, Green Bay is the smallest city with a team in the major North American leagues.

Owned by the fans

In 1923, out of money, the Packers reorganised as a non-profit corporation and sold a thousand shares at five dollars each to local residents. The structure has held ever since, with further stock sales in 1935, 1950, 1997, 2011 and 2021, and the club now has more than half a million shareholders. The shares pay no dividend, do not rise in value and cannot be sold at a profit. Shareholders elect the board of directors at an annual meeting held in the stadium itself, and no individual can take control of the team. Mark Murphy became president of the board in 2008.

Lambeau, Don Hutson and six early titles

Lambeau coached the team until 1949 and won six championships: 1929, 1930, 1931, 1936, 1939 and 1944. His teams included Johnny Blood McNally, Cal Hubbard, Mike Michalske, passer Arnie Herber and running back Tony Canadeo. Don Hutson, an end from 1935 to 1945, finished with 99 receiving touchdowns, a record that stood until 1989, and was the league's best player in 1941 and 1942.

From Hagemeister Park to Milwaukee

The team played at Hagemeister Park from 1919 to 1922, at Bellevue Park in 1923 and 1924, and at the old City Stadium, behind East High School, from 1925 to 1956. For six decades it also split its home games with Milwaukee: first at State Fair Park, then from 1953 at Milwaukee County Stadium, where it played until 1994. Milwaukee ticket holders have kept a package of games in Green Bay ever since.

Vince Lombardi and the first two Super Bowls

Vince Lombardi was hired in 1959, after a 1-10-1 season. In nine years he won five championships: 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966 and 1967. Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Ray Nitschke, Forrest Gregg, Jerry Kramer and Herb Adderley anchored those teams. On 15 January 1967 Green Bay won the first Super Bowl 35-10 against the Kansas City Chiefs, and a year later took the second 33-14 from the Oakland Raiders. Lombardi died in September 1970 and the NFL named the championship trophy after him.

Thirteen championships

The first three were decided on records, before the league staged a title game.

Lambeau Field and the Ice Bowl

The stadium opened in 1957 as City Stadium and was renamed Lambeau Field in 1965, after its founder's death. A 2003 rebuild and the south end zone addition of 2013 left it at 81,441 seats, with a season-ticket waiting list of more than 100,000 names. On 31 December 1967 it staged the NFL Championship Game against the Dallas Cowboys at 13 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Bart Starr scored on a quarterback sneak with 13 seconds left and Green Bay won 21-17 in a game known as the Ice Bowl. The Lambeau Leap, the jump into the stands after a touchdown, was started by LeRoy Butler on 26 December 1993.

Brett Favre, Reggie White and Super Bowl XXXI

General manager Ron Wolf sent a first-round pick to the Atlanta Falcons for Brett Favre in February 1992 and hired Mike Holmgren as head coach. Reggie White signed as a free agent in 1993, the first defensive star to pick Green Bay on the open market. Favre won three straight MVP awards from 1995 to 1997 and made 253 consecutive regular-season starts for the Packers. The 1996 team led the league both in points scored and in points allowed, and on 26 January 1997 it won Super Bowl XXXI 35-21 over the New England Patriots, with Desmond Howard named MVP after a 99-yard kickoff return. The following year the club lost Super Bowl XXXII to Denver. Favre was traded to the New York Jets in August 2008 and remains the club's career passing leader.

Aaron Rodgers and Super Bowl XLV

Aaron Rodgers was the 24th pick of the 2005 draft and waited three seasons behind Favre. In 2010 the Packers made the playoffs as the sixth seed in the conference and won three rounds on the road. On 6 February 2011 they took Super Bowl XLV 31-25 against the Pittsburgh Steelers and Rodgers was named the game's MVP. The following year the team finished the regular season 15-1. Rodgers collected four league MVP awards: 2011, 2014, 2020 and 2021. In April 2023 he was traded to the New York Jets and Jordan Love, a first-round pick in 2020, took the job and won a playoff game at Dallas 48-32 in January 2024. Matt LaFleur has been head coach since 2019.

Retired numbers and Hall of Famers

Green Bay has retired six numbers: Tony Canadeo's 3, Favre's 4, Hutson's 14, Starr's 15, Nitschke's 66 and Reggie White's 92. Charles Woodson, signed in 2006 and the league's defensive player of the year in 2009, entered the Hall of Fame in 2021; Favre followed in 2016, Jerry Kramer in 2018 and LeRoy Butler in 2022.

Cheeseheads, bicycles and Titletown

Supporters have worn foam cheeseheads since 1987, when Ralph Bruno cut the first one out of a piece of packing foam. At training camp, held on the St. Norbert College campus, local children lend the players their bicycles for the ride to the practice field, a habit that dates from the 1950s and is still kept. The town has called itself Titletown since the Lombardi years.