The exploration of the Green Bay Packers' historical quest for a three-peat in the 1931 NFL season serves as the focal point of our discussion today. Despite the Kansas City Chiefs' unsuccessful attempt at a similar feat in Super Bowl LIX, we delve into the illustrious past of the Packers, who achieved this remarkable accomplishment during the late 1920s and early 1930s. We will recount the season's pivotal moments, including the financial difficulties faced by teams amid the Great Depression and the emergence of standout players such as Laverne Dillwig and Vern Llewellyn, who played instrumental roles in the team's success. The episode will also feature insights from esteemed historians and experts, comprehensively understanding the era's football dynamics. Join us as we traverse the annals of football history, highlighting the achievements that solidified the Packers' legacy in the National Football League.

NFL historian that works for NFL Films. He has written many books including ones on Joe Carr, Dutch Clark, Columbus Panhandles and Red Grange. PRFA historian that hails from Canton, Ohio New York Giants historian. Writes/ research for Big Blue Interactive as well as the Gridiron Uniform Database. Ken Crippen

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We are fresh off of Super Bowl Lix and we had some great Talk about a 3 peats going into it.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history on a day to day basis.

Your host Darren Hayes is podcasting from.

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This is Darren ease of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

But we saw in Super Bowl 59 that they could not win that third in a row to have three straight championships.

It's only been done a few times before in football history and one of them is going to be the topic we're going to be going on tonight.

But it wasn't all in the same city.

But first let's talk a little bit about the season before we bring in our special guests who by the way are some of the best historians that can tell the story of these football players, some of the best pro football historians.

We're going to have the PFRA president George Bozica talking about one.

We're going to have Larry Schmidt who is done quite a bit for the New York Giants history pages and done for the Gridiron Uniform database and things like that.

Chris Willis of NFL Films is going to be a guest.

We have a clip from him on on that.

We also have Joe Ziemba who has talked quite a bit about football history from the Chicago standpoint and the Football Learning Academy's founder and former PFRA president Ken Crippen talking about one of his favorite packers players.

So we're going to bring these packers players to life.

But first, let's talk about the season.

The NFL was in its 12th year and it was a little bit of a free fall.

Financial woes of the country due to the Great Depression had few teams dropped from the league, including the Newark Newark Tornadoes and the Minneapolis Marines.

They were out of the league because of financial reasons after just seven games.

Now there were some bright spots too.

The Cleveland Indians earned a franchise and joined as an expansion team just before the season started.

That was until the New York Giants knocked them from the ranks of the unbeaten Green Bay also had a fast start.

The season culminated with the first place Green Bay packers losing to the Chicago Bears.

A week after the Portsmouth eleven escaped the Windy City with a wind, the twelve two packers were scheduled to play to ten three Spartans in Portsmouth.

But the packers brass refused to play a game where the Portsmouth if they won, they'd be a tie for the league championship.

The Spartans protested that game and it was listed as an official NFL schedule.

But the NFL commissioner, Joe Carr sided with Green Bay and thus the packers were crowned the champs and the Spartans were forced to accept a salty second place finish.

Now that is quite a season to end that way.

But they got their three peat.

But they did it with some outstanding players and we're going to talk about some of these players.

And first up, let's talk about one of the stars of the team who not many people know about, Lavi Dillwig.

And again, here's Ken Crippen.

From the Football Learning Academy telling us about one of his favorite players.

Yeah, I'm going to sound like a broken record, but I pick Laverne Dillwig and Al Westard as my top two players, especially of the older players.

We've got more game film of Worcester than we do of Doig, but were still able to go through and see how Dillwig played.

But then as I was mentioning before, we were talking about, okay, what are the testimonials?

What are the other media members saying about them?

What are historians saying about them?

People that watch them play, People were there at the time and you look at someone like a Laverne Dillwig and it's just inexplicable to me how he can't become a finalist.

You know, he, you'll see them in the, in the Centennial class where he was part of the top 20 but then never made it beyond that.

And then, you know, has never really been touched since then.

Al Worstert, he's getting close, but he's not making it.

These are guys that dominated their position.

I mean, Dillwig was the second best end in the pre modern era.

If you're number two behind one of the greatest of all time in Don Hudson, how can you not be considered?

Laverne Dillwick had 27 interceptions from a defensive end position.

You look at the other pre modern era ends that are in the hall of Fame.

They all have single digits in interceptions.

Dillwig had 27.

The only other end that had more was Hudson, but he played safety.

So you're going to have more opportunities, you're going to be able to have more interceptions.

And it's only three more than Doe Wake had.

He let you know Dillwig led the league in yards, touchdowns.

That's what an end does.

But you look at it and you know, eight time all pro, six time consecutive consensus all Pro, four time consecutive unanimous all pro all decade team.

The media members of the day said he was by far the best end of his time.

Yeah, Lavi Dillwig, quite an outstanding player.

And he came on to talk about another great packers player from that era, Vern Llewellyn.

Burn Llewellyn, the Packers halfback, you know, who was pretty much the go to guy for the packers teams that won three straight championships, 29, 30 and 31.

I mean, here's a guy that the team won three straight.

You know, only Lobordi's packers have won three straight NFL championships and he's not in the hall of Fame.

You know, I mean he's, you know, I, I went back and I did some retro MVPs that are in the front of the book, which is my research as you go through.

And I picked who would be in the top five MVP and Llewellyn would have won back to back in 29 and 30, you know, so to me he's like a no brainer.

You know, I've, I've always liked his resume and you know, like I said, and he's very high on this list.

Big thanks to Chris Willis for telling us all about Vern Llewellyn there from his book 60 Minute Men.

Can you believe it's been that long ago?

We have the founder of the packers franchise.

Curly Lambeau wore the number one and you know, he's generally recognized, you know, as the packers founder and as a great coach.

But he did play for a number of years and he was proficient in passing the ball and he's considered one of the early practitioners of passing the ball and scheming and strategizing to throw and not just, you know, run, run, run, punt on fourth down or sometimes punt on third down.

Curly Lambeau is definitely hall of Fame material.

Part of the original inaugural class of the Pro Football hall of Fame, probably more so for his coaching.

But yeah, he was a great player too back in the era.

You know, pre APFA.

And then he was a player coach in the beginning of his career.

They won in 29, 30 and 31.

I guess you do things like that.

They name a field after you, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And they let you know where the number one.

Yeah.

Curly Lambeau, definitely a force to be reckoned with.

And that's why they name a field like we talked about after him.

Now, Larry Schmidt, you can find him on the Big Blue Interactive, the New York Giants websites, and some with some great history there.

Also, he is on the Gridiron uniform database talking about all kinds of different uniforms.

You can see them, they have images drawn up of what teams wore through all the years of the NFL and the cfl.

So quite a great accomplishment there.

Cal Hubbard, he's the only guy that's in both the Baseball hall of Fame and the Football hall of Fame.

After his football career ended, he became one of the great umpires in Major League Baseball history in the American League, which I think is interesting.

I, you know, so, I mean, you can see his, you can see his image of both Cooperstown and a Canton.

So he's also in the College Football hall of Fame, but he's, he's an early player.

He was a great, you know, played, played offense and defense, offensive lineman, also played some linebacker on defense.

He was a member of four championship teams, I believe, one with the Giants and three with the Packers.

And he wore number four.

But, you know, he, you know, I think his claim to fame is, the fact is that he's in both hall of Fames and as an umpire, you know, for baseball, which is, I think, is amazing.

Yeah, yeah, go, go.

From a player on the gridiron to be in an umpire, that's kind of an odd jump.

Yeah, it is.

It is, it is.

It really is.

But yeah, so, yeah, so I, and I.

He's definitely in the top 10.

I don't know where I would slot him, but I think he's got to be in the top 10.

Yeah, I agree.

That's a, that's a large man back then.

It's a large man now.

But yeah, but definitely back then.

Yeah.

So yeah, he's probably one of the few players stars back then that would probably match up size wise and probably almost be able to play in today's NFL.

You know, a little bit underweight.

We'd have to give him a couple stickers bars and some Twinkies, but we'd get them up the weight soon.

And you can find him on and his son John on the official PFRA podcast here on the Sports History Network.

George is the president of the pfra, as we said.

Now there were some other great players, too.

And you know, Johnny Blood, McNally who, you know, just has been on multiple teams, but his best years were in Green Bay and he really had played an important part of that, as you've seen in these last couple episodes where Johnny Blood did some great things.

Mike Machalski also was just a fantastic blocker for them.

He is also in the Pro Football hall of Fame.

He really blew open some holes to let some of these guys run like Johnny Blood and Llewellyn run.

Arnie Erber was in his, you know, early stages of his career just joining the packers and he would go on to have a Pro Football Hall Fame career.

We're going to talk more about him later on in some episodes.

Here's some championships as we get into that.

But you know, just some terrific players.

And that's why the Green Bay packers were so dominant in why they won three state straight championships in the National Football League.

Our next episode, which is two days from now, next episode on the football championship.

And it's really an exciting story and really a pretty cool one.

And it is the last year of having the championship be awarded without winning the championship game.

So make sure you check that out.

We are so glad you joined us here today and make sure you take care of your sponsors.

You know the sponsors have some great products to sell you, so make sure you listen to them before and after.

And until next time, everybody have a great gridiron day.

Peeking up at the clock, the time's running down.

We're going to go into victory formation.

Take a knee and let this baby run out.

Thanks for joining us.

We'll see you back tomorrow.

For the next podcast.

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