The Most Influential People of the NFL

In the 2nd of a 2 part story we present the remaining Top 4 of the NFL's All Time Greatest influences, those that shaped, molded, and drove the NFL to what it is today.

4) Vince Lombardi

Vince Lombardi came to Green Bay almost as an afterthought despite having success at every level where he coached. As a high school football coach he won 6 state titles at the undersized all Catholic school of St. Cecilia’s (New Jersey), and also won a state title coaching basketball, a sport he did not even know. But Lombardi inherently knew how to coach and knew how to lead. He went on to success as an Army assistant and then the NFL title in New York with the Giants. Repeatedly passed over due to the prejudice against his Italian heritage Lombardi, after 20 years of paying his dues, was hired by the Packers in 1959.

By now every Packer fan knows of Lombardi’s success in Green Bay. It is impossible to not know the man was a brilliant motivator and an excellent student of the game. Lombardi’s first occupation was as a teacher, a role he never lost through his ascension to the top of the coaching heap. Lombardi brought with him a blunt, direct and simple approach and literally attacked everything around him and challenged his charges to be the best they could. His conditioning tactics were unparalleled at the time and those that balked or challenged his megalomaniac authority found their way out of Green Bay faster than the ice freezes on the Fox River than runs through it.

All Pro Jim Ringo found out early how vindictive and ruthless Lombardi could be. When negotiating his contract with Lombardi, who also served as the team’s GM, Ringo had the audacity to bring along an agent, a move that infuriated Lombardi and was unheard of in the ‘60’s. After being introduced to the agent Lombardi promptly excused himself from the room and returned a short time later informing  Ringo and his agent he was done negotiating with them, and they were now free to negotiate with the Philadelphia Eagles where Lombardi had just traded him.

Lombardi approached his profession as a teacher, breaking down every element of every position of every player for his players. Lombardi ascribed and succeeded by living to his own credo of “You can’t coach ‘em if you haven’t taught ‘em”. It was Lombardi’s keen insight and understanding of what inspired men to play through pain and beyond their own expectations and extracting every ounce of ability his players had is what permanently sets him apart. While many coaches over the years have copied his thunder, few have also been able to couple it with Lombardi’s genuine love for his players. That Lombardi’s players from those teams of the ‘60’s hold him in some cases as a high a regard as their own fathers, it is a testament that over 40 years since Lombardi last coach his name still reverberates around the NFL.

3) Jim Brown

Jim Brown is not the first black man to excel in the NFL. Before Brown became a Brown in Cleveland Marion Motley was tearing through the NFL. But Brown’s impact both on and off the field along with his on unshakable view of the world is as resounding as the impact he had on any tackler in his way and lands him on the list.

Based on his play alone it is enough right there. While only playing 9 seasons in a 14 game year Brown set the All-time rushing record and held it until Walter Payton and Emmitt Smith broke it. But Brown did it in a much tougher era on fields that resembled slop houses half the time. Brown was the first running back to combine size, power, and speed unseen before him. He was as capable of steamrolling a linebacker as he was outrunning a defensive back. And strong? NFL Films are loaded with clips of Brown in his salad days moving forward with 3, 4, and 5 defenders draped on his massive shoulders, knees churning and still picking up yardage.

Brown was the gold standard of running backs in the ‘60’s when he came out of Syracuse and was bypassed by the bigoted George Marshall in Washington and the Browns Art Modell savvily took him. Known as somewhat of a malcontent at SU in college, Brown became the first black man to speak his mind off the field about the intolerable conditions of black people in America. Using his fame and position Brown was seen as, in the vernacular of the time, as ‘uppity’ and militant. Largely misunderstood Brown’s stoic demeanor did little to open him publicly.

Yet Brown never backed down and maintained his own sense of right and wrong while never letting his play on the field diminish. Modell also drafted Syracuse Heisman trophy winner RB Ernie Davis, a fellow black man Brown helped to recruit, after Marshall again let his prejudices get in the way what was best for his team and traded his first pick in the draft to the Browns for Davis, yet before Davis could pair with Brown in what could have been a truly remarkable backfield he succumbed to leukemia. The pairing of Brown with Davis could have altered the NFL landscape as we know it today.

Brown led Cleveland to its’ last title in ’64 interrupting the Packers Golden Years and retired abruptly at the age of 29 with many good years still left in his legs without explanation or apology or regret.

To this day Brown remains social active and has helped to serve as the conscience for his fellow retirees and mentoring young black players as to life in and out of the NFL. For his contributions both on and off the field and raising the awareness of those around him to a higher social standard, Jim Brown belongs on this list.

2) Red Grange –

Before there was an NFL, there was Harold “Red” Grange. Pro football was primarily a Midwestern curiosity of sorts, and most franchises came from such places as Canton, Ohio, Decatur, Illinois and Green Bay, Wisconsin, not exactly the bright lights and glamour of today’s game. Pro football players were more roustabouts and barnstormers than talented and skilled players. In the ‘20’s Major League Baseball was the undisputed king of sports along with boxing. College football also caught the attention of the nation. Far more so than the pro game.

Grange went to the University of Illinois where he set national records and gained national renown and was signed by George Halas immediately upon his graduation to the Chicago Bears in 1925, where he began an unheard of barnstorming streak to play in 19 games in 67 days. Those 67 days were the birth of the professional game as it is known today. In December 1925 a crowd estimated to be between 65,000 – 73,000 filled the Polo Grounds in New York to see the “Galloping Ghost”. How important was Grange to the NFL today? Without the revenues that followed him into the turnstiles the New York franchise may have been lost.  Without the box office and marquee value of Grange and the dollars that poured in franchises would have been lost and football would have been relegated to a far lesser national prominence.

Grange became the NFL its’ first star player with star power and he filled the role perfectly. He was an athlete, a salesman and a shrewd businessman. In an era when his counterparts earned roughly $100/ game, Grange was getting a cut of the gate that came to see him and was making a reported $100,000 in the Roaring ‘20’S. His talent and ability to draw fans sold the early version of the game, and Grange, after a falling out with the Bears Halas had the temerity to found a rival league to challenge the one he helped build. After a one season Grange’s team was absorbed into the NFL and he secured his place in history by leading another pioneer trail from the field to film in a series of “Red Grange, All American” jingoistic films. It is no exaggeration to say every high profile player in the NFL owes a debt to the first man in line.

That man was Red Grange.

1) Pete Rozelle

It is with little reserve to say that the NFL itself would not be what it is today without the drive of Pete Rozelle. He dragged, pleaded, cajoled, battled, and brought the NFL literally into every living room in America on Sundays, and has earned a permanent place in history as the most influential man in NFL history. Without  Pete Rozelle, there would not be the shining example of how to build a sports league.

The modern day NFL is the vision that former Commissioner Alvin ‘Pete’ Rozelle had for it when he took office in the ‘60’s. A one-time ad man and marketing guru for the Los Angeles Rams Rozelle oversaw most of the groudsweeping changes of the NFL and steered it, the players, and the owners, to unparalleled popularity and riches.

Rozelle was a true visionary long before his time. He saw how NFL Films had drawn an audience and with Ed Sabol launched the wildly popular NFL Films, a direct off shoot that exists today. When the AFL began bidding wars for college talent Rozelle was instrumental in convincing the owners of the NFL that it would be in their best interests to merge the 2 leagues and streamline revenues. He presented the economic reality that the league could not afford to lose players or overpay for those coming out of college.

Under Rozelle’s plan he proposed a revenue sharing system based on the total income being divided equally among the owners, a plan never seen before. The players unionized and Rozelle helped to settle the labor disputes in a fashion that is still duplicated in keeping the NFL piece and giving the players a fair piece of the NFL’s bloated pie.

Rozelle successfully convinced the owners that rather than lose money the more each team benefitted the stronger the league and more financially viable it would become. Rather than overseeing 28 separate fiefdoms sought to have the NFL brand become a new sports business model, one where television and merchandising rights could be collectively negotiated to ensure prosperity of the Green Bays of the NFL as well as the New York franchise. To this day the Rozelle plan has helped to drive television contracts into the billions of dollars.

The promotions and marketing whiz kid saw opportunity in the Super Bowl and sold the idea as well as air time that has made Super Bowl Sunday an undeclared holiday in the US. He pushed the NFL into Monday nights in regular season prime time and the venture of Monday Night football is still with us. When the NFL’s hold was again challenged in the ‘80’s by the USFL, Rozelle fought a different fight. Sensing the greed and lack of football business sense of such USFL owners as Donald Trump Rozelle resisted the USFL’s attempt to have its marquee teams join the NFL. Sensing that the debt ridden league was looking for NFL dollars to save itself from itself, Rozelle held firm in spite of losing eventual NFL stars such as Jim Kelly, Herschel Walker and Steve Young to the rival league. Once again, Rozelle’s instincts served him and his league well as the USFL eventually collapsed under its own weight after Rozelle had the NFL owners on his side when he stood up to the USFL’s badly overplayed power play.

If a single word is needed to describe Rozelle it would be the word ‘galvanizing’. Rozelle brought the owners and the players and the fans together helped to bring football to the masses that has seen the NFL surpass baseball as the country’s favorite game. When baseball may be the national pastime, thanks to Pete Rozelle football is America’s game.