The Rise of Vince Lombardi – New York Giants 100

In this 38th edition of the Giants 100th anniversary celebration, we are going to talk about a coach that rose from the ashes and became something great.

Coming up in just a moment, we have Vince Lombardi's rise to greatness.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of american football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes, is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com dot welcome once again to the Pigpen, your portal of positive football history.

And welcome to another edition where we get to talk about the Giants 100th anniversary celebration.

And yes, we're going to talk about Green Bay packers head coach Vince Lombardi.

But let's do a little bit of history, rewind on this and go back a few years before he is with the Green Bay packers and when he is with the New York Giants.

Yes, a New York Giants.

Surprisingly, we talked about it a couple of weeks ago.

Tom Landry, who became the 29 year head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, had a great success, won some Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys.

He was the defensive coordinator with the New York Giants.

On the other side of the ball was Vince Lombardi.

Yes, that Vince Lombardi.

That the trophy of the team that wins the National Football League each year the Super bowl champions get the Lombardi Trophy.

It's Vince Lombardi now.

He was such a great coordinator and it's really the rise to power that he had was with the Giants.

He really learned a lot.

And he is, you know, sort of calling all the shots as everything going through him.

And the Giants had a three and nine record.

They were fifth in the NFL east.

And their points for they were twelve out of twelve teams in the NFL, last place in scoring.

So the Giants, that handshake agreement they had with Steve Owen for all, all those years, they let that go to the side.

They Steve Owen is not no longer the coach.

1954, it's Jim Lee Howe.

And Jim Lee Howe hires on Lombardi as his offensive coordinator.

Hires on Landry as his defensive coordinator.

In the first season, third in the NFL.

And get this, their points for they went from twelve out of twelve to six out of twelve.

Not really exactly where they wanted to be record wise, but Lombardi is having some influence on that offense.

So that's scoring some points.

And they are fifth out of twelve in points scored.

But when you've scored 47 points in a championship game against the vaunted Chicago Bears, that's doing something.

That is the influence of Vince Lombardi on an offense.

Now.

He played a pivotal role, making them rise in just those three short years to win a national Football League championship.

Working closely with Tom Landry and Jim Lee Howe, the head coach, and turning that team around.

He's offensive innovation.

It was introducing some innovation, some offensive strategies and techniques, techniques and sort of being a specialist that really the first time the Giants have a coordinator on offense that's not the head coach sort of calling the shots.

They have a specialist focusing on the offense and getting them in there.

And what a great guy to have is doing that now.

He had such a strong reputation and strong willpower.

Now, we talked about it last week when we talked to Larry Schmidt about Sam Huff.

When Sam Huff was a rookie, him and a couple of the other rookies, they were getting ready to bail out of training camp and they were heading to the airport.

And who intercepts them?

It's Vince Lombardi who inspires them to turn around and go back to go play for the Giants.

And Sam Huff has a brilliant career with the Giants and eventually goes to Washington.

And the collaborative partnership that he formed with Tom Landry and Jim Lee Howe, they were unified in what the team was doing and the team members, the players really responded to that and loved the direction that the team is going and end up winning a championship in 56.

And he laid the foundation for future success.

He was such a motivator and such a good coach as a coordinator.

He got his opportunity in Green Bay to become a head coach and look what he did there.

Look at all the championship games and the first two Super Bowls that they wondez.

The packers were a winning team almost every year that Lombardi was there.

And when he left, they were at the peak of their performance and he really turned Washington, the Redskins around and only had that one year to do it before he got the cancer and was no longer able to do it and passed.

And God, you know, he was successful in three different franchises and turning their fortunes around and really motivating the team because he was a great leader, a great innovator, and he knew football.

So that's the story of Vincent Barney.

And yes, he was a part of the New York Giants success and a part of their 100 year anniversary.

Join us for more of Giants history coming up in future weeks.

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Till next time, everybody.

Have a great gridiron day.