Green Bay Packers: 50 greatest players in franchise history

Greatest players in Green Bay Packers history: 41. Lavvie Dilweg

Lavvie Dilweg was one of the first notable tight ends in the NFL. He played in Green Bay from 1927 to 1934, winning three-straight NFL championships from 1929 to 1931. Dilweg would make the NFL’s All-Decade Team in the 1920s.

He initially played for the Milwaukee Badgers in 1926 before joining Green Bay. Dilweg was a Milwaukee native, having gone to high school and played collegiately for the then Marquette Golden Avalanche on the gridiron before going pro. He would earn his law degree while at Marquette. He practiced law while playing professional football with the Packers until his retirement in 1934. Then, it was law full-time.

Dilweg’s gridiron numbers aren’t overly impressive (23 catches for 443 yards and 12 touchdowns). However, he set the foundation that Hutson would later build his hall of fame career on as the best tight end in Packers history a few decades later. Dilweg remains one of just two players named to the NFL’s All-Decade Team in the 1920s that has not been enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

While some remember Dilweg as a player for the Packers, he was briefly a U.S. House Representative in his native Wisconsin from 1943 to 1945. Though we are 50 years removed from his death in 1968, Dilweg may eventually get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame given the era in which he played. However, he may just remain in the Hall of Very Good.