Green Bay Packers: 50 greatest players in franchise history

Greatest players in Green Bay Packers history: 17. Jerry Kramer

Guard Jerry Kramer is the most recent former Packer to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It was truly laughable that the best guard from the 1960s didn’t have a bust in Canton, but here we are. Kramer will get to tell his football life before all of us this year. It’ll be a full 50 years since he last played, but his induction will be well worth the wait.

Kramer was a former fourth-round pick by the Packers out of Idaho in the 1958 NFL Draft. Starting at right guard for 119 games over an 11-year NFL career with the Packers, Kramer was part of five NFL championship teams in Green Bay. His last two championships with the Packers came as a part of the first two Super Bowls, as Green Bay beat the Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders, respectively.

Seven times would Kramer make an All-Pro team at right guard for the Packers. Five of those were first team All-Pro designations. The other two were second team nods. Kramer also made three trips to the Pro Bowl while with Green Bay before retiring at the end of the 1968 NFL season at the age of 32.

He made the NFL’s All-Decade Team for the 1960s. Kramer has been inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame. This summer, Kramer will get his rightful bust in Canton. His Canton classmates include Brian Dawkins, Ray Lewis, Brian Urlacher and Terrell Owens, who is choosing to hold his own hall of fame induction ceremony at his alma mater University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. While Owens won’t be in Canton, Kramer will surely be. Can’t wait for his speech.