Ron from Broken Arrow, OK
Got to thinking about when the Packers first appeared in a three wide receiver formation. I'm guessing it happened sometime during Bart Starr's tenure as the head coach, and probably in the late 1970s or certainly by 1982, when Bob Schnelker took over as the offensive coordinator. I'm also guessing that the "nickel" defense started being used by the Packers around this same time. Are there records which show which game the Packers first used a three WR formation or nickel defense? Again, I realize the positions of the game have changed dramatically in the last 70 years.
Ron, you asked the question in the context of the Super Bowl era, so that seems like a fitting place to start.
One, the first Super Bowl was played at the end of the 1966 season and in the ensuing years, nickel defenses came into vogue and situation substitution spread to other positions. Also, as you noted, it was during a similar timeframe when several changes were made to the terminology used on the NFL's Official Play-by-Plays.
Under the starting-lineup section, 1969 was the first year the terms wide receiver and tight end became standard. Previously, the split end was usually listed as the left end, the tight end as the right end and the other receiver as the flanker. Earlier – but into the 1960s – all three positions had been simply lumped under the category of offensive ends, although flanker Boyd Dowler was still listed as the right halfback on play-by-plays through the first four games in 1964.
The first year the term running backs appeared was 1968. Prior to that, they were listed as halfback – or left halfback in the early '60s – and fullback.
On defense, it wasn't until 1969 when defensive halfbacks were identified as cornerbacks. And it wasn't until the late 1970s that safeties were listed as strong and free rather than left and right, although there was some justification for that. Willie Wood told me that the Packers didn't flip-flop their safeties until the late 1960s. Up until then, he said he played strictly right safety.
Finally, one caveat before addressing your question.
When there is no official record of something, there's always a risk in claiming someone was the first. In fact, from what I was able to uncover, I don't think there are definitive answers to your two questions. In truth, what I found was merely a collection of tidbits from several deep digs down rabbit holes.
As for the first backup wide receiver to play with a degree of frequency in three-wide sets, my answer would be Phillip Epps as a rookie in 1982.
But he was not the first to line up there.
The first reference I could find to the Packers at least contemplating a three-wide set was in 1967. Murray Olderman, the Newspaper Enterprise Association's well-connected syndicated columnist, wrote that a training camp knee injury suffered by Packers receiver Bob Long "took away (Vince) Lombardi's flexibility in using three wide receivers for certain situations."
But Olderman didn't address whether Lombardi had used such an alignment in the past. And I couldn't find any confirmation of Lombardi actually splitting out three wide receivers.
In 1965, Long's second season, Lombardi acquired Carroll Dale in a trade and revamped his receiving corps. The changes included Dale replacing 33-year-old Max McGee in the starting lineup, but with Dale playing flanker on the strong side and Dowler moving to split end. McGee had always lined up at left end with Dowler to the right.
What's more, Long had a breakout season with 13 catches, a 23.4 average and four touchdowns, including 11 for a 21.5 average in games he didn't start.
That also was the season that Marv Fleming took over at tight end, replacing Ron Kramer, who had forced a trade to Detroit. At mid-season, Lombardi started newly acquired Bill Anderson, a seven-year veteran, for three games instead of Fleming. And as the season progressed, Lombardi also used Dowler at tight end – he stood 6-5 and weighed 224 pounds, big for a wide receiver – with Long and Dale playing the split receiver positions.
"The Packers used various combinations of receivers," Bud Lea wrote in the Milwaukee Sentinel after the Packers had beaten Minnesota in Game 12. "Fleming started at tight end. Before the game was over, Dowler and Anderson were playing the position. When the Packers went in for their second touchdown, Dale, Long and Dowler were in the lineup."
What was unsaid was whether Dowler lined up exclusively as a tight end when that trio was on the field or if Lombardi actually implemented a three-wide set.
In both 1966 and '67, Long suffered knee injuries in training camp that required cartilage repairs and missed a combined 13 games. Moreover, he caught only 11 passes in the 15 that he played. Nevertheless, Lombardi had Dowler split time between split end and tight end.
After the Packers beat Detroit in the fourth game in 1967, Lea wrote that Fleming and Dowler split time at tight end. "When Dowler is at tight end, Dale and Long are the spread ends, giving the Packers three receivers who can move with the best," wrote Lea. A week later, he noted, "Long is seeing more action at spread end with Dowler moving into Fleming's position."
No question, according to their listed positions, the Packers lined up with three wide receivers during those three seasons; but it would appear mostly, if not exclusively, in formations that would not be analogous to today's three-wide sets.
In 1970, my first football season as a sportswriter working for the Manitowoc Herald-Times, Bob Schnelker, then assistant coach in charge of the Packers' passing game under Phil Bengtson, told me in a preseason interview that with the addition at tight end of six-year veteran John Hilton, a better receiver than blocker, the Packers wouldn't need to line up with three wide receivers in passing situations.
Looking back, it was a curious statement by Schnelker. But, apparently, I didn't know enough to ask him to elaborate.
The first confirmation I found of the Packers actually employing three split receivers on the same play was in a loss to Washington on Nov. 26, 1972. It was the 11th game of the season, and coach Dan Devine said of a pass that was intended for Dale and intercepted: "That interception came on a formation we never used before."
Devine further explained: "The pass was from a new formation. We had Jon Staggers in the slot and Leland Glass split out. In other words, we took our tight end out and had three wide receivers in on the play."
So maybe Staggers is the answer to your question. With Glass and Dale having started that day, he would have been the third receiver in the first documented proof I've found of the Packers lining up with three wides.
Considering the play ended in an interception, it's also conceivable that was the one and only time Devine used that formation in his four years as head coach from 1971-74.
Scott Hunter, quarterback for the Packers from 1971-73, and Barry Smith, a wide receiver from 1973-75, told me they didn't remember using three-wide sets when they played.
Meanwhile, neither quarterback Lynn Dickey, who joined the Packers in 1976 and played through 1985, nor David Whitehurst, who joined them in 1977 and started 34 games for an injured Dickey over his first three seasons, remember anyone playing more than a minimal number of snaps as a third wideout prior to Epps.
Dickey said there might have been occasional plays those years with three wides on the field, but it didn't happen enough for him to remember who the slot guy or non-starter was.
On the other hand, I found newspaper references to the Packers lining up with three wides in a game against Cincinnati in 1977; Steve Odom getting playing time in three-wide sets in 1978; and Walter Tullis likely filling the role of a third wide receiver in 1979.
For whatever it's worth, here's what the statistics show for those seasons.
In 1977, starter Ken Payne was cut after four games and replaced over the next three by Randy Vataha, who had been claimed on waivers from New England. In the seventh game, Vataha broke a rib and didn't play again.
Thereafter, Odom and Ollie Smith, who had shared starts at the other wide receiver spot, became the regular starting tandem. At season's end, Odom, Ollie Smith, Vataha and rookie Aundra Thompson, had caught a combined 12 passes in games they didn't start.
In 1978, first-round draft pick James Lofton and Thompson started all 16 games. Odom, the only other wide receiver to catch a pass that season, finished with four receptions.
Ollie Smith also caught seven passes in games he didn't start in 1976. And in 1979, when Lofton started all 16 games again and Thompson, 15, Tullis caught eight passes and Ron Cassidy, six, in games they didn't start.
Perhaps one of those players is the answer to your question, particularly Odom. But if so, he wasn't as productive as Epps.
In 1982, Epps caught 10 passes and averaged 22.6 yards per catch in nine regular-season games. He made one start for John Jefferson but caught only one pass in that game. Jefferson and Lofton were the starting receivers. But because it was a strike-shortened season, they finished with only 35 and 27 receptions, respectively.
That was Schnelker's first season as offensive coordinator under Bart Starr. He used Epps as a third wide in what Dickey called a "Blue" formation. Sometimes it was in place of the tight end and other times in place of a back.
Packers stats and records guru Eric Goska emailed me last week after watching a tape of the Nov. 21, 1982, Green Bay-Minnesota game, the first played in two months following the strike, and counted Epps lining up as a third split receiver 18 times. Although he stood 5-foot-10 and weighed just 165 pounds, Epps had blazing speed and toughness that belied his size.
In the 1986 NFL Fastest Man 60-Yard Dash races, Epps lost in a photo finish to the winner, Washington's Darrell Green.
As for the first nickel back, my research suggests it was Charlie Hall, a combination corner-safety who had been drafted in the third round in 1971. As for the first to play as part of a more extensive package, it would be open to interpretation whether it was Mike McCoy, a third-round draft choice in 1976; Terry Randolph, an 11th-round pick in 1977; or Estus Hood, a third-round selection in 1978.
There's no doubt Hood played enough to qualify as the first to be part of a frequently used sub-package. As a rookie that year, he intercepted three passes as a designated nickel back. But did he play that much more than those other candidates?
Working back from 1978, here was what I was able to find, mostly from old stories that I wrote.
In the third game in 1977, the Packers used what they described as a special prevent defense with Randolph and second-year safety Steve Wagner replacing linebackers Jim Carter and Tom Toner in certain passing situations. The plan when the Packers first used what was really a dime package was to have Randolph, a backup corner, rather than a linebacker, cover star Minnesota back Chuck Foreman. Foreman had averaged more than 54 catches over his first four seasons.
The grouping was somewhat effective in that game and, as a result, the Packers continued to use it at times over the remainder of the season.
In 1976, McCoy was the fifth defensive back. And in 1974 and '75, it was Hall.
"Hall has played increasingly more the past two seasons as an extra defensive back in passing situations," I wrote in the Green Bay Press-Gazette on July 3, 1976, "prompting (secondary coach Dick) LeBeau to conclude: 'He's earned the right to show us what he can do as a starter'…"
I also reported on May 21, 1976, that the Packers had protected Hall in that year's expansion draft and exposed starting strong safety Al Matthews, who was selected by Seattle.
But for the record, 1974 and '75 were my first two seasons covering the Packers for the Press-Gazette. And there's evidence that they may have utilized a nickel defense even earlier.
In a 1973 story out of Washington, D.C., left linebacker Dave Robinson, who had been traded there, was quoted as saying. "On sure passing downs last year (1972), when the Packers went to a nickel defense, I was the linebacker who came out."
That same season, former Packers defensive end Jim Temp, who penned a freelance column for newspapers in La Crosse and Wausau, wrote after the ninth game: "I also liked the idea that the Packers were using five defensive backs in obvious passing situations, something other teams have been doing for years."
Neither story identified the player(s). My guess would be Hall also filled the role in 1972 and '73, but I can't rule out that it wasn't Ike Thomas, a corner acquired in a draft-choice trade with Dallas less than two weeks before the 1972 opener.
As for records, if a player started at one of those sub positions, it can be found on the official play-by-plays. Here's what Goska shared with me after checking back to 1969.
The first time the Packers started three wide receivers was Sept. 6, 1992, vs. Minnesota. Sanjay Beach, Sterling Sharpe and Robert Brooks started at wide receiver in a one-back set with Vince Workman. That was Mike Holmgren's first game as coach.
In the fifth game that season, played on Oct. 4 at Atlanta, the Packers also started more than four defensive backs for the first time. In fact, they started six: Terrell Buckley at left cornerback; Roland Mitchell, left inside corner; LeRoy Butler, right inside corner; Vinnie Clark, right corner; Adrian White, strong safety; and Chuck Cecil free safety.
All that said about the Super Bowl years, keep this in mind. Because of pro football's evolving schemes and changes to its terminology on both sides of the ball, more contemporary coaches, at times at least, have merely recreated what their long-ago predecessors conceived.
Consider, for example, Gene Ronzani's spread offense that he unveiled in 1951. Much like the start of the Super Bowl era, 1950 was a watershed season for the NFL. Unlimited substitution was permanently restored, ushering in two-platoon football and specialization.
As coach from 1950 until the last two games of 1953, Ronzani compiled a .315 winning percentage, the worst of any head coach in Packers history other than Scooter McLean. What's more, Ronzani had some strange idiosyncrasies, including a disinclination to look his players in the eye whether it be standing in front of them in a team meeting or a one-on-one conversation.
But Ronzani also was a mad scientist of sorts and was credited by longtime NFL player, coach and scout Aldo Forte for being the first NFL head coach to implement a spread offense.
Forte began his NFL playing career in 1939 with the Chicago Bears. He played five seasons in all: three before World War II and then after missing five, two more after the war. He split 1946 between the Bears and Detroit, then finished his career with the Packers in 1947. Thereafter, Forte scouted for two years and served as offensive line coach of the Lions from 1950-65, a span of 16 seasons.
In 1966, Forte went back to scouting for the Lions, at which time he also started writing a weekly column for the Detroit Free Press on the intricacies of pro football. One of his pieces was on the "Trips" formation, where three receivers lined up to one side of the field.
"This concept of a spread formation was first conceived by Gene Ronzani during his coaching tenure with the Green Bay Packers …," Forte wrote. "Because (quarterback Tobin) Rote was a powerful runner as well as passer, Ronzani was able to use him either from the normal T-formation of a quarterback or in a tailback position, using a direct snap from center.
"Operating from the tailback spot, Rote not only had the advantage created by the three downfield receivers flooding one area but had his own pass-or-run threat working for him as well."
In the diagram at the top of this post, Ronzani designed a formation with three backs other than the quarterback aligned as split receivers outside his left and right offensive ends. Ronzani himself labeled it "a double flanker" formation. Technically, it wasn't a three wide receiver set, but it was a three-wides formation.
It's also worth noting the following.
In 1957, when the Packers drafted Ron Kramer in the first round, they played him at what they called the "slotback" position. With McGee at left end, Billy Howton at right end and Kramer, who was a rare athlete, the Packers, in a sense, played a three-end offense for the first time.
Kramer was listed as a right halfback on the lineup card, but he had no carries that season.
Two years later, when Lombardi arrived and built his offense around his signature power sweep, the tight end lined up nine feet from the right tackle with the two other ends split wide on Red Right 49. Thus, starting with the eighth game in 1959 through the 1960 season, McGee and Dowler were the split end and flanker, respectively, while Knafelc, a former split end, was the tight end.
Defensively, the Packers started the 1950s lining up with a five-man front, including a middle guard. But Lisle Blackbourn, the head coach from 1954-57, referred to what are now cornerbacks as corner linebackers, chosen as much for their tackling ability as their coverage skills. At the same time, Blackbourn referenced his 220-pound linebackers in the same terms.
In 1955, when Art Daley, who covered the Packers for the Press-Gazette from 1946-66, asked Blackbourn how he could determine what defense he was playing, this was the answer he got.
"Watch the linebackers, the number of actual linemen and go on from there," Blackbourn said. Daley paraphrased the rest: "The standard defense is the '5-4,' which means five linemen and four defensive halfbacks. The other two? They're linebackers who could be almost anywhere."
In more specific terms, Daley explained the roles of the Packers' 1954 starters. "Corner linebacker is a sort of 'short defensive halfback' but not in height…
"In the basic pro defense, as you saw last year, Bobby Dillon and Val Joe Walker played the deep defensive positions, and Clarence Self and Gene White played short defensive halfback. The foursome formed sort of a half-circle. Sometimes these four sit out there all alone … because most generally the linebackers get up in the line. Sometimes they jump back just before the ball is snapped."
Mix in what Dillon, who played safety for the Packers from 1952-59 and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2020, told me in a 2004 interview, it's apparent that even after the Packers transitioned to a standard 4-3 defense, it wasn't a static one.
"We played mostly 4-3, some five-man line and some three," said Dillon. "We played a lot of man-to-man, but also zone. We'd play zone on one side and man-to-man on the other side."
Moreover, even if Dillon was listed his entire career as a safety. And even if the perception is that he set the Packers' career record with 52 interceptions by roaming centerfield as a free safety that doesn't mean he didn't play man-to-man coverage, as well.
In fact, when the Packers faced the better receivers in the league, Dillon operated much like today's shutdown cornerbacks.
"I had cover responsibility," said Dillon. "And when we played like the Chicago Bears, they had an end Harlon Hill and no matter where he went, I went with him. I played him man every game we ever played and had good success. Elroy Hirsch, I covered man-to-man; Tom Fears after Elroy left. Every time we played Baltimore, I played Raymond Berry man-to-man. Val Joe would move over to my position and strong left, the cornerback would move over to the other safety position and I'd take his corner. We didn't change personnel we'd just move them over."
Ron, maybe the bottom line to all of that, is this. Going back to at least the late 1950s, as teams switched from three-back to three-end offenses, there could have been isolated plays in any game where the Packers lined up with three split receivers. Ditto for having five backs on the field as defenses changed from five- to four-man fronts and so did terminology.
Tim from De Pere, WI
I'm a fanatic of the "Madden" football game. 30-plus years. I currently have Eric Dickerson as my running back on my Packers Ultimate Team. Didn't the Packers try to trade for Dickerson toward the end of his career? Seems to me the trade fell through due to a failed physical.
Your memory is spot on. Five games into the 1993 season, the Packers traded running back John Stephens to Atlanta for Dickerson. Stephens was acquired in a trade with New England less than six months earlier and had been a disappointment. The Packers were averaging 79.2 rushing yards per game, and Stephens was averaging 34.6.
Dickerson had just turned 33 and had gained only 91 yards on 26 carries in what was his first season with the Falcons. But he had rushed for 729 yards for the Los Angeles Raiders the season before and ranked second all-time to Walter Payton in career rushing yards.
"I don't think it's any secret we're having a very difficult time running the ball," general manager Ron Wolf said in announcing the trade. "We had to do something to juice up our running game."
However, Dickerson failed his physical due to a bulging disk in his neck and never played for the Packers.
Greg from Whitehall, WI
Now that the NFL recognizes records from the old All-America Football Conference, have the Packers lost the distinction of being the only team to win three straight championships, seeing the Cleveland Browns won four straight in the AAFC?
Yes, the 2025 Official National Football League Record & Fact Book under the category "Most Consecutive Seasons League Champion" listed Cleveland first with five from 1946-49 (AAFC) and 1950 in the NFL. The Packers' three-peats, 1929-31 and 1965-67, were tied for second.
Just another example of how the sanctity of records has never meant much to the NFL.
In 1949, for example, the AAFC didn't even have enough teams for two divisions. The Browns won a seven-team league with a 9-1-2 record. The year before, the Browns finished the regular season 14-0 and beat a .500 Buffalo team, 49-7, in the AAFC title game.
In four AAFC seasons, Cleveland's overall regular-season record was 47-4-3. Speaks volumes about the competition and level of play.
