Outtakes with former Green Bay Packers star Ken Ruettgers
A mainstay along the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line for more than a decade, Ken Ruettgers had a bird’s eye view of the team’s epic highs of the mid-1990s to the dismal lows of the mid-1980s.
Lining up at mostly the left tackle position — one of football’s most important spots — Ruettgers witnessed a franchise in transition as the Packers went from an NFL afterthought to world champions in 1996. Drafted in the first round in 1985, the USC star played in 156 games, starting 140 from ‘85-’96. While he was a rock along the offensive line and considered one of the league’s top left tackles, Ruettgers surprisingly never made a Pro Bowl. The snub was likely due to Green Bay struggling through most of Ruettgers’ career. Players on stellar teams typically get more national recognition and post-season honors than those mired in losing.
A few months ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ruettgers for a pair of feature stories that ran in Packerland magazine. Green Bay area folks, check out the pub at your local Festival Foods if you get a chance. I’ve chatted with Ken a few times for magazine pieces the past couple of years. I’ve found him to be genuine, engaging, forthcoming and always willing to give me time over the phone, which any journalist appreciates.
As most of my interviews with former Packers tend to go, we swayed off topic a few times, but that’s OK. The “bonus” stories provided great material for this space here. While they didn’t have room or relevance for Packerland, I couldn’t let these gems go to waste. Beginning with the Ruettgers interview, I’ll be bringing you “outtakes” from some of my interviews for the magazine. As retired players grow older and have spent more time removed from the game, they tend to be more reflective. More open. They’re willing to share stories and inside dirt they likely never would have during their playing days. The stories range from interesting, funny, sad, but all compelling.
Sit back and enjoy my first Outtakes interview with Super Bowl XXXI champion Ken Ruettgers.
Ruettgers, the seventh overall selection in the ‘85 draft, came to Green Bay for workouts after the draft and was a bit shocked.
“The facilities we had at USC were actually better than what the Packers had at that time,” he said.
Years of upper-management penny-pinching and poor performance on the field left Green Bay in a difficult spot. Lambeau Field was aging, the organization didn’t have a winning formula and was hesitant to spend money on free agents. For years, the goal was to simply stay competitive to keep fans coming to the games. Rake in enough revenue to keep the team from relocating to another larger city hungry for NFL football. However, by the late ‘80s, fans were growing tired of either mediocre play or all-out bad teams. They were desperate for a winner.
After finishing 8-8 in Ruettgers’ rookie season, Green Bay muddled to 5-9-1 in ‘86 and back-to-back 4-12 campaigns in ‘87 and ‘88. Two decades had passed since the Lombardi glory days, but it could have felt like 100 years. Free agents dubbed “Titletown U.S.A.” the “Siberia of the NFL.” No one really wanted to come to Green Bay.
Ruettgers: “I remember when that Sports Illustrated article came out about Titletown. That was around ‘86 or ‘87 and it kind of just trashed Titletown. It trashed the Packers and the heritage. Man, it was a real hard article, and it really was a stake through the heart at that time.”
In 1989, the Packers finally broke the losing streak. Surprisingly, a hot, young team led by quarterback Don Majkowski finished 10-6, barely missing out on a playoff spot.
Ruettgers: “‘89 was a bright spot, but really just a blip on the screen after the next year, which was a heck of a challenging year. It was a tough locker room. People were sick of losing, they were sick of each other.”
After the hope of ‘89 faded (Majkowski struggled with injuries and the Packers plummeted to 6-10 in ‘90 and 4-12 in ‘91), new general manager Ron Wolf fired head coach Lindy Infante, replacing him with San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator Mike Holmgren. Fresh off winning Super Bowls, the offensive guru brought Bill Walsh’s savvy West Coast offense to Green Bay, along with a winning attitude the Packers hadn’t seen in… decades.
Ruettgers: “Mike came in, cleaned a few people out, and it was like a fresh breeze blowing through that place.”
The Packers quickly turned their fortunes around in ‘92, going 9-7. Led by upstart QB Brett Favre, in ‘93, Green Bay made the playoffs for the first time in 11 years. Over the next three seasons, the Packers developed into a league juggernaut, winning the Super Bowl in ‘96 with both a potent offense and one of the best defenses in NFL history.
Unfortunately for Ruettgers, the hulking 6-6, 295-pounder wasn’t on the field to share the joy with teammates. After playing in four games with one start, an injury ended Ruettgers’ season in ‘96. He ultimately decided to retire but had logged enough time to earn a Super Bowl ring. He walked away from football more than 25 years ago, but from coaching to earning multiple degrees, Ruettgers has kept busy in retirement.
Ruettgers: “I’ve had a really adventurous and amazing post-career life. I went into publishing for a couple of years, then started a nonprofit for sports-career transition. In recent years, I’ve been working with the league as a sports-career transition coach. There are eight of us and I’ve spent seven years with the NFL doing that. Eight of us mentoring guys coming out of the league and transitioning to life after football. And it’s a challenge, being in your mid-to-late 20s or early to mid 30s and your identity has been wrapped up in this thing for most of your life. It’s your purpose, meaning, identify and it’s a loss — how do you transition?
In the meantime, I got my Ph.D. and actually did my doctoral dissertation on sport-career transition on newly retired NFL players. I’m trying to find the answers in the silver bullet. (Also), I’ve just retired from 12 years of full-time teaching at the college level. I was retired as the social sciences department chair. I still teach a little part-time and I’ve coached (high school football) most of the last 25 years in Bend, Oregon. Won two state championships, lost two… had a lot of fun with the kids.
(As far as) my body, I had my left-knee replaced eight years ago. I broke my scapula in ‘88. You can check this, but it’s probably the last time a blind-side starting left tackle was also the starting wedge on a kickoff return. I need to get that replaced, but I’m very thankful for the (medical) technology we have today, for sure.
Guys who are my age, at this point, they’re getting their knees, shoulders and hips replaced. Even guys who I played high school ball with who never played past that level are getting replacements. I think it was that era. That generation of being really hard on the body, doing extreme sports and all that. Certainly, football took its toll for sure. I just try to keep exercising, staying healthy and keep working my brain. That brain plasticity, try to keep challenging it, keep working it out, too.
I live in a little town called Sisters. Dan Fouts lives here, Drew Bledsoe lives in Bend. It’s all within 20, 30 minutes. There are a lot of retired athletes who live in this area. It’s kind of a summer Palm Springs for the West Coast. It stays in the 80s in the summer and it’s mostly a dry heat. Quieter than Palm Springs, but we do get tourists in the summer. It’s kind of a recreational mecca for the West Coast.”
Ruettgers battled in the trenches with some of the toughest defensive players in NFL history in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Who was the best?
Ruettgers: “The best defensive lineman I faced was probably Bruce Smith. Richard Dent was pretty good too, but I would have to give it to Smith. Chris Doleman was pretty amazing. … As far as linebacker, it’s tough, was it Lawrence Taylor or Derrick Thomas? Those two guys… phenomenal. I go back and forth. I probably lean a little more towards Derrick Thomas, but Lawrence Taylor changed the game.
It’s kind of like Bruce Smith and Reggie White. Now, Reggie played on the other side. I never lined up against Reggie. Bruce Smith was great against the run and the pass, but what Reggie brought as far as leadership… if I was building a team, I would probably pick Reggie over Bruce. I think you put more wins in the column box with Reggie, but Bruce, gosh, what an amazing pass rusher and run defender. The guy was all-time great.
I’ll tell you a side story about the kind of guy Reggie White was. You just don’t find this very often in anybody. When we were recruiting him the first year of free agency (1993), Kent Johnston was the strength coach. The year before we recruited Reggie, we played the Eagles and our right tackle was Tootie Robbins. Tootie was like 6-6, 320 pounds — he was huge. We picked him up from the Phoenix Cardinals and they were in the same division as the Eagles back then. He faced Reggie twice a year. There are certain guys who always match up well against other guys and Tootie always matched up well against Reggie. They had battled for years. I remember Tootie had a really good game against Reggie in ‘92 (with the Packers) and a photographer caught on film Tootie “de-cleating” Reggie on a running play.
We put that picture up in our weight room. The next offseason, we’re recruiting Reggie and that picture is up and Kent’s like, “Oh man, I forgot to take down that picture!” Kent felt so bad. Then when we signed Reggie, Kent took the picture down. When Reggie came in for minicamp, he asked Kent, “Hey, remember that picture you had up of me getting de-cleated by Tootie?” Kent, kind of sheepishly embarrassed is like, “Yeah, I remember. I forgot to take it down. When you signed with us, I took it down. I was so embarrassed about that.” Reggie said, “Well, can I have that picture?” Reggie signed it and gave it to Tootie. That’s classy, man. You just don’t see that happen every day.”
Ruettgers talked about how the NFL has changed in the past two decades.
Ruettgers: “It’s a different day for media and a different day for the players. When I got into the league, there was maybe three to five newspapers (covering the Packers). De Pere had a little paper, of course there was the Green Bay Press-Gazette and then Milwaukee had two papers and that was pretty much it. You didn’t have websites; there was the Packer Report.
You had charities that were pulling at guys a little bit. If you weren’t winning, there weren’t a lot of endorsements to be had. The number of football card companies were expanding a bit, but there really wasn’t that much.
Back in my career, you were thrilled to be invited to a charity golf event on a sunny day, nice course, and you were very thankful for the opportunity to give back and represent your team. That was part of the culture 35 years ago. A lot of the guys playing now, you can’t get them at a charity golf event unless you’re paying like $10,000 or more. It’s just crazy, right?
I saw something the other day where Favre was getting kudos for doing this thing now where if you pay money, you can get a celebrity to leave a message on your phone saying “happy birthday” for a few hundred bucks. I’m not saying it’s bad today, it’s just different.
I remember there was a guy who knew somebody who knew somebody else who was Lee Remmel’s assistant who was dying of cancer. He had a wish to have a sit-down soda with a Packer. She asked me, “Hey, would you mind doing this on your way home?” I’m like, “Sure.” It was kind of funny because I just had a really bad game. I gave up a couple of sacks and I was feeling really sorry for myself. It was a Monday after a game, and I had just gotten out of film session. I was going over to the guy’s house and it was snowing outside. I started hydroplaning and I clipped a car and I was pissed. I just felt like the world was against me. Started feeling really sorry for myself. I was like a victim of the universe. I actually didn’t know the guy had cancer. I knocked on his door and I come in to sit down and he’s got a month left, maybe. I’m thinking about what a chump I am. What a contrast, right? This guy’s dying of cancer and I’m probably 25 or 27. You’re bitching about giving up a couple of sacks and clipping a car in the snow, really? It was a real wakeup moment. Come on, man, get into reality.
I’m very grateful for those opportunities. Gosh, I meet Packer fans EVERYWHERE. And they’re wearing the colors and representing loud and proud. You ask them how they became a Packer fan. Maybe their parents or grandparents got them into the Packers or they grew up watching Favre if they’re younger or Bart Starr if they’re older. If they’re really young their favorite player is Aaron Rodgers. It’s just amazing to me.
And yet they call the Cowboys America’s Team.
Ruettgers: “I think that was a blip on the radar. It was something that started with (Tom) Landry and then got going again with Aikman and those guys. Don’t get me wrong, they were phenomenal teams, but when you win the first Super Bowl, have a bunch of lean years in between, but then come back with Favre. … Now, it’s going on 30 years of practically a dynasty going from Favre to Aaron Rodgers.”