Don from Torrington, CT
Who was your favorite pro football player when you were a kid? Mine was No. 66, Ray Nitschke.
Mine was No. 22, Bobby Layne. I loved the no-facemask, bloody-nose look. He was a swashbuckling guy. I never saw him run a two-minute drill with the game on the line when his nose wasn’t bleeding and the right sleeve of his white game shirt wasn’t stained with blood. Cliff Christl has told me Lombardi loved Layne, which only makes sense because Lombardi loved Paul Hornung. Lombardi was “Mr. Discipline,” but he was tolerant of outside-the-lines players that had the “it factor,” and Layne and Hornung had it.