Bryce Paup, Mike Douglass maybe? You're right, this hard while also trying expel both nostalgia and recency bias.

This a great job! Well Done! I agree with your selections. The only Change/addition or honorable mention that I would make is OG Gale Gillingham to possibly replace Fuzzy Thurston. Fuzzy was a great Packer but I think that Gillingham was a more talented player. He was also bigger and faster than Fuzzy.

On the RB group I think we would need to include John Brockington. During his time with the Packers he was a force to be reckoned with.

Among the receivers Boyd Dowler deserves at least an honorable mention. He had great hands and made many great plays for the Packers over the years.
I realize that Boyd played in an era where the game was dominated by the running game and that was particularly true for the Lombardi Packers. Dowler was fast for his era but his height and great hands made him a reliable and favorite target for Starr on those great championship teams of the 60s.

Bottom line is that this all time team just shows how fortunate we have been to be Packers fans over the last 6+ decades. Hopefully this new era of Packer football will add more names to this already impressive roster. Thanks, Since '61

I would exclude Finley. The offense exploded after he wasn't playing.

Add John Brockington.

I get Crosby but why not a mention of Chris Jackie? Also Collins was great but I still like Leroy better.

Tough choices. Really tough. I would put Gillingham & Skoranski in the OL. Especially, Gilly IMO the best guard in the history of the team.

Every all-time team needs a fullback, so we need to find a way to make room for Clarke Hinkle and William Henderson.

Hinkle did it all: FB, LB, P, K (but apparently not too accurate), and KR; these two and three-way players really earned their money, didn't they?

Henderson was a player most of us saw in action, a very solid pro. He was competent, durable, and is a team HOFer; and made first team All-Pro in 2004. Also good for many important receiving first downs throughout his career.

Great article Wendell!

I agree with the other contributors on Gale Gillingham. He is possibly the most talented lineman in team history and should be in the HOF. (However, he won't make it. Too many Packers from that era in the Hall). Also, I don't think you can leave Ron Kramer off of the TE list. He defined the position in the early sixties and was an absolute beast.

Should do an all time favorite player 53 man roster. They don't even need to be all time great. An example would be at safety, Chuck Cecil. He's not an all time great, but he sure was all time favorite.

Wendell you left out the head coach which obviously should be Vince Lombardi.
Holmgren could be the OC. Bengsten the DC. Thanks, Since ‘61

Neither Finley nor Franks deserve to be on the roster
Gillingham is maybe the top guard
Ted Hendricks is a top OLB (despite just one season)
Needs John Brockington
Kenny Clark is better than Raji OR Brown

Todays athlete's are better.
See Rodman vs Larry Bird comments.
Rodgers should be #1.
He's still playing.
And I don't know how Reggie white, or any other name
on the Lambeau field facing; isn't rated in 1- 10.
I get your personal Feelings. But burn it.

I look at that picture at the top of the article and I think, "Damn, look how neat and orderly everyone is sitting..." LOL.

Lots of good players there and I saw all the guys who played after 1960. Wasn't Tony Canadeo a pretty good player for us at RB? He did make the HOF and we retired his number. You'd think he'd make the squad.

I particularly liked that AJ Hawk was included. This is a guy who never missed practice or games, was on some real good teams, including the Super Bowl winners of 2010. His deal was reworked for the benefit of the team a couple of times. He's our all-time leading tackler. And so many people on Packer fan boards trashed this guy, because in their subjective opinion, "he's just not that good". And yet here he is, on our all-time 53 man squad.

After Nitschke, we had kind of a shaky situation at ILB for a while. About two decades or so. When Wolf showed up, we went with guys like Holland, Noble, and Koonce, who were all upgrades. Bernardo Harris showed up and started for 5 years , during which time he got about 5 splash plays and 5 sacks. He was released following Favre's playoff meltdown against the Rams, part of Mike Sherman's plan to "make our defense faster", which is apparently the lesson Sherman took away from this, and that's why it happened again in 2002, 2003, and 2004.

After Bernardo, we had Hardly Worthanickelson for a year, and then we took Barnett. Hawk was actually drafted as an OLB, and transitioned to ILB when we switched to 3-4 in 2009.

Nice work, Wendell. That was a fun read.

I'm with 57 on the addition of Clarke Hinkle; the guy laid out Nagurski! Another back we can't forget is Tony Canadeo (he played D and special teams, too, for 11 seasons) - second Packer to have his number retired.

TEs, I'd give a nod to Marv Fleming because he is/was Marv Fleming. His seven seasons in Green Bay eclipse Finley's imho.

Darren Sharper? There aren't any rapists on my "all-time-53-man-dream-roster." Bobby Dillon is a Pro Football Hall of Famer, and not a rapist. Lombardi referred to him as the best defensive back in all of football when he came to coach Green Bay. He takes Sharper's spot.

If I was a head coach, it would be no problem to deal with the QB room:
- regular season starter - Aaron Rodgers,
- playoff starter - Bart Starr,
- Brett Favre, gunslinger takes over when things aren't going the planned way during the game.

Assuming this kind of shuffling is good for the players which obviously couldn't work. But this whole thing is for fun and so is my idea. There is no other franchise to have a trio half that good.

Top of my head Travis Williams, Gale Gillingham... And Brockington.

Bobby Dillon (8 seasons with the Pack) absolutely one of the all-time greats. Ron Kramer might be the best TE in Packer history. Gale Gillingham also one of the best linemen to wear the "G". Tough to keep the lists short for the greatest franchise in sports:)

Since no one on this board saw the Packers in the 20's, 30's and 40's it is hard to find players from those decades in the 'greatest' teams.

I realize the names are placed by jersey number but as a 6- decades fan, I was taken aback by that order.

I nearly gagged when I saw David B. name ahead of Forrest Gregg. Some guy(snicker) named Vince Lombardi said Gregg was the greatest player he'd ever seen. I know it's listed by number, but Gregg not being ahead of David B. is tough to see.

Not listed in the tight ends was Marv Fleming. Jermichael Finley was a good tight end, but Marv Fleming was better. He could block AND catch passes. Check out another 60's tight end named Ron Kramer. He might surprise you.

Donald Driver should always be second to Don Hutson, but Driver deserves all the accolades.

I would have preferred to have the players ranked not by jersey number but by ability and performance.

Great teams need a great coach. Lombardi with Lambeau a close second.

Fred Carr at LB over John Anderson, Nick Barnett, and AJ Hawk. Carr was way, way more impactful than those three -- including a ton of blocked kicks on special teams, and he made three Pro Bowls plus the Packers All-Modern Era (1976) and All-Century (1999) teams.

Sharper can’t be on this list. Automatic DQ.

I’ll add, no to Nick Barnett, just because he wasn’t good enough. Making tackles after the play has already been won by the opposition doesn’t count.

I’d take Mike Douglass over Barnett any day.

Great list, and a great many additions in the comments! So... what's the 16-man dream practice squad?

Fun discussion—
IMO—Gillingham is the the most obvious oversight—
Fred Carr
Boyd Dowler
Ron Kramer —he was Ditka before Ditka
Bob Jeter
John Brockington
Go Packers!!!

Antonio Freeman is going to have to be on the team instead of Jennings. Freeman led the league in receiving yards in 1998, was awesome from 96-98 seasons racking up 35 tds in that span, was huge in the playoffs, and had two 100 yard games in Super Bowls

How did Clark get left off the list behind Brown or Raji???

Talk about all time top talent, no wonder the Packers have the most NFL Championships ever (and the only team to win 3 in a row twice which few ever mention). I would have added Billy Howton, if you look at his numbers even though on poor teams he deserves a spot, few realize that when he retired he had the most NFL receptions ever (Raymond Berry broke that record later). In addition Bobby Dillon from that same era deserves a spot, he finally got to the Hall Of Fame after a long wait. But the biggest omission was Gayle Gillingham, note the following from the Packers first Historian;

Former Packers public relations director Lee Remmel wrote in a 1976 game program that some team insiders considered Gillingham to be "the finest guard ever to play the game." Bob Schnelker, who spent 27 years in the NFL as an assistant coach, was among them. "Gale was the best guard I've ever been around," he said. Bart Starr agreed. "He'll go down as one of the great guards in history," Starr said in 1975. Almost 30 years later, Starr hadn't changed his mind. "When you combine (Gillingham's) size and athleticism, he was unique," Starr said in 2003.

Got to include Gale Gillingham, John Brockington and Fred Carr. Tough choices all the way around. Great article.

Kenny Clark should most definitely be on the dt list. I also think Micah Hyde should be a honorable mention at safety. He wasn't better than any of the other guys, but he was definitely a really good player.

Where's the Rock?!

Marco Rivera and Mike wahle should be on here. That early 2000s offensive line was incredible