Packers Alumni Spotlight: Ken Ellis

Wayne Larrivee sits down with former Green Bay Packers cornerback Ken Ellis to talk about his swap from offense to defense (:58), the 1972 team's playoff run (3:12), and having the longest return of a blocked field goal in team history (4:41).

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
For more than a century, the Green Bay Packers have
been a benchmark for football excellence. Thousands of players have
helped pave the way, and we're here to tell you
their stories. I'm Wayne Laravie. This is the Packers alumni
spot White ken Ellis was a fourth round draft pick

(00:25):
in nineteen seventy by the Packers out of Southern University.
It came to Green Bay as a wide receiver and
punt returner, but it didn't take long for defensive minded
head coach Phil Benkston to move him over to cornerback
on a club still loaded with Lombardy vets.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
There was Willie Wood, Bob Jetter, Doug Hart in the secondary.
Those three four guys that I remember whale and they
kids took me under their wings. In fact, I recall
the first two weeks of training camp. Green Made drafted
me by the way as a wide receiver, and the

(01:06):
first two weeks of training camp that's what that's where
I was at on the offensive side of the ball.
And I remember being called in the coach Bankston's office
and he basically set me down and said, you know,
you're doing a good job on offense, and but you
know you're gonna probably make the team. And if you
stay on offense, you gonna back up Carroll Dale. But
we need you on defense. If you moved the defense,
you got an opportunity to start. So I said, well,

(01:29):
move me, coach, i'm'a I I wanna play. And as
as you recall that herb Adam was still with the
club at that time, but they traded him to Dallas
and the drafted on another court defensive back, Al Matthews
that year to take out of this spot. But Al
was in the All side camp. He and Mike McCoy
were playing in the All Side game, and during that

(01:51):
two weeks of of training camp, I got, you know,
the opportunity to to move the defense and ended up starting.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Talented quarterback Willie Buchanan came along in nineteen seventy two
and paired with Kenny to form one of the best
cornerback duos in team history. Together, they intercepted eight passes
that year.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
We accepted Willie for who he was. We knew the
talent that he had. He was a first round pick.
Course back then, as rookies, you know, you got kind
of hounded by the veterans. You know, you had to
sing doing training camp and meals and stuff like that.
But Willie was a little different, and he let his
play on the field talk for him, and we saw

(02:36):
the talent that he had and we accepted him right away.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
When you guys were playing, it was pretty much what
man the man coverage right back there.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yes it was, And I mean man, the man bumping
run back then was bumping run. It's not just what
they're playing today. You could bump the guy all over
the field as long as the ball was in the air.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Wow, it was a different game, wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
It was definitely a different guy. In fact, I remember
when you were playing against the Rams, and I can't
remember the receiver's name, but he was complaining all day
on refie holding me, and I just kept mass shut
him and play ball.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
The nineteen seventy two season was the team's first postseason
since the Bombardi era. Now, many on that team believed
they had the stuff to go all the way. Remember
that was the year the Dolphins went undefeated. The Packers
lost to George Allen and is over the Hill game
in Washington in the playoffs.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
As I think back about that game and about that year,
that was the year that Miami went undefeated and they
beat Washington in the Super Bowl. I remember the last
game that Miami lost that year was in the preseason game.
And when we played them, we beat them in Miami
in the preseason that year.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
And that's not preseason like today. That's preseason where your
starters played most of the way right, most of the
you know, so you played them, see not many people
know that the last game they actually lost, last game
of the accident, and that was in Miami, in Miami.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
In the preseason. Yes. Wow, And that's why we figured
if we could get by Washington, we could go to
the Super Bowl. We had a good chance to winning
that game.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Did that game kind of give you guys the belief that, hey,
we could do something here?

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yes it did. We knew what we had defensively, and
we knew what we had offensively. But we knew we
had a great football team, We had great players, and
we were just given a chance to jail together another
year we could do something really great.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
You were also special teams play maker. The field goal
attempt to return at one hundred yards for a touchdown
in nineteen seventy one still ranks longest return of a
missed field goal, block field goal, missed field goal, you
returned one hundred yards. That's the longest in team history
to this day. Do you remember that play? Was it

(05:01):
something that stands out for you? Yes?

Speaker 2 (05:03):
I remember it, And I don't know what we had,
if we had a return called or not, but I
just know that I was back at the goal line
and the ball was short, and I feeled it and
I started down the right side of the sideline and
I saw that it had a wall set up, and
I just got behind that wall and right under the
yards for a touchdown.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Wow. And what a tremendously exciting play.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yes, it was.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
Tell me about your defensive backs room, because I know
the football teams are broke broken down into position groups.
You become close to the people usually in your position group.
Tell me about yours. The secondary of that Packers team
in that.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Era, myself and Willoughby Cannon on the corners of Al
Matthew and Jim Hill at the safest Charlie Hall was.
We had a close knit group of guys and we
kind of macof Lane used to call us the rat pack,
a little rat packed, a little rat back there, but
we enjoyed playing for one another and playing with one another,
and we got a real out of being the last

(06:02):
line of defense, to know that if we kept everything
in front of us, we didn't our guys get behind us,
that we had a chance to do something great with
our offensive line rush that we had in our linebackers.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Ellis recorded twenty career interceptions with Green Bay and was
inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
But as I look back on it, I feel blessed
to have been drafted by Green Bay. And I say
that because I came from a small town in Southeast
Georgia city by the name of Woodbine, Georgia. I went
to a small high school there. I went to a
small school in HBCU at Southern University. And coming to
Green Bay, like I said, it was a blessing for

(06:46):
me because I feel like had I started out in
a city like New York or LA or some a
bigger city, I would have gotten lost in the shuffle.
Coming here to Green Bay was like home for me.
Although I must admit I didn't always like Green Bay
for two reasons. They were always winning and it was
cold up here. I didn't like cold weather then and

(07:10):
I still don't like cold weather. But I fell in
love with green Bay because of again, the atmosphere, the fans.
It was like being at home, you know. As a team,
we did a lot of things together. I remember on
our off days we had Bob Brown was our chef.
He would always cook up meals for us and we

(07:32):
would get together as a team, so we hung out
together after practice. We would go to the local bars
and have beers together and things of that nature. So
green Bay was the right place and the right fit
for me.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Got a great trivia question for you. Try this at
your next cocktail party. Who was the last team to
beat the Miami Dolphins in nineteen seventy two. The answer
the Packers in the preseasonard of Miami's perfect campaign. Now,
players from that Packers team have told me they actually

(08:06):
matched up really well with the Dolphins that season, So
who's to say they couldn't have done it again, maybe
in the Super Bowl that year.