Instant Replay

In an ever more modern age, where the latest and greatest video gaming technologies make every attempt to get the player as close to the action as possible, it is refreshing to know that nothing electronic can yet match the true grit and feel of a good novel. If you want to actually get inside the helmet of a player down in the trenches of probably the greatest football team ever built, then Instant Replay by Jerry Kramer and Dick Schapp is a must read. This book is a very well written and edited “diary”, in which Kramer tells his story while Schapp put it to paper, and tells how Kramer endures the 1967 season as an offensive lineman with the then reigning Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers.

The story starts during first few weeks before training camp and carries through the team’s victory in Super Bowl II. One of the remarkable things about the book is its timing. Jerry Kramer and his editor Dick Schapp had no way of knowing at the start of the season that the Green Bay Packers road to a second consecutive Super Bowl crown would be one of the most memorable in all of NFL history. It was the trials and tribulations of this amazing season, told through the eyes of an insightful ten-year veteran of the game, that launched this novel to the top of bestseller charts in 1968. Instant Replay would go on to become one of the most renowned novels on the topic of professional football and a multi-million copy bestseller. Reprinted last fall, the book is once again available at all major booksellers for the football enthusiast. The new version maintains the look and feel of the original, and also includes a new foreword by Jonathan Yardley and over a half-dozen pages of hard to find photographs of the Green Bay Packers from those early glory years.

Jerry Kramer’s articulate, sometimes witty, and always real prose makes this book an easy and enjoyable read. As opposed to novels written by professional athletes more recently, Instant Replay is not a self-serving promotional tool aimed at stirring up ticket sales or garnering a better contract. Instead, this book is simply all about the game and the world that revolves around it, including Kramer’s ordeal as a veteran lineman intent on playing a game of strategy against his younger, faster defensive opponents . His rare and insightful views of legendary Coach Vince Lombardi, Hall of Fame quarterback Bart Starr, and other key Green Bay players are simply additional gems captured within the pages of this book. For connoisseurs of the game of football, this novel is definitely required reading. Luckily, the Average Joe will also find plenty here to keep the pages turning in what is overall a very satisfying book.

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