My friends, THE GURU is ready for football with Atlanta’s Dirty Birds (0-2, 0-1 road) visiting Green Bay (1-1, 0-0 home) in a Thursday night matchup that smells like a rout.
No, not a roux, HONG KONG MIKE, a rout. R-O-U-T. Settle down, big fella.
Of course, these teams are far from rivals, playing infrequently since Atlanta joined the National Football League in 1966 with the league expanding to 15 franchises1. Their first meeting? A Week Seven contest in that inaugural Falcons’ campaign, though it wasn’t really a game at all.
To summarize: Vince Lombardi & Co. won 56-3 with everyone but the coach himself reaching the end zone. In all, eight Packers scored touchdowns, doing so in almost every way imaginable: three rushes, two passes, two interception returns and, for good measure, a fourth-quarter punt return. For its part, Atlanta threw four picks and its QBs were sacked eight times.
Green Bay - eventual winner of the 1966 NFL title in the famed “Ice Bowl” game against Dallas - improved to 6-1 with Atlanta falling to 0-7 under head coach Norb Hecker, who was actually an assistant coach under Lombardi from 1959-65.
When Hecker took the Falcons gig, I can imagine the conversation with his old boss went swimmingly.
NORB: “Nice working with ya, Vince. A real pleasure. Take it easy on me when we meet up in October, eh?”
VINCE: “Norb, we’ll stomp on your heart and spill your guts all over County Stadium, but I promise not to go after any members of your immediate family.”
NORB: “Thanks, Vince. That’s tough but fair.”
Bouncing back, Hecker and the Falcons got their first win three weeks later against the hapless Giants, dropping New York to 1-8-1 and prompting this look from our old pal BROTHER BLUENIK, who displayed the same face this past week when Jaxson Dart said farewell to the 2026 campaign.
Let’s return to Falcons-Packers where conversation often turns to the 1992 trade of QB Brett Favre from Atlanta to Green Bay, a move that played a major role in the Pack’s resurgence. Indeed, many stories have been written about the deal, with some pinning the trade on Ken Herock, the Falcons’ VP of player personnel, and others blaming Jerry Glanville, the team’s coach2.
Most football fans know plenty about Glanville - the bombastic, Elvis-worshipping frontman who led the Oilers (1985-89) and Falcons (1990-93) as part of a 20-year NFL coaching career3. But only true pigskin people know about Herock, a former player turned longtime exec with the Falcons, Bucs and Raiders. And that’s a shame.
A native of Munhall, Pa., Herock starred at West Virginia University and then spent six years as an American Football League tight end with Oakland, Cincinnati and the Boston Patriots, where he likely endeared himself to a young newspaper delivery boy named CORKY.
From there, it was on to the personnel life for the next three decades with the Raiders (1970-75), Bucs (1976-83), Raiders again (1984-86), Falcons (1987-96), Raiders for a third time (1997-98) and then the Packers (1999-2001), reuniting with Favre.
Three tenures with Al Davis? Well, the word is the Oakland cafeteria served a hearty raccoon stew, reminding Herock of his West Va. roots. And I’ll bet the roux base was sublime.
In all, it was quite the successful football life for Herock as he reached the WVU Hall of Fame, won Super Bowl XI as a Raiders personnel exec and helped take expansion Tampa to the NFC Championship game within three years of formation.
Not bad for a kid from Munhall, eh?
As for tonight, I’m going with the Pack. Call it 33-15 as the Falcons thank their lucky stars that Lombardi isn’t around to take Kevin Stefanski & Co. to the woodshed. Catch all the action at 8:15 pm ET on Amazon Prime with Al Michaels, Kirk Herbstreit and Kaylee Hartung.
One last note: the Week Two record was 9-7 (.563), moving the season mark to 21-11 (.656).
That’s all for tonight, folks. Enjoy the game and God bless!
Green Bay holds a 19-17 series lead.
My take: it was Glanville that effectively pushed the QB out of Atlanta. By many accounts, he didn’t love Favre and it’s hard to imagine the GM that picked him, Herock, moving on from a guy he liked so quickly without having his hand forced.
Believe it or not, Glanville is still coaching, employed as defensive coordinator for the San Antonio Toros of something called the Continental Football League, which plays in the summer.