Acme Packing Company
A bunch of veteran players who are better known for long careers elsewhere were part of the Packers’ Super Bowl XXXI squad.
In 2017, football analytics savant Aaron Schatz put on his historian hat for an interesting piece in ESPN. The creator of metrics like DVOA and DYAR went back into the archives to find players who had “hidden Super Bowl rings,” a term he coined to describe when a player is on a title-winning team for a brief, forgettable period in their careers.
Schatz’ prime example is Bernie Kosar, the long-time Cleveland Browns quarterback. Kosar had a falling-out with Browns head coach Bill Belichick and landed with the Dallas Cowboys midway through the 1993 campaign. The Cowboys, with Kosar helping to back up Troy Aikman, won Super Bowl XXVII, earning Kosar his first and only ring.
That got me to thinking about players who either earned a hidden ring as a member of the Green Bay Packers as well as those who spent long or memorable stints in Green Bay but who won rings elsewhere.
Today we will look at the first category, which describes several members of the 1996 Super Bowl-winning team nicely. Many of these names are well-known by Packers fans who remember that season, but may come as a surprise to NFL fans who know these players from their much longer tenures elsewhere.
Contrasting with the 1996 team, the 2010 Packers won Super Bowl XLV with a roster made up almost entirely of homegrown talents and a few select free agent signings from years prior who spent long, productive portions of their career in Green Bay (namely, Charles Woodson and Ryan Pickett). Ron Wolf, however, wasn’t afraid to take a chance acquire the occasional veteran for a brief mercenary spell and many of those players helped the Packers win Super Bowl XXXI.
The speedy receiver finally got a ring as a Packer in Super Bowl XXXI after being a member of the Buffalo Bills’ legendary team that lost four straight appearances. Beebe spent one year with the Carolina Panthers in 1995 in between his tenures in Buffalo and Green Bay.
After 11 years and two Pro Bowl seasons with the Seattle Seahawks, the Packers acquired Robinson in a trade during the summer of 1996 for backup defensive end Matt LaBounty in an extremely lopsided trade.
While LaBounty spent the next six years as a backup and occasional spot starter in Seattle, Robinson proved to be the perfect free safety to pair with All-Pro LeRoy Butler. He intercepted a total of eight passes in 1996, including a pair in the Divisional Playoff win over the 49ers, and helped the team make the Super Bowl in both of his seasons in green and gold. Robinson signed with the Panthers as an unrestricted free agent in 1998 and made the Super Bowl for a third straight season while adding another Pro Bowl to his career totals, then eventually retired after 2000.
