COLORADO SPRINGS http://www.packerslockerroom.com/authen … ins-jersey , Colo. (AP) — Forrest Gregg, the great Hall of Fame lineman for the mighty Green Bay Packers of the 1960s that Vince Lombardi called the “finest player I ever coached,” died Friday at age 85.Barbara Gregg said her husband of 59 years died in Colorado Springs from complications of Parkinson’s disease.“I lost my sweetheart this morning,” she said. “It’s awful. He died in my arms.”She said that in the last two weeks her husband received a constant flow of calls from former teammates and players telling him he’d made such a big difference in their lives.“I’m overwhelmed at the amount of people that loved Forrest, of the number of players that said he made men out of them,” she said. “Forrest loved people. He loved everybody. He loved his children. He loved me. And it just broke my heart. My heart is broken.”She said the funeral will be sometime next week in Colorado Springs and open to the public.Other survivors include their son, Forrest Gregg Jr., of Cincinnati, and daughter, Karen Gregg-Spehar, of Santa Fe, New Mexico.Hall of Fame president David Baker described Gregg, who was enshrined in 1977, as a “giant” who “exemplified greatness during a legendary career.”“He was the type of player who led by example and, in doing so, raised the level of play of all those around him Womens Nick Perry Jersey ,” Baker said. “Forrest symbolized many great traits and virtues that can be learned from this game to inspire people from all walks of life.”The flag at the hall will be flown at half-staff in Gregg’s honor.Gregg, who earned the nickname “Iron Man” for playing in a then-record 188 consecutive games during his career, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in October 2011. He quickly embarked on a campaign to raise public awareness about the incurable disease, urging others to seek treatment early enough to delay the degenerative effects on both the mind and body.His family and his neurologist said the disease may have been related to numerous concussions he suffered during his playing career in the 1950s at SMU, and from 1956-71 with the Packers and Dallas Cowboys.Gregg never blamed football for his health ailments, however. He refused to join concussion lawsuits against the NFL and said he still would have chosen to play the sport if he’d known there would be a hefty price to pay later in life.In an interview with The Associated Press in 2013, Gregg said he didn’t begrudge those who sued the league, but he had his pensions from his playing and coaching days, and “I don’t need anything from anybody but what I earned.”A guard and tackle, Gregg is one of four NFL players to win a-half dozen NFL championships, including the first two Super Bowls with the Packers. Gregg finished his career with another Super Bowl title with the Cowboys in 1971. The six-time All-Pro and nine-time Pro Bowler was elected to the NFL’s all-decade team of the 1960s and to its 75th anniversary team.He went on to coach in the NFL for 11 years with the Browns (1975-77), Bengals (1980-83) and Packers (1984-87).Bengals president Mike Brown on Friday recalled his good friend as one who got the best out of his players.“He was demanding. The players didn’t try to cut corners,” Brown said in a statement. “They went out and did what they had to do, and what we were doing worked. We were somewhat ahead of the curve at the time.”Packers coach Matt LeFleur tweeted a famous photo of a mud-caked Gregg and wrote, “I’d like to extend my deepest sympathies to the family of a true Packers legend, Forrest Gregg. This picture has been hanging in my home office for the last 10 years and serves as a great reminder of what a tough competitor Forrest was.”After playing 15 NFL seasons Dean Lowry Jersey White , Gregg won 75 games as an NFL head coach and guided the Bengals to their first Super Bowl during the 1981 season, when they lost 26-21 to Joe Montana and the San Francisco 49ers.Yet, “the finest bunch of players I was ever around,” Gregg told The AP in 2013, “were the courageous kids at SMU” that went just 3-19 from 1989-90.Gregg was hired at his alma mater to restore integrity to an SMU program that was handed the “death penalty” in the mid-1980s for paying players. They went 2-9 in 1989 upon their return and 1-10 the next year, after which Gregg became SMU’s athletic director.“That was one of the most enjoyable times of my football life,” Gregg told The AP. “Those kids restored dignity to the Hilltop.”Going public with his Parkinson’s diagnosis to promote understanding of the disease that affects more than 1 million Americans, “was probably helpful a little bit,” said Dr. Rajeev Kumar of the Rocky Mountain Movement Disorders Center and the Parkinson’s expert who diagnosed Gregg in 2011. “It’s always good when somebody who’s known and respected lends their weight to the importance of research and education.”Gregg suffered countless concussions during his college and pro seasons, and Kumar said those may very well have been the trigger to Parkinson’s, although there’s no way to know for sure.Gregg continued to cast a dignified, larger-than-life presence even as the disease took its toll, stooping his once granite shoulders and turning his booming baritone into a halting whisper over the last few years.In his last interview with The AP he said he hardly recognized the NFL anymore because it was so different from the sport he played and coached. Despite that, his love for the game endured.He lauded commissioner Roger Goodell for making safety a priority and praised the league for enhancing its concussion protocol and cracking down on illegal hits to the head, measures he prayed would lead to less suffering as today’s players age. GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Protect the football and it should fix everything.That seems to be the viewpoint of Mike McCarthy http://www.packerslockerroom.com/authen … yan-jersey , whose Green Bay Packers have a variety of issues that have led to a 2-2-1 start.“The big part of that game is focusing on the things we can control,” McCarthy said Monday, one day after his team lost at Detroit, 31-23, after digging itself a 24-0 hole. “We have to take care of the football.”The Packers turned over the ball three times Sunday. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers lost a pair of fumbles and the ball glanced off cornerback Kevin King while he was blocking on a first-quarter punt.Green Bay didn’t force any turnovers defensively, and through five games, the Packers are minus-2 in turnover differential, having lost it eight times (six fumbles, two interceptions) while taking away the ball six times (two fumbles, four interceptions).McCarthy said he believes turnovers contributed to his team losing the field position battle; he had the Packers at minus-300 in terms of hidden yardage.While he admitted that veteran kicker Mason Crosby’s five misses — four field-goal attempts and one extra point — also factored into Sunday’s loss, McCarthy said the Packers’ struggles went deeper than the 13 points those misses left on the field.“The common thread there is the turnovers, which obviously that rolls into the field position,” McCarthy said, pointing out that Green Bay outgained Detroit 521 yards to 264. “Obviously we missed some field goals and so forth. (But) the fact of the matter is, I was very pleased with how we moved the football.”In three of their games this season, the Packers have trailed by double digits: 20-0 early in the third quarter against Chicago Womens Oren Burks Jersey , 28-10 at halftime at Washington, and 24-0 at halftime Sunday.Rodgers took much of the blame publicly after the game, acknowledging, “I’ve got to play better in the first half.”“It’s frustrating. We’ve been kind of a one-half team: one good half and one not-so-good half,” said Rodgers, who finished the game completing 32 of 52 passes for 442 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions (108.0 passer rating). “I was a little off. I missed a couple I usually hit. We missed some opportunities there.“(It was) definitely a disjointed game — not punting, putting up a lot of offense and not winning the game.”The offense hasn’t been the only side of the ball that’s been disjointed.Against Washington, for example, Green Bay gave up 323 yards in the first half, and only 63 in the second. Against the Lions, the defense allowed 160 of 264 yards and 24 of their 31 points in the first half.“We need to put a whole full game together,” safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix said Monday. “Making more plays, finishing tackles, making this defense better. If we can critique ourselves and figure out what we can do better as individuals, I think we’ll be better as a whole.“As DBs, the one thing we want to do is catch interceptions Brett Favre Jersey , and capitalize on the opportunities we get. This is a long season. We’ve got to take advantage of our opportunities when we get them, and when they come, they come in bunches. We just have to make plays when the time comes.”The Packers also have struggled with penalties, committing 12 for 112 against Detroit. For the season, Green Bay has committed 43 penalties for 413 yards; the Packers’ opponents have been flagged only 30 times for 262 yards.“Whether it’s a slow start, fast finish, loose in the middle, it’s all irrelevant because if you don’t take care of the football, there’s going to be other negative statistics that come off of that,” McCarthy said. “This is not a getting-close-enough type of sport. We get that. We didn’t win the game.“It’s part of the challenge in the early season. We have to get a little more detailed. The penalties were another negative. But taking care of the football and the penalties was a huge part of our not reaching the goal we set out to accomplish.”