Interactive 1961 Topps Green Bay Packers Team Card

Pictured here is an interactive 1961 Topps Green Bay Packers team card. If you hold your cursor over any player, you can see his name and whether he appears on any cards in the gallery. If a player appears on cards of his own, you can click on the player to see them.

Though this is a 1961 card, the image actually shows the 1958 Packers team. I determined this by looking at the 1958 Packers roster at pro-football-reference.com. Each of the jersey numbers on the card matches a player on the roster, and all but one of the players on the roster appear on the card. The only player who appears on the roster but not on the card is number 63, Marv Matuszak, who started the season with the 49ers and joined the Packers in November. (The Packers team on the card went 1-10-1; the real 1961 team went 11-3 and won the NFL Championship!)

One reason I like team cards is that some players appear on them who never appeared on cards of their own. On this card I believe there are six such players: Nate Borden, Hank Bullough, Joe Francis, J.D. Kimmel, Al Romine, and Jim Shanley. It is possible that some of them appeared in obscure sets, such as team issues, with which I am not familiar. Of the six card-less players, I believe Nate Borden, who played eight seasons for the Packers, Cowboys, and Bills, had the longest pro career.

Unfortunately, most team cards don't include the players' names, and it's sometimes tough to tell who's who, especially when you aren't sure when the photo was taken. The only set I can think of that includes the players' names is 1956 Topps--see the Chicago Cardinals team card, for example.

Below is a list of the team members on the card above. Clicking on a team member's name will show you all of his cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

See my blog for bits of trivia about the players on the card. Also see my interactive 1959 Topps New York Giants, 1963 Topps Dallas Cowboys, 1964 Topps Oakland Raiders, and 1967 Philadelphia Cleveland Browns team cards.