Welcome back to Lombardi Ave’s run through the greatest Green Bay Packers players to wear every number from 0 through 99.
The 20s bring a name with real weight right away. Yes, Curly Lambeau is on the list, and yes, he wore No. 20 in 1929, the year Green Bay won its first NFL Championship. But he appeared in only one game that season, so the honor for No. 20 goes elsewhere.
That spotlight lands on Johnny Blood.
Born John Victor McNally Jr. in Wisconsin, Blood adopted the Johnny Blood name as a kid and carried it all the way into the NFL. He spent 14 years in the league and bounced around plenty along the way, playing for the Milwaukee Badgers, the Duluth Eskimos, the Pottsville Maroons and the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he also worked as a player-coach. Still, Green Bay was where he built his legacy.
Blood played seven seasons for the Packers across two stretches, from 1929 to 1933 and again from 1935 to 1936. He wore several numbers in Green Bay - No.
24, No. 14, No.
26, No. 55 and No. 20 - but his best and most historic work came in 1931 after he switched to No. 20.
That season, Blood wasn’t just productive. He was ahead of his time.
While his name might suggest a rugged, physical halfback, he was more of a smooth, explosive playmaker, especially as a receiver. In 1931, he caught 10 touchdown passes, a staggering total for that era.
The scale of it jumps out even more when you look at what came next: the NFL receiving touchdown leader in 1932 was Ray Flaherty of the New York Giants with five, and in 1933 Blood tied with six others for the league lead with three.
No running back in NFL history has matched Blood’s single-season receiving touchdown total. He helped power Green Bay to a third straight title that year, and he added two rushing touchdowns as well. Blood also made his mark on defense, unofficially finishing his career with 38 interceptions, which was more than any other player in league history when he retired after the 1938 season.
His place in football history was sealed long after his playing days. Blood was one of 11 players in the first Pro Football Hall of Fame class in 1963, and he was also part of the Packers Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 1970.
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