Roger Zatkoff, starter on Lions 1957 championship team, dies at age 90
Roger Zatkoff, a starter on the Detroit Lions’ 1957 championship team, has died at the age of 90.
The Detroit Lions last won a championship in 1957, when they defeated the Cleveland Browns to win the NFL Championship. Last week, according to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, one of the oldest living members of that team passed way. Roger Zatkoff was 90 years old.
A native of Hamtramck, Michigan, Zatkoff was a standout linebacker at the University of Michigan before being selected by the Green Bay Packers in the fifth round of the 1953 NFL Draft. He played his first four NFL seasons in Green Bay, earning three Pro Bowl nods before he was traded to the Lions.
Or, as Birkett wrote, Zatkoff “engineered” a trade to the Lions.
Roger Zatkoff went to the commissioner to make sure he got to play for the Lions
"Initially traded from the Packers to the Cleveland Browns after the 1956 season, Zatkoff balked at reporting to Cleveland. The Browns traded him to the Los Angeles Rams, but Zatkoff asked then-NFL commissioner Bert Bell to nix the deal and help him get to Detroit.I said I can’t play here in L.A.” Zatkoff recalled at a reunion of the 1957 team held by the Free Press four years ago. “I said I got a wife and three kids and she’s 8 1/2 months pregnant and I’m not putting her on an airplane. They said put her on a train. I said, no, I’m not even gonna call her.So anyway, it ended up that I got ahold of Burt Bell and talked and reviewed this whole thing with Burt Bell, and Burt told Paul Brown, who in turn told me to sit tight for 24 to 48 hours, he would see what he could do. Then he got with Detroit, apparently, and he canceled the trade from Cleveland to L.A., and then he arranged a trade — this is Burt Bell — he arranged a trade from Cleveland to Detroit, which I came in, in ’57, and we go on to beat Cleveland for the championship. It couldn’t have been better.”"
Zatkoff played 24 games over two seasons with the Lions, then he retired after the 1958 season at 27 years old. He went on to have a successful business career, operating a manufacturing supply company based in the Detroit area.
