Snippets: Alex Karras' great-nephew commits to Illinois, the Cedar Rapids Crush are dredged up again by Green Bay Packers fans

Alex Karras won the Outland Trophy at Iowa in 1957. Over a half-century later, his family tree is still sending players to the Big Ten.

Ted Karras III, an offensive guard from Indianapolis, recently made a verbal commitment to play at Illinois.

He is the seventh member of the extended Karras family who will have played Big Ten football. He is Alex' great-nephew.

"I'm going after his title as the best player in the family," Ted Karras III said. Good luck, kid. Alex was merely a four-time Pro Bowl player with the Detroit Lions before going on to a film/TV career that included a particularly memorable role as Mongo in "Blazing Saddles."

In more news sort of related to the NFL, the Green Bay Packers beat the Indianapolis Colts in a preseason game Thursday night, 59-24.

It was the most points the Packers have scored in the preseason since they laid out the Cedar Rapids Crush in 1938, 75-0. The game was played in Ironwood, Mich., as this site verifies.

That was a dark day for Cedar Rapids, for sure.

The Crush (sometimes called the Crushers) were part of the Northwest Football League, which apparently existed from the mid-1930s until World War II began.

The war clearly broke my beloved Crush's momentum, and undoubtedly cost Cedar Rapids the chance to be the home of an NFL franchise.

Oh, how life could have been different here in Cedar Rapids had the Crush continued its march to a place in the NFL.

It's best to think of something else right now. This is just too heartbreaking.