About Erik Kramer

Kramer signed with the Atlanta Falcons as an undrafted free agent in 1987, appearing in three games that season. In the last of those against the LA Rams, he set four franchise rookie records with 27 completions on 46 attempts for 335 yards and three touchdowns. 

In 1990, after a year and a half in the Canadian Football League, Kramer called every NFL team but only received a call back from the Detroit Lions. Eventually making that roster, Erik took over for injured starter Rodney Peete, in 1991 and helped guide the Lions to a 12-4 record and an appearance in the NFC Championship Game. Early that season, Kramer earned the nickname, “Brass”, a term given to him by the offensive linemen. The moniker originated after Kramer called an audible from a run to a pass which resulted in a touchdown on his first series as the Lions’ quarterback. Walking on the team bus following the game, one O-LIneman shouted from the back for “Brass” to come sit back there. Kramer proved to be quite successful as a signal-caller in 1991 and the nickname stuck. He shared QB duties with Peete and Andre Ware. In the 1991 playoffs, he led the team to a 38–6 drubbing of the Dallas Cowboys, on a franchise postseason record 29 completions for 341 yards and three touchdowns. To date, that is still the Detroit Lions’ one playoff win since 1957. He remains the franchise leader in postseason completions (50), attempts (71), yards (590), and sacks (5) in a single season.

Combined with a loss in the 1993 postseason, he holds the career franchise postseason records for touchdowns (5 with Tobin Rote), passer rating (99.2), sacks (9), and yards per attempt (8.2) as well.

In 1994, he signed as a free agent with the Chicago Bears, and spent the next five years there. In his two full seasons as a starter (1995 and 1997), Kramer was highly productive and passed for over 3,000 yards in each. Kramer currently holds the Bears’ single-season record for passing yards (3,838) and touchdown passes (29) and attempts in a single game with 60 on November 16, 1997. 

Kramer signed with the San Diego Chargers in the 1999 offseason, but retired midseason due to a neck injury. Though he also missed much of the 1996 Bears’ season with a neck injury, the two injuries were unrelated.

Kramer finished his 11 NFL seasons with 1,317 completions for 15,337 yards and 92 touchdowns, with 79 interceptions. He also rushed for 217 rushing yards and 5 touchdowns.

In March of 2001, Erik, former Bears TE Ryan Wetnight, and Erik’s former Pierce Jr College coach, Jim Fenwick started working privately with middle and high school QBs and receivers. Eventually, in 2005 Kramer formed the Erik Kramer Passing Camp (EKPC). By 2007, Erik partnered up with former Bears receiver Curtis Conway & Jim Fenwick to run a Sunday Passing Camp. It was a 2-hour long practice. For the first 45 minutes, Erik worked on drill progressions with the QBs…and C-Way did the same with the receivers. The next 15 minutes were dedicated to running routes on air. Then for the last hour, Jim, who still was coaching, would have some LBs and DBs players to come and we’d run 1 on 1 and 7 on 7 periods. One of the dads would video tape it. Wednesday evenings were classroom video sessions where we installed some basic West Coast Passing Game plays, reviewed video of the previous Sunday’s practice, and analyzed NFL games running the same plays reading the same coverages. 

Unfortunately, upon Erik’s son Griffen’s tragic and unexpected passing in late October 2011, the camp ended. 

Now, after several years and much healing, Kramer just wrapped up EKPC 2022. This past May, we worked with mostly current 8th grade football players that will be entering high schools in the fall. Saturday, June 18, 2022 was our last on-field training session. 

The goal now is to prepare for the upcoming high school offseason by forming relationships with the area’s high school and jr College coaches. I’m looking to secure more coaches with similar playing and coaching backgrounds as mine. I’m looking to work with those who’ve played at an elite level but have now turned their focus to sharing what they’ve learned with the developing players of tomorrow.