Packers fans may have been too angry at the guy to notice, but back when John Elway won his first Super Bowl, the Denver Broncos quarterback made a revealing admission.
He’d been a big, fat liar.
For years, Elway had promised the media, Broncos fans, his family, his mirror or anyone who’d listen that he’d be just fine if he never won a Super Bowl. Really and truly, he would.
Sure, Elway hated losing the Big Game – three, to be exact, before breaking through against the Packers – but all of his other accomplishments would speak to what a great player he was. He didn’t need a ring to justify them.
Then, when he finally got the ring that justified everything, he came out of the hypocrisy closet.
“I knew it wouldn’t be complete,” Elway confessed after becoming a Super Bowl champ, as recounted in 1998 by then-Sports Illustrated writer Rick Reilly.
And why do you care? Why in the name of helicopter tackles, on the day after one of Green Bay’s best wins in recent memory, am I mentioning one of the franchise’s worst moments?
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| Aaron Rodgers. Photo courtesy Packers.com. |
It’s not to pour salt in old Packer wounds, I promise, but to pour sugar on Aaron Rodgers. Because while watching Rodgers navigate the aftermath of Sunday’s Green Bay playoff win over Philadelphia, I couldn’t help but think of Elway, a guy who cared far more than he let on.
The underlying narrative of Rodgers’ career is that whatever he does is never enough. Blame a modern media microscope, a fervent Packers fan base or his fate of following in Brett Favre’s footsteps. But despite accomplishing more in his first few years as a starter than almost any NFL quarterback in history, it always comes back to what he hasn’t done yet.
And chief among the things he hadn’t yet done was win a playoff game.
So naturally, one of the first questions after his first playoff win was about getting the monkey of his back. Rodgers patiently smiled for the FOX camera and promised that he never even felt the monkey. Sure, Aaron. Just like Elway was complete without that Super Bowl.
Later, in his postgame press conference, he answered another query about that first playoff win with typical, team-first tact. “Well, in all my time being a football fan, I’ve never seen one player win a game all by himself, so it’s a good team win for us. I’ll let you guys write what you want on that,” he said. And yes, he was still smiling.
But Packers coach Mike McCarthy didn’t even bother with a smirk. When somebody asked about Rodgers reaching a milestone, McCarthy reacted as if they’d nominated Favre as QB coach.
“Milestone?!? We don’t look at it that way,” McCarthy said. “I don’t understand why we have to talk about that today….”
Truth be told, they shouldn’t have to talk about it much longer, if at all. Winning a playoff game on the heels of this injury-riddled season, including a pair of concussions suffered by Rodgers himself, should silence the QB’s critics for a while. At least until they start complaining that he hasn’t won a Super Bowl yet. Or that he’s dating the wrong Gossip Girl.
But it’s clear how much this win mattered. You could see it in the extra oomph of Rodgers’ celebratory fist-pumping, in his extra-wide grins, and in the extra dose of McCarthy’s righteous indignation.
They are on the right path. And yes, they passed a milestone, even as their gaze is focused much farther up the road. Someday, they believe, they’ll get there, just like Elway did.
See, the Broncos QB had to pretend he was fine with his legacy up until the point when he really was fine with it. Only then could he turly come clean.
And as Rodgers pretends to ignore the circus of criticism around him, he inches closer to the day when he can tell the doubters, once and for all, where they can stick it. Until then, he’ll just keep saying the right things, and do so with a smile.
NUTSHELLS
– Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar got the Baseball Hall of Fame call they’d been waiting a lifetime for, and both are worthy inductees. But the big side story remains what to do with baseball’s black sheep: whether those who used performance-enhancing drugs deserve a spot in the Hall of Fame.
I’ve never understood the logic put forth by so many people who advocate that the drug issue be ignored. How can you keep some of the cheaters out, they argue, if you can’t be sure of every last player who cheated?
Which is exactly like saying that you don’t jail one thief because you can’t catch them all.
If it’s known that somebody used performance-enhancing drugs to artificially inflate his accomplishments, then it’s more than fair to call those accomplishments into question. And the Hall of Fame isn’t a place for questionable accomplishments, but for certainty. It’s where you put the best players in baseball history, bar none. And when you’re the best, you don’t have to cheat.
There’s right and wrong. Cheating is wrong, and so is rewarding it. Why is there any argument at all?
–They’ll declare a college football national champion tonight, continuing to perpetuate the biggest sports myth this side of Rosie Ruiz.
Yes, tonight’s winner earns a place in the sport’s history, and Oregon or Auburn fans will celebrate that fact. But to say conclusively that either team is the best is an exercise in self-delusion.
You’re not a real champ until everyone with a bona-fide claim to say the same thing is legitimately eliminated from the conversation. And the BCS monopoly that rules college football makes that impossible. It will stay that way so long as the sport is without an inclusive playoff and undefeated teams like TCU lurk in the background.
People can say that Oregon or Auburn would wipe the floor with TCU, just like they said Wisconsin would wipe the floor with TCU. But until there’s on-field proof of a TCU loss, it’s all just opinion, and the lesson of the Rose Bowl is that opinion is quite fallible.
TCU, I’m sure, would love the chance to test that theory against Oregon or Auburn. I’m not so sure Oregon or Auburn share the sentiment.
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