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| Photo courtesy Packers.com. |
I’d like to tell you the Green Bay Packers are going to the Super Bowl. I’d also like to tell you which stocks to pick, which lottery numbers to play and why Hyundai execs ever approved that goofy holiday commercial.
But the unfortunate truth is, I can’t tell you any of those things, and nobody else can either. Probably not even those Hyundai execs, who may have just dipped into the eggnog early.
You’d think by this point we’d at least have an educated guess about the Packers’ Super Bowl chances. Whether those odds were good, whether they had no shot. Something.
After all, the Packers just finished up a 16-game season at 10-6, made the playoffs despite an injury gauntlet that Frodo Baggins couldn’t run, and remain a popular pick to reach the NFC title game.
And yet, I still don’t know what to make of them. At various times, I’ve thought they were great, disappointing, dangerous and disastrous. And that was just in the second half of the playoff-clinching win over Chicago.
Honestly, it’s something of a minor miracle that Green Bay even made it to the postseason. They were left for dead twice this season, first when their injuries looked insurmountable after a 3-3 start, then once more after their 7-3 loss to Detroit made a playoff berth seem nearly impossible.
But one week after the Detroit loss put Green Bay on life support, the Packers caught the exact breaks they needed when the Giants and Tampa suffered improbable losses. Given new life, Green Bay didn’t waste it, and clutch wins against the Giants and Chicago put the Packers in the playoffs.
Given everything the Packers have been through, I think that alone makes the season a successful one. Not that the Packers will be satisfied. And not that Packers fans are ever satisfied, at least not until they win another Super Bowl, and even then only for a month or six.
So yeah, the Packers will try making the most of this. They’ll want to get Aaron Rodgers his first playoff win, if for no other reason than to finally silence the province of Packer Nation that still thinks he can’t win a big game. (You know, like those two he just won.) They’ll realize they’re just a four-game winning streak shy of glory.
Moreover, plenty of very smart football minds in America expect plenty of good things from the Packers. Some outside of America, too. And when you hear analysts like ESPN’s Merrill Hoge explain why the Packers have a great chance to beat Michael Vick and Philadelphia (via Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, scroll down to No. 8), it reinforces the arguments for optimism.
The Packers are that exalted “team nobody wants to play.” Their defense, one season after being a liability, has become the unexpected backbone of the team. They’ve proven they can play with the best – a 3-point loss to top-seeded Atlanta, a 4-point loss to top-seeded New England (which won its final eight games by an average of 21.75 points, and five of those wins came against playoff teams.) And Green Bay nearly beat Brady’s boys with backup quarterback Matt Flynn.
But you cannot ignore the glaring inconsistencies in this Packers team. They are summed up in code words like Detroit and Dan Connolly. The offense is dominant, and then disappears. The running game cannot succeed just because throngs of Packers fans scream Kuuuuhhhhnnnn in unison, especially when Green Bay can’t host a playoff game.
So what does it all mean? I have no idea. They could win the Lombardi Trophy or lose at Philly, and neither outcome would surprise me.
I just know it will be worth watching.
Unlike a certain commercial.
NUTSHELLS
– I wonder – not out of snarkiness, but genuine curiosity – who Brett Favre fans will root for now that their hero has limped off into the sunset.
His final poignant season had an equally poignant end. Favre’s last NFL play culminated with him face down, motionless and unconscious on the field. His last NFL game was spent watching helpless from the sideline. He cut a surprisingly sympathetic figure, albeit one who had made his own bed.
As neither a lifelong fan nor fervent foe of Favre, I couldn’t help thinking it was a shame that these would be the final images of him as a player. The ending could’ve been so much happier – celebrated by Packers fans a few years ago or by Vikings fans a few months ago. But at least Favre sounded at peace with himself when the final curtain fell.
“I know it’s time. And that’s OK,” he said before making a point to thank both Packers and Vikings fans Sunday.
But I wonder if the Favre fans – those who abandoned their loyalty to the Packers and sided with Favre in the divorce – are equally at peace. The reason most people root for teams and not players is because the teams are still around long after the players are gone. So when your loyalty is to a lone player, what do you root for when that player no longer plays? Stay with the Vikings? Go back to the Packers? Find an entirely new love?
I threw the question out to the Twitterverse. Responses ranged from angry – “They don’t deserve to be able to root for the Packers” – to joking – “John Deere,” “Wrangler jeans pick-up game,” and “whatever network he ends up at” – to thoughtful. “I’d guess the Favre fans will scatter wildly throughout the fan universe, as they have little else in common,” wrote @winecellarofwi.
But I heard from no Favre fans. Maybe very few follow me. Or maybe they don’t yet know the answer themselves.
– No doubt a lot of Wisconsin Badgers fans, most of whom expected a cakewalk against TCU, are still wondering how the Rose Bowl could’ve gone so wrong. The answer may be so simple that it was simply overlooked.
TCU is darn good.
Wisconsin was darn good, too, and that’s why it was such a tight game. But the Horned Frogs proved again what the BCS overlords try so hard to keep secret. You don’t have to play in a really good conference to be a really good team.
As for the Badgers, they’ll see this as a missed opportunity. But in the big picture, it’s a small blemish on what was a seminal season. The 2010 season re-established Wisconsin as one of the Big Ten’s elite programs. A two-point loss can’t erase that.
Feel free to follow me on Twitter, where I tweet as howiemag. And tune in every Tuesday morning at 6:30 when I join Doug Russell and Mike Wickett on SportsRadio 1250 AM for Tuesdays with Howie.
