Getting Tired of Home Shutouts

Tubing in Titletown, Photo by Adam Wesley, USA Today

The Packers played their final home game on Saturday night, and got shut out by the Vikings, 16-0.  Since the Packers suffered two shutout losses in Lambeau Field this year, maybe we should consider the fact that this is the last home game to be a blessing of sorts.  By the time we next see the Packers in Lambeau Field, (1) Aaron Rodgers and numerous others will be back from injured reserve; (2) the Packers will have another chance to do something about their defense; and (3) we are likely to have seen some changes in the coaching staff.  I will have more to say about coaching changes in my year-end post in a week or two.

In the meantime, since there are no more games, this would be a great time to check out the tubing hill in the Titletown District, which opened this past week.  I would check it out myself if I lived nearby.

As far as the game is concerned, I did not see a lot to like in the Packers' performance.  I also wasn't too impressed with the Vikings.  They scored 10 points in the first quarter, and then could only manage another 6 points for the rest of the game.  They did not, to me, seem like a team likely to go rolling through the playoffs, and then play and win the Super Bowl in their own stadium.  Especially if they have to play a game outdoors, I don't see them winning that game. In light of last night's game, the Eagles now have the number one seed, so if the Vikings are to advance, it will have to be by going through Philly, unless the Eagles get knocked off in their first game.  The Eagles didn't look too great, either, so that could quite possibly happen.

But the vulnerability of the Vikings makes the Packers' performance all the more disappointing.  The Packers had exactly one promising drive in the game, late in the second quarter, which ended on a terrible interception by Hundley in the red zone.  Every time Hundley threw a ball over 10 yards, it seemed like it was either too short, or, more frequently, too long.  Unlike the Goldilocks tale, none of them were "just right."  Well, technically he did complete several passes over 10 yards, but the impression this viewer had was that every time he threw a longer pass, I just knew the pass would be incomplete. 

That would be hard to take if Hundley were a first year player, but at least in that context you could wait for better play from him in the future.  In this case, he has been McCarthy's backup, "the guy" for three years now, and McCarthy has repeatedly vouched for him.  So how can he be as mediocre as he seems to be? 

Back in the first couple of weeks that Hundley was playing, I thought people were jumping all over him way too fast.  Give the kid a chance to settle in, and all.  But despite having won 3 of the 9 games he played in, I don't know how you can avoid the conclusion that Brett Hundley just isn't good enough to be the Packers' backup, at least if the goal is to keep them winning enough games to get to the playoffs.  Now, I think it is quite reasonable to conclude that McCarthy's faith in Hundley is misguided, which raises questions about whether he will be able to develop a better backup for Rodgers for next season.

Indeed, it really calls into question McCarthy's judgment and his reputation as a quarterback whisperer.  Whereas Mike Holmgren and Ron Wolf prepared backup after backup, and several of them went on to become starters in the league (Matt Hasselback, Mark Brunell, Ty Detmer, Doug Pedersen), the same cannot be said about Mike McCarthy, unless you give him credit for bringing along Aaron Rodgers after he was drafted to replace Brett Favre.  I guess you could count Matt Flynn, but when he got his chance to be a starter, he was beaten out by rookie Russell Wilson.  And to make matters worse, they put the more promising backup candidate, Taysom Hill, on the practice squad, where he was signed away by the Saints.  I know, that was a calculated risk, but in hindsight, why not keep Hill and get rid of Joe Callahan, if they don't have enough confidence in Callahan to run him out there in a game where Hundley is doing nothing?

At any rate, while the Packers have plenty of problems on defense, and that needs to be addressed for next season as well, the defense wasn't really the problem Saturday night.  They held the sometimes high-scoring Vikings to 16 points.  That ought to be good enough to give the Packers a chance to win, but as it happened, they had no chance at all with the Brett Hundley-led offense.  It is going to be a long-than-usual offseason for Packers fans, and a very interesting one, as well.

Happy New Year!

Great Win Over The Cowboys

Last Sunday's Packer victory against the Cowboys (even though I did not predict it) represented about two-thirds of what I hoped for and expected from the Packers this year. A dominant, aggressive defense controlling the game, combined with a special teams unit at least good enough not to cause problems for the team. The third that was not quite there was of course the offense. I was looking for an offense powerful enough to grind it out whenever that is needed, with a combination of the running game and the short passing game, and explosive enough to put the fear of the big play in the mind of the opposing defense.

When the defense comes within a garbage-time touchdown of shutting out a team like the Cowboys, that is news. I have complained, several times this year, about the "play-it-safe" defensive strategy. I wanted to see more aggressiveness, putting the opposing quarterback back on his heels, not knowing where the next rush is coming from. Now, obviously, every time you devote more players to rushing the quarterback, you take the chance of giving up a big play. And yet, in the Vikings games in particular, the opposite philosophy led to the quarterback being way too comfortable in the pocket, and able to pick the Packers to pieces. So I was very anxious to see the Packers put more pressure on, and that is exactly what they did on Sunday.

Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com says it all: "Capers Brings the Heat." I'm glad somebody at ESPN keeps track of these stats, so the rest of us don't have to: in the first 8 games, the Packers devoted 5 or more players to rushing the QB on 40.6% of the snaps. On Sunday: 51.3%. The result was what one would hope for: the Packers sacked Romo 5 times, more than three times their average per game of 1.6. Now let's face it, the Cowboys didn't play very well on offense. But there is no doubt in my mind that the Packers' defense helped to bring about that result. Romo, at this point qualifying as a veteran quarterback, looked confused and harassed all throughout the game. Charles Woodson, of course, had an amazing game, and was rewarded by being named NFC Defensive Player of the week. What with the two forced fumbles, the interception, and the sack, this is probably the sort of game Woodson was thinking of when he said, after the first Vikings loss, that the Packers have a lot of tools in the bag that they were not using.

In the lead-up to the 49ers game this week, the local SF Bay Area media are focusing, more than on any other thing, on the connection between Aaron Rodgers and 49er quarterback Alex Smith, going back to draft day in 2005. (For example, here: "49ers' Alex Smith, Packers' Aaron Rodgers Forever Linked.") My wife heard the same basic story line on KGO radio, which used to carry the 49er games. The consensus seems to be that Rodgers was lucky to be Favre's understudy for three years. By contrast, Smith was the starter for half of 2005 and 2007, all of 2006, none of 2008, and then half of this year. This is the first regular-season meeting of the two quarterbacks, although they both played in a stinker of a game in San Francisco last year (written up here).

There is a lot of history in this match-up of the Packers and 49ers, most of it in the Brett Favre era. A lot of coaching connections, too, going back to the time when the Packers hired Mike Holmgren off of the 49ers staff, and including the 49ers hiring ex-Packer assistant Steve Mariucci, and even including the Packers hiring Mike McCarthy away from the 49ers, after he was one of those at the 49ers who decided not to draft Aaron Rodgers. Brett Favre had an uncanny mastery over the 49ers, playing 11 games, and losing only in the "Terrell Owens game." This will be Aaron Rodgers first chance (in a game that counts) to show that he can keep it going.

Fire Mike McCarthy?

"Shameful" says the Packer Report. "Ugly from any Angle" is how it was described in the Journal-Sentinel. The Press-Gazette calls it the low point in Mike McCarthy's career. Mike McCarthy himself says, "It doesn't feel good. This one definitely hurt. I'm disappointed in the way we played. We have some recurring problems that we have not cleaned up yet." These are just a few of the reactions to the Packers' loss to the previously winless Buccaneers last Sunday, a game that featured 6 more sacks for Aaron Rodgers, and three unanswered touchdowns in the 4th quarter by the Buccaneers.

Yes, indeed there are recurring problems. Stupid penalties. Too many sacks. Play-calling that seems to ignore the sack problems, rather than trying to avoid sacks. Poor special teams play. Unbalanced game plans.

Let's just focus on the sacks for a moment. On Monday, Mike McCarthy said, "We don't need wholesale change. We may need to adjust some things and that will be our focus. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I have all the answers, but I'm very confident in the issues that we've had in pass protection, that they are correctable." Would it be inelegant for me to suggest that it is time to start fixing the problem, if it is correctable, rather than talking every week about how the problem is correctable and needs to be cleaned up?

It pains me to say this, because I like Mike McCarthy, but I think he needs to be fired unless the Packers pull together a winning record in the second half of the season. The team as a whole may not be as good as some of us thought it was, and certainly some of the individual players are sub-par, either because of their skill level and/or because of injuries. Some of that reflects on Ted Thompson, some of it reflects on the individual players, and some of it is just bad luck. So Mike McCarthy is by no means the only problem. But when you look at the continuing problems he talks about every week, he bears some responsibility for a lot of them:

• Unbalanced offensive game plans.
• The failure to call plays that minimize the prospects for taking sacks.
• The tendency I have noted to play it safe on defense, rather than to play aggressively.
• Inadequate team discipline, leading to a rash of stupid (and sometimes critically important) penalties.

I do not get the impression that the players are terrified of coming back to the sidelines after committing a stupid penalty, in the way they certainly would have been under, for example, Mike Holmgren.

If there was any doubt that things are getting out of control in Titletown, consider the latest ridiculous story to hit the news. It seems that a 22-year part-time member of the Lambeau Field maintenance crew was fired before the Vikings game after, in one version, calling out to the coach to get the boys ready to "kick some butt" this weekend, or in the other version, saying something along the lines of "don't lay an egg" in the game. Here is a suggestion: if McCarthy and the Packers want to show that they are tough guys, next time a player commits a stupid penalty, kick him out of the game, rather than taking it out on part-time maintenance workers.

Review of the Lions Game

This was one of those weeks where I read about the game before actually seeing most of it.  I was out of town on Sunday, and was really only able to catch about a quarter's worth of the game live in a sports bar in Providence, RI, after it was pretty well in hand.  So when I saw the game last night, I already knew the outcome, as well as the fact that the conventional wisdom was that the Packers had played pretty unimpressively for a team that notched a 26-0 shutout.  I knew that Rodgers had been sacked 5 times (and the Packers lead the league in sacks given up), that penalties against the Packers were out of control, reminiscent of a Raiders game (the Packers are second in the league in penalties), that this shutout was achieved against the Lions, a pretty bad team, and one missing its two biggest name starters, QB Matthew Stafford and WR Calvin Johnson.

Long-time readers will know that the fact that Stafford and Johnson were out gave me no great pleasure in the lead-up to the game.  I have previously written about what I call the Brad Hoover Syndrome (the Packers' incredibly irritating tendency to make back-up players look like hall-of-famers), so if anything, the fact that the Lions would be starting backups at key positions made me nervous.

Having now seen the game, the conventional wisdom is right, in my view.  The penalties, in particular, are ridiculous, and it implicates the coaching staff.  Sure, penalties are part of the game.  You can't eliminate them entirely.  I get all that.  But the problem is, when the head coach says that they are part of the game (as McCarthy did in his Monday press conference), I am afraid that the message that comes through to the players is that it is not good, but hey, it is not that bad either.  Wouldn't it be better for the player to be afraid to come back to the sideline after committing a penalty, as Leroy Butler says he was when playing for Mike Holmgren?

I saw some improvement in some areas.  I noticed a few more roll-outs, screen passes and pump fakes, all of which would help deal with the pass rush, given the problems on the offensive line.  Speaking of screen passes, shouldn't the Packers be great at screen passes, since they seem to let the rushers through even when they are not trying to do so?  I still saw some instances where Rodgers held on to the ball too long, so that is clearly an area where he needs to continue to improve.  I did like his presence of mind to throw the long ball on an obvious offsides call in the first drive, resulting in the long TD to James Jones.  

There has also been a lot of talk about letting Aaron Kampman be a pass rusher again, with his hand in the dirt, as the announcers were so fond of saying on Sunday.  Well, he got a few more chances to rush the passer, with favorable results.  So maybe the coaches are paying at least some attention to the criticism out there.  

Where do we go from here?  The Packers get one more "exhibition" game against the Browns on Sunday, before the re-match with the Vikings.  In fairness, with the Packers there are no exhibition games, so they should not take the Browns lightly.  My wife pointed out that on local TV in the SF Bay Area last week, they showed a clip of Eagles' coach Andy Reid, talking about the upcoming game with the Raiders.  He said that they know what the Raiders' record is (1-4 at the time), but that they have seen the films and know how explosive they can be.  At this point they cut back to the sports guys, laughing at their desk, saying they don't know what films he is watching.  The Raiders, of course, went on to beat the Eagles, 13-9.  The Packers should take a lesson from this.

Mike Holmgren, 1-2 in Super Bowls

There are basically two ways a Packer fan can react to the fact that Mike Holmgren took the Seahawks to the Super Bowl this year. Some Packer fans I know take a generous attitude, and wish him well. They say, Mike Holmgren was a great coach for the Packers. He left Green Bay for his own reasons, and while many of them would have preferred it if he stayed, they harbor no ill will toward him. Therefore, these fans were happy for Holmgren to take the Seahawks to the Super Bowl, and they were rooting for the Seahawks today. They were also rooting for Holmgren to become the first head coach ever to win the Super Bowl with two different teams.

Then there are those with a more vindictive point of view. They too believe that Holmgren was a great coach for the Packers, but they can never forgive him for abandoning the Packers at a time when they had much more talent than they do right now, which led (at least arguably) to some wasted years and wasted chances for the Packers. While the more generous fan might say that Holmgren left so that he could satisfy his desire to try his hand at running the whole show, the more vindictive fan would say that he left the Packers to fuel his personal ego and ambition, at the expense of the team he had built with Ron Wolf.

Me? I am a vindictive SoB. I had no mixed feelings about rooting for the Steelers today. Oh, I like Matt Hasselbeck as a player, and he has improved to the point where he is one of the better quarterbacks in the league. And I am a fan of Shaun Alexander, and think he is a real star. But everything else had me pulling for the Steelers. The Steelers are an old-time NFL team with a long and glorious history, even though they were switched to the AFC at the time of the NFL-AFL merger. Pittsburgh, like Cleveland and Green Bay, represent (at least in my mind) the "regular Joes" of football fans, people who care about the tradition and history of the game. People who show up in good weather and bad. Seattle, like San Francisco and Los Angeles (when they had a team) have fans that (again, to me) are closer to the "fair weather fan" mentality. Certainly in San Francisco this is true.

The 49ers didn't even sell out their stadium when we moved to the San Francisco area in 1980. And most 49er fans seem to think that the NFL must have been founded around 1981, when the 49ers started winning.

Plus, the Steelers had a coach who was hired at the same time as the Packers hired Mike Holmgren, but who had the loyalty to stick with his team even in years when they were not at the top of the league, and who was not driven by personal ambition in the same way Mike Holmgren was. So, without any hesitation, I salute the Pittsburgh Steelers tonight, and offer congratulations to Bill Cowher, Ben Roethlisberger, Hines Ward, Jerome Bettis, Willie Parker, and the rest of the Steelers.

Reggie White, R.I.P.

Going into the Friday game, we had the Packers' pathetic historical record in the dome, pointing in one direction, and the Vikings' traditional late-season collapse, pointing in the other. Most Packer fans, including me, were probably pretty pessimistic about the chances for the Packers.

Lots of bad things happened during the game. The Packers' defense could not stop the Vikings all day long. Favre threw his traditional interception as a Christmas gift to the Vikings, although this one was caused more by a tremendous leaping grab by Claiborne than by an error by Favre. But, to make matters worse, this interception took place in the fourth quarter, with the score tied. To make matters worse still, this interception was returned for the go-ahead touchdown.

Not content to let this one slip away, Favre guided the Packers on a 5 minute, 13-play drive, which ended when Favre threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Driver on 4th down. The score was tied, with over 3 minutes left to play. Still, the way the defense had been playing all season, it would have been no shock for the defense to let the Vikings drive downfield for the winning score. But for once, the defense rose to the occasion, with the help of a couple of penalties on the Vikings, and forced a punt.

The Packers had the ball, at their own 13 yard line, with 1:35 to go and 2 timeouts. That deep in their own territory, on the road, would they play for the tie and take the game into overtime? Not without taking some carefully controlled shots at some yardage first. The Packers proceeded to mount another long drive, with 12 plays, leading to the game-winning field goal as time expired.

Ryan Longwell deserves a lot of credit. This is the fourth time in the last seven weeks he has kicked game-winning field goals in the final seconds of a game. He is certainly not perfect (longer kickoffs would be nice), but he is as dependable as any kicker in the league in this kind of situation. And Mike Sherman deserves a lot of credit, too. Quietly, almost without anyone noticing, he has built a 7-3 record against the Vikings, including a 3-2 record at the dome. When you consider that Mike Holmgren's record against the Vikings was 5-9, and 1-6 in the dome, Sherman's accomplishment in turning around that futility is significant and welcome. As a result, the Packers won the division for the third year in a row, and will have their home game in the first round of the playoffs. All was well in the world of the Green and Gold.

Until Sunday morning. That is when the shocking news came of Reggie White's death, at the age of 43. The day Reggie White signed with the Packers is probably etched in the minds of many of us. Living in the San Francisco area, I can remember very well the smug assumption in these parts that Reggie would sign with the 49ers. After all, they were the "classiest organization in all of sports" (as 49er fans and media types were fond of telling us) and they had been at or near the top since 1981. Why wouldn't someone like Reggie want to jump on board? I remember being asked by a 49er fan that day, "Did we get Reggie White?" Which allowed me to use the punch line of the old joke, "What you mean WE, kemosabe?"

None of us will soon forget the sight of Reggie White taking a victory lap around the Super Dome after Super Bowl XXXI, with the Lombardi trophy held high for all to see. My family will never forget his graciousness in posing for a picture with us, at the San Francisco hotel restaurant, the night before the NFC Championship game the following year, or the fact that he signed and send back the picture to us after it was developed.

Reggie White was on the receiving end of criticism for some of his politically incorrect remarks off the football field, to some extent deservedly so. Let us not dwell on that now. Nobody who is honest about it will dispute that this was a good man, a proud man of faith, and one who tried to do the right thing in his personal and professional life. He was also a phenomenal football player. The two games that stand out most in my mind were the game against Denver, in 1993 (Reggie's first year with the Packers) when he single-handedly preserved the victory by sacking Elway several times on the pivotal, 4th quarter drive, and of course Super Bowl XXXI, when he did the same thing to Drew Bledsoe late in the game. He left us far too soon, and there is no more fitting tribute to him than the New Testament epigraph that appears at the beginning of the book Reggie wrote with Andrew Thomas:

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

49er Week

The Packers' up and down season continues. After the stirring victory over the Vikings 3 weeks ago, they let one slip away against the Eagles the following Monday night. Then they put on a very impressive show to win against the Buccaneers in Tampa, and now here come the San Francisco 49ers to try to spoil things for them.

Before leaving the Buccaneer game, I just have to comment on two things. That 98.5 yard drive to win the game was one of the sweetest drives seen on a football field in a long time. As one of the TV guys said, if that drive happened in a playoff game, it would be as famous as Elway's "The Drive" against Cleveland years ago. It included what was probably Favre's best pass of the day, on third down from the 1, it included Packer dominance in the running game, and it included Mike Sherman's wonderful decision to go for it on 4th and 1 at the Buccaneers' 16 yard line. When Driver was stopped short of the first down, I hoped that Sherman would go for it, but was afraid he would chicken out, as so many coaches would do in that situation. I think he deserves congratulations for making a tough but great decision.

The other thing is the performance of the running game, but especially that of Najeh Davenport. You don't really expect the backup running back to have that kind of impact on a game, but when Green was out in the 4th quarter, the Packers didn't lose a thing when Davenport came in. In fact, it was probably on Davenport's 27-yard gain as part of the game-winning drive that my wife yelled out "That guy is like a truck!" I suppose you might even say that he is like a dump truck, if you were so inclined. But seriously, I like the way all the runners are playing, and of course lots of credit has to go to the offensive line, who also get credit for keeping that idiot Sapp away from Brett Favre, and for ending the Buccaneers' streak of games with a sack.

Moving on to the 49ers, last year I commented on the fact that the Packers have beaten the 49ers 90 percent of the time (9 out of 10 games) starting with that first playoff game played out here in San Francisco in January of 1996. Normally, this would be cause for a fair amount of confidence in Packer fans about this Sunday's game, except for three problems. First, the Packers' home field advantage seems to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. They have ALREADY lost three games at Lambeau Field this year, never mind that horrible loss in the playoffs in January. Second, there is the little matter of Favre's broken thumb, and the weather forecast for Sunday: cold and rainy. The last time the weather was like that was the Eagles' Monday night game, and that didn't go too well for the Packers.

Third, the 49ers are playing against a backup quarterback on Sunday, Tim Rattay. I have commented on this before, but the Packers have had the weirdest way over the years of making backup quarterbacks look like one-game shoo-ins for the Hall of Fame. You can take any number of examples, but offhand I cannot remember a situation where the Packers played against a backup quarterback, made life miserable for him, and cruised to a victory. (If you can remember one, please email me so I will feel better about the whole deal.) Also, from what I have seen of him in the last two weeks, Rattay has looked pretty good. Last year, at the end of the Packers-49ers game, I thought Jeff Garcia made two critical errors which basically cost the 49ers any real shot at winning the game (and probably cost Mariucci his job, as well). The final mistake was throwing his fourth down pass to the tight end at the Packers' seven yard line. The pass was incomplete, but even if it had been completed, there was almost no chance that it would have resulted in a first down. To me, it was a case of not using the brain power to realize that you had better throw the ball in the end zone in a situation like that, even if the guy in the end zone is covered. From what I have seen, Rattay cannot be counted on to make that kind of stupid mistake, so the Packers need to make sure that the game is not close at the end.

Finally, we learned this week that Bob Harlan has been elected to the Packers' Hall of Fame. This is an honor that is richly deserved. Bob Harlan started the ball rolling that brought Ron Wolf, Mike Holmgren, Brett Favre and Reggie White to Green Bay, and led to one Super Bowl win and another one that got away. He also gets most of the credit for the renovation of Lambeau Field, which, despite the temporary jinx that seems to have caused, was absolutely essential for the long-term health and stability of the Packers. He has my sincere congratulations and thanks.

Unfinished Business

The Packers' offense had a nice little tune-up for the playoffs on Sunday. [Ed. note - the Packers beat the Giants, 34-25.] The offense, at times, looked really sharp, with even the normally-missing-in-action Corey Bradford playing a big part (mostly because Antonio Freeman was held out of the second half with a rib injury). Ahman Green gained over 100 yards, Schroeder and Bradford each had over 100 yards receiving, and Favre had over 300 yards passing, 2 touchdowns, no interceptions, and one sack . . . sort of.

The defense was a little shakier. They gave up a ridiculous number of yards (524), including allowing the longest running play of the year for the Giants, and Ron Dayne's longest run of his NFL career (61 yards). On the other hand, it is hard to get too worked up about this, since for most of the game the Packers had the game pretty well in hand, and to that extent a lot of the yards were of the bend-but-don't-break variety. It looks like Gilbert Brown will be back for the playoffs, and man, oh man, is his presence needed to stop the running game.

Even the special teams were productive. Dorsey Levens had the longest kickoff return of the year for the Packers (and his longest career kickoff return) in the first half, only to have an even longer one at the start of the second half. Not much punt return yardage for the Packers, but at least Freeman caught the ball this week instead of letting it bounce right by him as he did last week.

Now, as for the sack. For over 57 minutes, the Packers did not give up a sack, despite the fact that Michael Strahan's pursuit of the sack record was about all the Giants had to play for. In the closing minutes of the game, Favre kept the ball on a naked bootleg to the right side, Bubba Franks whiffed on a block, and Favre flopped to the ground right before Strahan (gently) jumped on him for the sack. The whole thing looked like a dive to me, even watching it the first time live. Then when FOX showed a replay of Favre and Strahan chatting before the play, well, let's just put it this way . . . you don't have to believe in a second gunman on the grassy knoll in order to understand that this sack was a setup. I am not getting all worked up about it, but I do think it cheapens the record.

And this brings us to: the Packers and the 49ers, in the playoffs. According to Brett Favre, Steve Mariucci called him, earlier in the season, to wish him a happy birthday. Mariucci said that he would see Favre in the playoffs in San Francisco. Favre replied that they would see each other in Green Bay for the playoffs. It has seemed likely for a couple of weeks now that it would come down to this. And it is really fitting, too, given that the Packers started their run to greatness in the 1990's when they came out here to San Francisco after the 1995 season and knocked off the defending champion 49ers. They beat the 49ers in the playoffs three years in a row, before finally getting beaten by the 49ers after the 1998 season, on the famous Terrell Owens catch (which I will see about 100 times on the San Francisco TV stations this week).

That catch left a really bad taste in my mouth, as my family and I rushed out of 3Com Park that day as the scene there started to get ugly. That day was the end of the road for Mike Holmgren and Fritz Shurmur as Packer coaches, it was Reggie White's last game as a Packer, it was the last game announced by Jim Irwin and Max McGee, and it was the last time the Packers were in the playoffs, until this Sunday. This time, the game will be in Green Bay, and we will just have to wait and see if the Packers' record of never having lost a playoff game in Wisconsin remains intact. I like the Packers' chances.

Anyway, how is this for a pipe dream? Packers beat the 49ers in Green Bay this week, and the Bucs beat the Eagles. The following week, Green Bay goes to Chicago and wins, while the Bucs knock off the Rams in St. Louis, as they did earlier this year. The following week, the NFC Championship game is Tampa Bay at Green Bay. OK, I will grant you that it is improbable, but it could happen.

End of a Season, Not an Era

Let's get it out of the way right at the start. Yes, it was a fumble. Yes, it was a bad call. So what? I have always considered it poor form to sit around and complain about bad calls. I have described the fans of other teams as "whiners" for sitting around complaining about bad calls. I'm going to try real hard not to do it myself, and I urge other Packer fans not to do so, either.

Now, the question whether instant replay should be brought back is a different matter. I am in favor of that, and have always been in favor of that. Not having instant replay review available is just crazy. The fans want it, the media wants it, the players want it, and maybe now even the team owners will recognize that it is required. People have always said that "one of these days" a bad call is going to cost some team a playoff game. It is very arguable that it happened twice this past weekend. If you agree with this, do something about it. Write to the League, or call the League. The address is:

National Football League
280 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Phone: (212) 450-2000
FAX: (212) 681-7575

Or sign the "cyber-petition" at http://www.fans4replay.com. Or do all of the above. But don't just sit around whining about bad calls.

As for the game, I went with my family, as we always do when the Packers are in town. But the atmosphere was different this time. There seemed to be far fewer Packer fans in attendance than there were for the last two playoff games here. Was it the weather, wreaking havoc with the plans of people who thought they would just fly out for the weekend? Was it the fact that a lot of the Wisconsin and ex-Wisconsin sports dollars had already been committed for trips to the Rose Bowl before this game became a certainty? I don't know, but the difference was noticeable.

The crowd was revved up to a feverish pitch throughout the game, much more like what I expect at Lambeau Field than like what I have come to expect at 3Com Park. I think there are two reasons for this. In the last two games, the Packers jumped out to a big lead, or were in control of the game from fairly early on. This really did take the crowd out of the game, whereas Sunday's game was both thrilling and close at all times. In addition, the dislike of the Packers by the 49er fans has grown exponentially since that first playoff game 3 years ago. This has gotten to be just like our "Dallas" and the crowd reacted just like Packer fans must have last year when Dallas came to Green Bay.

On the way into the stadium, we were taunted by some drunk, who informed us that the Packers are not going to the Super Bowl this year. I told him that neither of these teams are going to the Super Bowl this year. I believed it then, and I still believe it. These were two good, not great, teams fighting it out in what turned out to be a great game in all respects except for the final score. But neither team has what it takes to go to the Super Bowl. As a matter of fact, it is that belief that has allowed me to take this loss a little easier than the loss in the Super Bowl last year. It took me two months to sit down to write about that game, whereas I am writing about this one two days after the fact. I still have not watched the tape of the Super Bowl, but I am working my way through the tape of this game.

This just was not the Packers' year. That began to dawn on us at the time of the Minnesota and Detroit losses in Weeks 5 and 6. At least in my case, I deluded myself with the thought that the Packers would put it together later on in the season, as they worked through their injury problems. I also told myself that the Vikings would do their usual collapse. That didn't happen, either.

It was an unfortunate end to the season, but it is not the end of an era, even if Mike Holmgren leaves, and even if the Packers lose more of their players to free agency. This team still has Brett Favre as its quarterback, and as long as it does, it will be a contender, much as Denver has hung around with Elway for many years. Favre needs to play smarter, Ron Wolf needs to fill some holes, and he may need to find new coaches as things look right now. But I am confident that this team is not finished. As a matter of fact, I think the Packers have a better shot to be back in the playoffs next year than the 49ers, given the 49ers' age and salary cap problems.

Packers Lose to Oakland Raiders?

The questions in the Freeman family in the last couple of days have been "Are the Raiders that much better? Or are the Packers that much worse?" We went to a couple of Raider games last year, including the Packer pre-season game, and believe me, this was one bad team. They had no heart whatsoever, and with the exception of a couple of games, they just seemed to quit when they would get behind in a game. Losing to the 1997 Raiders would definitely not be taken as a good sign.

Well, it is beginning to look as if the Raiders are a much improved team. Jon Gruden may actually do some good things for this team, at least until Al Davis starts to meddle with him. So maybe it isn't quite so horrible to lose to the Raiders as one might expect.

Seriously, I am not too concerned about this loss, for a couple of reasons. In the first place, any time the offense spots the other team 17 points on turnovers, it can be a bit difficult to catch up. A pass bounces off of my namesake's hands, and is returned for a touchdown. TWO fumbles on the center-quarterback exchange. Interceptions like that just happen once in a while, and fumbled snaps are not going to happen very often in the regular season, because one way or the other, the QB and the center will at least be used to working with one another.

The other thing is something I have heard out here, even from Raider fans. The idea is that you have some teams, like Green Bay, and San Francisco, and Denver, who know what they are doing, are very good teams, and have continuity with the team from last year. They would like to win the pre-season game, but they are more interested in seeing how their players perform, and they don't really care. And then there are teams like the Raiders, who were awful last year despite a lot of talent, and who have a new coach, new coordinators, and really desperately want to win the game to make a statement. In other words, I guess, "they wanted it more." I don't completely buy this idea, but I suppose that there is something to it.

Now if you carry out the "they wanted it more" theory to the next game, you would predict that the Packers will beat the Broncos next Monday night in Mile High Stadium, basically because they have a score to settle. Certainly, Mike Holmgren will be all over the team this week because of the poor performance against the Raiders, and they should not need a lot of extra motivation to take things out on the Broncos. And if the Packers really are a better team than they showed in the Super Bowl in January, then with all of these factors working, they should win the game.

OK. Write it down. The Packers will beat the Broncos, and we will all feel a lot better.