A Magical Day at the Old Ballpark

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — For the first time since the "Terrell Owens game" in San Francisco after the 1998 season, all four members of my family attended a playoff game together last Saturday, along with our friends Myles and Jordan Abbott. We met our friends Dick Karth and Cathie Sunday after the game and went to dinner together. We could have had an even bigger reunion, since my brother Bruce was also in the crowd, although we unfortunately were not able to figure that out until too late. I credit my daughter Sarah for pushing hard for us all to go to this game. We had originally planned to go as a family to the Minnesota game in November, but the trip fell through at the last minute. When that happened, she insisted that, since we had to cancel that trip, we simply must go to a home playoff game if the Packers got that far. I also credit my wife Judy and my son Ben for resolving some tricky schedule problems to make sure we could all go to what turned out to be a vividly memorable experience.

I have been to a home playoff game that was cold - I almost said too cold, but of course there is no such thing for a Packer fan (NFC Championship game vs. Carolina) and to a game that was too warm (SF @ GB, after the 2001 season) and to the only two home playoff games that ended in defeat for the Packers (Atlanta, after the 2002 season, and Minnesota, after the 2004 season). But every time I go to a home playoff game, I dream of a game like Saturday's game. Light snow, getting heavier and heavier during parts of the game, until the field is covered. Snow, accumulating on top of the hats of the fans and the coaches; snow causing players to slide 5 or 10 yards when tackled. Snow, just light enough to make it possible to see the action on the field, but just heavy enough to affect everything and everyone in the stadium.

It was magical out there. The beauty of the snow falling against the dark sky. It brought back memories of snow falling when we were kids. It is remarkable that watching some of the best athletes in the world playing for their playoff lives can evoke memories of childhood games in the snow, but that was the unique thing about this game.

There were great story lines, too. The fact that the Packers could come back from their 14 point deficit and win the game convincingly. The remarkable story of Ryan Grant's redemption, in that the coach didn't bench him after his fumbles, but instead believed in him enough to stick with him and to allow him to set Packer playoff records for rushing yards and touchdowns in a game. It just doesn't get any better, and this game will be unforgettable to anyone who was there (and to many who were not).

Of course, the forecast did not call for this much snow, so when it started to snow lightly hours before the game, we decided it was time to head for the stadium. By game time, the weather was foreboding enough to cancel the flyover by the Navy pilots, which was disappointing not only because the flyover is such a great event, but because we had met the parents of one of the pilots at our hotel, who had flown in for the game and for the chance to see their son fly.

Still, expectations were high as kickoff approached. And then - those two critical turnovers by Ryan Grant, leading to a quick 14 points for the Seahawks. Could anyone in the crowd be blamed for thinking that things would only go downhill from there? Think, in particular, of that St. Louis playoff game after the 2001 season. It is all too common for a team in a hole to keep digging deeper and deeper. And (as he admitted in his press conference) Brett Favre has a history of trying to get it all back at once. Thankfully, QB coach Tom Clements came over to remind Favre that there was plenty of time left, and not to try to do it all immediately. From that moment on, the Packers just dominated this game, and won the game without difficulty.

Flying home Sunday evening was also part of the Green Bay experience. I of course know that there are a lot of Packer fans in the San Francisco area, because we used to see them in sports bars, and they buy up lots of tickets whenever the Packers play either the 49ers or the Raiders. But I was still surprised by the number of Packer fans on our plane flying out of Chicago. The Giants-Cowboys game had just started when we took off, so I had made arrangements for people to leave us phone messages with the final result. To our pleasant surprise, the pilot gave us several updates on the game. There were only two problems. First, at least part of the crew was from Chicago. Could the pilot be a Bears fan, just toying with the Packer fans on board, or were we just paranoid? And second, at one point he reported that the Giants were ahead, 27-17, but then later he came on to announce that the Giants had won, 21-17. Obviously, something was wrong with at least one of those scores, but we didn't know what.

When the pilot announced that final score, a huge cheer went up from the passengers. The guy across from me immediately started making plans to come back for this week's NFC Championship game, which got me to thinking that maybe I should do the same. The NFC Championship game is a very special game, and it doesn't come around very often. When you stop to think of the fact that the Packers have only hosted one other NFC Championship game since the end of the Lombardi era 40 years ago, you realize how historic this game Sunday will be, win or lose.

The Giants are playing some great football right now, having beaten the Buccaneers and the Cowboys, and having given the Patriots a run for their money in the final game of the regular season. So they are not pushovers by any means. This is actually the 6th NFC or NFL Championship game between these two teams, and the Packers lead the series, 4-1. Included among these championship games is the 1961 matchup, the very first NFL Championship game held in Green Bay, in which the Packers clobbered the Giants, 37-0. Can they do it again, or will the upstart Giants pull off another upset on the frozen tundra? My money is on the Packers.

Raider Memories

The last three games went exactly as I expected. Wins against Carolina and Detroit, and (another) unfortunate loss against the Cowboys in Texas. It is easy to make excuses and argue that the Packers will have a better chance, if it comes down to an NFC Championship game at Dallas in January. The Packers were without several starters on defense, Favre was injured in the first half, etc. Now the absence of Charles Woodson and KGB really was a big deal, so that can't be discounted. But the reality is, the score was 27-10 by the time Aaron Rodgers took his first snap, so I don't think Favre's injury was a big factor in this game. In fact, after Favre was hurt, the Packers seemed to abandon their peculiar "all bombs, all the time" strategy on offense, which allowed the impressive Aaron Rodgers to almost bring the Packers back. But the bottom line is, even if the Packers have a better chance next time, it is hard to be convinced that they would actually win the next time around.

With four games left in the season, the Packers now host the Oakland Raiders this week. The Packers and the Raiders have only played each other 10 times in history (not counting pre-season games). But there is a fair amount of history in those games. The first game, of course, was Super Bowl II, on January 14, 1968. The Packers won their second straight Super Bowl, this time by the score of 33-14. I was a teenager at the time, and although I don't really remember the game, I remember the mindset we had in those days. We could not imagine that an AFL team could keep up with an NFL team, and so we assumed that the NFL teams would continue to crush the AFL teams in Super Bowls for years to come, just as the Packers had the first two years. It was only a year later that Joe Willie Namath and the Jets showed that our belief in the invincibility of the NFL teams was an illusion. As if to prove the point, the Raiders went on to win 5 in a row against the Packers after Super Bowl II, and only a 4 game winning streak by the Packers has brought the record back to an even 5-5.

In 1993, the Raiders went to Green Bay on a cold, December day, and were shut out 28-0. One of our Raider fan friends called around halftime to concede the game. But the game is famous for a defensive touchdown, after Leroy Butler forced a fumble, and Reggie White recovered the ball. The big man pitched it to the smaller and faster Butler, who ran it in for a touchdown and (spontaneously, as far as we know) jumped into the stands for the first "Lambeau Leap." That play will undoubtedly be shown on the game broadcast this week.

And then there was that game four years ago in Oakland, also in December, when the Packers were playing in the Monday night game the day after Brett Favre's father died. We have been to a few games at the Oakland Coliseum, and Raider fans are a tough crowd. But not that night. I have never seen Raider fans show as much respect and affection for an opposing quarterback as they did that night. And the Packers' receivers just stepped it up, catching anything that was anywhere near them, as the Packers went on to win, 41-7. It was a magical night, with tears in the eyes of many of the Packer fans in the crowd. You can expect to see highlights from that game, as well.

This week, it was announced that Brett Favre is the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year. The issue is not out yet, but the article is available online. Packer fans simply must read this article, as it is filled with great memories of things we all know about, and (at least in my case) details about Brett Favre the man that we never knew. The article can be found at http://tinyurl.com/3cuefb

Finally, I want to wish a warm welcome back to a relative of my wife, First Lieutenant Daniel Belzer, who has recently returned from Iraq. I sent Daniel DVDs of the Packer games over most of the last season and a half, and I gather that he is far from the only Packer fan in the Army. Now that he is back, I understand that he is catching up on the DVDs from the last few weeks, since we were advised not to send any more packages after a certain date, since they would not arrive in time. The recording of the Cowboy game may not be to his liking, but there are lots of other great moments from this season to watch over again.

I'm a Believer

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Remember the old Neil Diamond song, originally performed by The Monkees, "I'm a Believer?" Yes, I know, I am dating myself, and lots of readers are probably saying "You mean the song by Smash Mouth and Eddie Murphy in Shrek?" The truth is, I didn't realize it was written by Neil Diamond until I looked it up, but in my mind, it is definitely a Monkees song. Anyway, I am getting to be a believer in the Green Bay Packers. It was only a few weeks ago that I called them the worst 5-1 team in the league. But since my last column, they finished off their road trip by winning at Kansas City, even if the game was closer than the score, and then they absolutely whacked the Minnesota Vikings, 34-0.

Now everybody knows that a game can get out of hand, and that the Packers are not 34 points better than the Vikings. But that was a pretty dominating win, on both sides of the ball, from the start to the finish. When the Packers control the ball for 41 minutes, when they become the first team all year to run for over 100 yards against the Vikings, and when Favre completes passes to 10 different receivers, you know they must be doing something right. And to see the Packers being aggressive well into the 4th quarter, in fact throwing the final touchdown pass with 6 minutes left in the game, is gratifying after watching them let the game slip away against the Bears in week 5.

So now is when things get interesting. The Packers are heavy favorites over the Panthers, raising the specter of a possible "trap" game for the Packers, what with huge games against the Lions and the Cowboys coming up in the next 11 days. Even though Brad Hoover is still with the Panthers, and is evidently the starting fullback, I still think the Packers will be OK. The novelty factor of the game is that there are 82 years' worth of starting quarterbacks on the field, what with Vinny Testaverde starting for the injured David Carr. When Favre was asked why Vinny would come back to play at his age, Favre said "must be the love of the game, or he's broke, one of the two." And for Favre, this is one of the rare instances in recent years when he is not the oldest starting quarterback in the game.

It seems like a lot to ask for the Packers to win today against Carolina, and then to complete another 2-game road sweep against the Lions and the Cowboys. If I had to guess, I would guess that they will lose one of those games (probably, unfortunately, against the Cowboys). But, as the cliché goes, they just have to play them one game at a time.

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After mentioning in my last column that my recording of the Monday night Denver game got messed up, three readers volunteered to send me a copy. Wisconsin reader Tim Shea was the first to volunteer, followed quickly by another Wisconsin reader, John Daley, and, get this, a reader in Brazil, Bruno Siqueira. Bruno is not a transplant from Wisconsin, in fact he has never been to the U.S., but he is still a Packers fan. Que homem! Vão Os Packers! Anyway, I took Tim up on his offer to send a DVD, since he was first, but I want to thank Tim, John, and Bruno for their prompt and generous offers.

Bombs Away

SAN FRANCISCO — The combination of a business trip and a visit to our college student daughter brought us to New York last weekend. I spent parts of Sunday getting ready for my business meeting, with the Giants-Dolphins snoozer in , and then parts of the Jets game on in the background. This reminded me how thankful I am for my satellite dish, since I would otherwise spend my time at home watching 49ers and Raiders games. The New York and Bay Area markets are, without doubt, the worst places to watch NFL games on broadcast TV, because of the two home teams monopolizing the airwaves.

While we could watch the Monday night Packer game anywhere, including our hotel room, we decided to look for a Packer bar in or near Greenwich Village, so that our daughter, with her crazy schedule, could watch at least part of the game with us. At some point, I remembered that Scott Crevier's web site actually has a list of Packer bars on it, so I checked it out there:

http://www.southendzone.com/bars/ [note: no longer available as of October, 2009]

Sure enough, this led us to the Kettle of Fish bar, on Christopher Street in the Village, close to the West 4th Street subway stop. I am not being compensated for this plug in any way, but I highly recommend this place. It has two rooms, and (I think) 5 decent-sized TVs. They obviously must have a satellite dish, since they show the Packer game every week, but I am told that even for a Sunday game, EVERY TV shows the Packer game. No ambivalence here - no attempt to please everyone, just all Packers, all the time. If you didn't come to watch the Packers, you are in the wrong place. We arrived about 20 minutes before the game, and the place was already pretty full. Since we were probably the oldest people in the bar, some of the young Packer fans helped to find extra chairs for us so we could sit down during the game. The owner eventually declared the place full and refused to let late-arrivals in, except for our daughter, since I had pre-arranged this with the tough looking door monitor.

When game time arrived, they turned the ESPN audio up loud, although it is still tough to follow what the announcers are saying in a bar full of 200 or so Packer fans. But the special audio feature in this bar is that when the Packers score, they turn off the TV audio, and instead play the song "I Love My Green Bay Packers" as people celebrate. During halftime, they play nothing but Packer music, including the infamous "The Bears Still Suck" song. They don't serve any food, but they have a thick envelope full of delivery menus, so all throughout the game delivery guys are bringing in everything from Chinese food to Pizzas to sandwiches.

Because I had been busy in the week leading up to the game, I had not really followed the extent to which Favre had been criticized in the press for some of his underthrown balls in the Redskins game. Does he still have the arm strength? Has he finally gone over the hill? That sort of thing. I really only became aware of this criticism in listening to Favre's post-game interview Monday night, where he (tongue-in-cheek) thanked the media for challenging him prior to the game. Anyway, a game-tying perfect 79 yard bomb in the first quarter, and then a game-winning picture-perfect 82 yard bomb in overtime seem like pretty good answers to the criticism. I guess the old guy still has a little gas left in the tank. I have never considered accuracy of long passes to be one of Favre's strengths. Lynn Dickey, for all his other weaknesses, was far more accurate with his long balls. But those two passes of Favre's on Monday night could not possibly have been any better. A couple of those a week and this team will win a lot of games.

As you might imagine, the place went completely bonkers when the winning touchdown was scored. Several minutes earlier, the Packers had been one play away from losing the game, but the defense managed to stop Cutler's run and force the tying field goal instead. Still, the Packers had not scored since the first half, the defense was getting tired, and the Broncos had tied the game in fairly dramatic fashion. All the momentum was going the Broncos' way, and all they had to do was get the ball back and continue doing what they were doing. I would have felt pretty good if I were rooting for the Broncos. Then, one play and ten seconds later, the game was over. Back at the Kettle of Fish, people were screaming, hugging and high-fiving. One guy tripped over a chair in his excitement (and inebriation) and people started piling on top of him on the floor. Then, when the Packer music started playing, people (including yours truly) started dancing the polka in the bar. It was great fun, and I would go there again if I am ever in on a Packer game day again.

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The only bad part about the game is the fact that my DVD recorder flaked out on me while I was out of town, and so I don't have a copy of the Denver game. If there is anyone out there who recorded it and is willing to make a copy for me, or better yet let me borrow and return your copy, please contact me at tfreeman98@comcast.net .

Happy Bye Week!

SAN FRANCISCO — It is indeed a happy bye week for the Packers. After their disappointing Sunday night loss to the Bears, they had one more game before the bye, against the Washington Redskins. The Redskins, according to some analysts in the days before the game, actually had the best defense of all the teams the Packers had played this season. Thus, it would be important to win that game, to avoid going into the week off with a two-game losing streak.

Before getting to the Redskins game, a word or two on the loss to the Bears. After an impressive first half, in which the Packers staked themselves to a halftime lead of 17-7, it seemed as if the Packers were in position to win again. But in the second half, the Packers scored only 3 points, while the Bears scored 20 and won the game. During the second half, John Madden made comments about the Packers playing very conservatively on offense, and watching the game, it certainly seemed that way to me, too. At the time, it seemed like the Packers were so convinced that they had the game in hand, that they thought they could, in effect, just run out the clock on the second half. It was painful to watch the game slip away that way. I always admire teams that keep on pounding with whatever is working until the game is out of reach. The Patriots, for example, seem to do this, continuing to play aggressively, without mercy, until the game is almost over. The best single example of what I am talking about was the NFC Championship Game after the 2000 season, during which the Giants attacked the Vikings with the long ball from the very beginning of the game. After building the lead, they did not let up, or start to use up time with the running game. They just kept hammering the Vikings until it was over, 41-0. So it was very disappointing to see the Packers seem to think that they could just play it safe and protect their 10 point lead for 30 minutes of football. It was also disappointing to hear Mike McCarthy deny that the Packers had played conservatively. How refreshing it would have been to hear him say that, in hindsight, maybe we did play too conservatively, and that is a mistake we will not make again. But I guess coaches just don't say things like that.

As for the Redskins game, it was a terrible day on offense for the Packers, during which Favre set the all-time interception record, and did not throw a touchdown pass. While there have been hints of an improving running game in a couple of the earlier games (ironically, especially in the loss to Chicago), the running game was totally ineffective against Washington. After three games in a row where Favre threw for more than 300 yards per game, these figures were almost cut in half, as Favre threw for only 169 net passing yards.

It seemed clear early on in the Redskins game that only the defense could put the Packers in position to win this game. And that is exactly what they did, scoring the go-ahead and winning points on a fumble return for a touchdown by Charles Woodson. Not the most impressive way to win a game, but at least it leaves the Packers at 5-1. Now, I would argue that they are the worst 5-1 (or 4-1, or 4-2) team in the league. But then, in the past, haven't Packer fans said pretty much the opposite? Last year, weren't the Packers the best 8-8 team in the league? Or the best non-playoff team in the league? At least as a mediocre 5-1 team, they have the chance to get their act together, get their running backs healthy and hopefully more effective, get all their receivers healthy and keep Favre in one piece, and win a bunch of games.

4-0!

SAN FRANCISCO — A quarter of the new season has gone by, and the Packers, to my amazement, are 4-0. Ignoring the pre-season, the Packers have won 8 games in a row. And they are playing (this year) without Ahman Green. In fact, you could go farther and say that they have no running game at all. Plus, they have had a rookie (James Jones) starting at wide receiver opposite Donald Driver most of the year, and they are still the youngest team in the league.

Would any of us have given the Packers a chance to be 4-0 before the season started, with a 3-0 record in the conference? Particularly if you consider that they have played 3 playoff teams from last year, with a 4th coming up on Sunday night? I certainly would not have done so. A record of 2-2 at this point would have been considered a moral victory. I would have expected this to be a rebuilding year of sorts, with the best case scenario being that they get the offense together fast enough to win a bunch of games late in the year and maybe sneak into the playoffs.

A few observations about specific players. At the end of last season, one of the articles I intended to write, but never got around to, was an analysis of how the kicking game may have cost the Packers a slot in the playoffs. All year long, my wife complained about Dave Rayner, and as time went on, I had to agree with her. He certainly played a significant role in losing several games, and if those games had gone the other way, the Packers would have made the playoffs with a team that was on the roll at the end of the year. Not in the sense of missing a game-winning field goal at the end of the game - that did not happen. But missed field goals at key points in games helped to put or keep the Packers behind in games they might have won if they had picked up extra field goals here and there. So how delightful it was to see this kid Mason Crosby start out the year strong, including not only a game-winning kick in the first game, but consistently deep kickoffs. And while we are discussing the kicking game, it is only fair to give a tip of the hat to the holder, Jon Ryan, who made that first game-winning kick possible by grabbing a high snap out of the air and getting it down in time for Crosby's kick.

Rookie receiver James Jones has impressed me. One of the TV announcers compared him to Sterling Sharpe, and as soon as he said it, I realized that he was right. Jones has a style reminiscent of Sterling Sharpe, and we all know how valuable a Sharpe-like receiver can be in a Favre-led offense. Now that Jennings has started to play again, it is not clear exactly how much playing time Jones will get. But the way he has played, he certainly deserves to get some chances.

The grizzled veteran, Brett Favre, seems to be playing better than he has in years. He continues to make throws and take chances, as he always has. But he seems to be using better judgment as to which chances are worth taking. Perhaps he realizes how precarious the offense is right now, without a running game, and realizes that even though the passing game (and the defense) will have to carry the team for now, it is Favre's responsibility to not make the kind of mistakes that can kill a game. It was great to see him break a number of all-time records in the first quarter of the season, and get that behind him, so he can concentrate on winning games. Did anyone else notice that Favre's last TD pass, on Sunday, to James Jones, looked eerily similar to that very first Favre TD pass in 1992 to the trivia-question answer, Kitrick Taylor? I did not realize until I looked it up that that pass was the ONLY TD pass Favre ever threw to Kitrick Taylor, but indeed it was. He may not have had a great career in the NFL, but he was there at the beginning of the legend.

Meanwhile, the defense has been doing more than its share of the hard work. Nick Barnett leads the team in tackles, while KGB leads the team in sacks. Both are near the top of the stat charts in these categories for the entire league. As Favre continues to break records almost every week, KGB will soon set the record for sacks as a Green Bay Packer, by passing Reggie White's record. (Obviously, most of Reggie's career sacks were registered while he was an Eagle, and KGB has a long way to go to approach Reggie's 198 sacks, or Bruce Smith's 200.)

And now the Bears come to town. Sure, the Bears went to the Super Bowl last year. But they were exposed as pretenders in that game. And they certainly have not improved since then. The Packers could find themselves guilty of over-confidence this week. And the Bears could rise to the occasion in an attempt to resurrect their season. But I doubt it. Mike McCarthy will have the team ready, and the Packers will roll.

Happy New Year!

SAN FRANCISCO — You probably thought you would get to survive an entire Packer season without hearing from me, didn’t you? Well, it almost happened, but here I am, with two days left in the regular season. What would possess me to crawl out from under my rock at this time? A combination of three things. First, the desire to make one more attempt at letting remote Packer fans know that the game has been bumped to Sunday night on NBC, at 8:15 p.m. Eastern time, 7:15 p.m. Lambeau Field time, and 5:15 p.m. Pacific time. What with the Packers (incredibly) possibly still in the playoff hunt by that time, Packer fans should cancel their New Year’s Eve plans, and concentrate their mental energy on willing the Packers to victory over the Bears.

Second, believe it or not, a few readers have actually written to me wondering why I have not been writing, and urging me to do so. And no, they were not family members. Finally, I do feel a little guilty about not having had anything to say until now about the Packers’ trip to San Francisco 3 weeks ago. If the “West Coast Offensive” correspondent can’t report on that, then what can he report on?

So let’s talk about the game. The Freemans went with Peter and Andrew Chen. Long-time readers may recall that Andrew is a Bay Area high school Packer fan, and his dad Peter worked with me years ago. Peter sort of ghost-wrote a column for me last year after their pilgrimage to Lambeau field for the Browns game that year. Anyway, Peter had the foresight to call the 49ers ticket office looking for tickets for all of us, and found that they indeed had some, at face value, with the game day still months away at that time. It never would have occurred to me to assume that tickets would be available this way.

The Freemans and Chens sat in the very top row of the stadium – you might call the seats “Bob Uecker” seats, but we had a great perspective on the field and the game. Anyone who watched the game probably recalls the high percentage of Packer fans in the stands, complete with chants of “Go Pack, Go!” at points during the game, to the eternal consternation of the 49er fans in the stands. We have gone to every Packer game in San Francisco or Oakland since 1980, and in that time we have seen the attitudes of the 49er fans come full circle. During the 49er “glory days” in the 1980’s, the Packers and their fans were treated as harmless curiosities, even if the Packers won the game. During the flowering of the Favre/Holmgren Packers in and after the 1995 through 1997 seasons, it seemed as if many of the 49er fans were good-natured about the drubbings they received at the hands of the Packers. Yes, it was shocking to them (especially that first game in January 1996), but the 49ers had had plenty of good years, and maybe it was time for somebody else to get a chance at some glory.

Then, in the disastrous playoff game after the 1998 season (a/k/a the Terrell Owens game or Holmgren’s last game), the viciousness of the 49er fans seemed to come back. They were sick and tired of losing to the Packers, and were very happy to let the Packer fans in the crowd that day know how they felt. But in 2006, now that both teams are so far past their prime that they are in rebuilding mode, it seems as if the 49er fans don’t care that much if the Packers win yet again. After all, I imagine they told themselves three weeks ago, neither one of these teams is likely to go to the playoffs, and if by chance they do, they will not go far. In other words, the fact that the Packers are 10-1 against the 49ers during the Brett Favre era seems to give a lot more joy to me than it brings anguish to the 49er fans.

But just to make sure you know that the 49er fans were not ALL in a good mood on December 10, here are 3 quick vignettes. In the 4th quarter, in our section not far from our seats, a 49er fan was standing up, facing the top of the stadium, and yelling at some other fans, presumably Packer fans. Someone notified stadium security, and a couple of police officers were heading up the aisle to talk to him, probably just to tell him to knock it off. But just as they reached his row, the guy decided to throw his plastic cup at the other fans, resulting in his ejection. The second vignette happened after the game, on our way out of the stadium. There are long concrete barriers running through parts of the parking lot, so you have to find one of the gaps in the barriers to get through, or else climb over them. A 49er fan was nice enough to direct us to a gap hidden behind a camper truck. Except there was no gap, so we went out of our way for nothing. Ha, ha. Dumb Packer fans. Then, after reaching our car, we found ourselves waiting forever to get out of the crowded lot, sitting with our windows open next to a car occupied by a 49er fan male driver, and a Packer fan female passenger, also with their windows open. He proceeded to yell and scream at her, for 5 or 10 long, uncomfortable minutes, apparently because she had wanted to stay until the end of the game, while all the smart people had left earlier and were not stuck in traffic. A real classy guy, and a warning to all of us against mixed football marriages.

To get back to the current week, the ironic thing to me is that I think there is an excellent chance that the Packers will be out of playoff contention by the time the game starts. Starting as early as Saturday night, if the Giants don’t lose their game to Washington, the Packers’ chances will become very slim indeed. For more about the Packers’ chances, take a look at this article:

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2006/12/27/2/

If the Packers are eliminated by the time the game starts, NBC won’t have the possible playoffs to hype during the game, so they will have no story to go with except for the possibility that it is Favre’s last game. Which, I am sure, they will hype non-stop.

My predictions: the Packers will lose to the Bears, and of course miss the playoffs. It is obviously possible that the Bears either will sit so many of their starters that the Packers will pull out the upset, or that the Bears’ emotional level will be so low-key that the Packers overcome the Bears’ [choke] superior talent. But given the rivalry behind this game, I just don’t think that will happen. The Bears would love nothing more than to have a four-game winning streak against the Packers. I also predict that Favre will come back in 2007. The Packers’ improvement in the second half of the season ought to have the same impact on Favre as on the fans – to create greater optimism for next year. When the Packers were 4-8 and coming to town to play the 49ers, I did not honestly think it was reasonable to argue that the Packers would end up at 7-9 or 8-8, or that they would have a shot at the playoffs in their final game.

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.

Lions Fire Mariucci

Yes, I know. It has been a while since my last article. Writing about the Packers this season is a little on the depressing side, to say the least. I didn't even get around to writing an article about my trip to Green Bay a few weeks ago to go to the Steelers game. To make a long story short: we had a great time other than the game result.

What finally got me off my couch this morning was the report that the Lions have fired Steve Mariucci. See http://www.nfl.com/teams/story/DET/9066825. Long time readers may recall that I have never been that big a fan of Mariucci. On the other hand, I do feel that he got a raw deal from the 49ers. He was a better coach here in SF, with poorer talent, than he was given credit for being. Living in the SF area, it was hard for me to avoid knowing a little about the 49ers, even though I do not follow them in any meaningful way.

Since Mariucci has been in Detroit, I have followed his team even less, since I am not immersed in Detroit Lions news. Therefore, I really don't have an opinion as to whether he has done as well as could be expected, given the talent, in Detroit. I would be interested in hearing opinions from any of you on that question.


The thing I have been pondering for a few weeks is whether Mike Sherman will be fired. It is obvious that he has never gotten the Packers to the big game, and there have been some disasters on his watch (Atlanta playoff loss, "4th and 26", Vikings playoff loss). Still, I have felt throughout his tenure that the team talent was not even close to the level of talent of the team in the mid-1990's. So, to that extent, I have felt that the team's big losses have been more the fault of the players than of Mike Sherman. In my heart, I have been hoping that the Packers would turn things around enough to finish the season in a respectable fashion, saving Sherman's job, and in the process persuading Brett Favre to come back for at least another year. Favre has said things suggesting that he was not intersted in coming back if there is a new head coach in Green Bay, and I can understand the sentiment that he is getting too old, in "football years," to start over with a new coach (or with a new team, for that matter). Favre has lost some of his magic from the mid-1990's (maybe a lot of his magic), but I am reluctant to see him go, since it may be a long time before this team is competitive again.


Against this backdrop, the firing of Mariucci raises a whole different issue. As we all know, Mariucci was Favre's quarterbacks coach in his early years in Green Bay, and the two were reportedly very close. As I recall, during Mariucci's time in SF, he said that he would frequently speak with Favre during the season. Mariucci grew up as a Packer fan in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and during his years in San Francisco, I remember reading that he kept a cheesehead hanging in his office. Favre and Mariucci always greeted each other warmly on the sidelines before and after games.


At 2-9, the chances for Sherman to survive are looking worse and worse every week. I don't know if he has lost the team (as Ray Rhodes seemed to have lost the team late in his season) or if the devastating set of injuries (combined with the loss of two starting offensive linemen) has just overwhelmed the ability of the Packers to win. But if Sherman is fired, would the Packers hire Mariucci? I am pretty sure that Mariucci would jump at the opportunity to coach the Packers. And I am almost positive that Favre would return to play with Mariucci as coach.


Anyway, this is bound to make things more interesting over the next few weeks.

Champs for a Day

Don't you wish that we could take a few of the extra points from today's game and get to decide where to allocate them in other games? It wouldn't take many. If we could move just 9 of those points to other games, the Packers would be 4-1 right now, and they still would have won today's game by the score of 43-3. Yes, I know, and if pigs could fly, etc. . . . .

Anyway, if you are going to act like world champs for a day, it is nice to do it right before a bye week, to let some of the bad feelings and bitterness blow away for a couple of weeks. It honestly has occurred to me over the past few weeks that the Packers are not as bad as their record. When the Packers start losing games by a point, with the difference being the first Ryan Longwell missed extra point in over 150 games, you can be sure that the Packers are not that far away from being a competitive team. But, on the other hand, it is precisely those little things that mark the dividing line between a poor team trying to learn how to win all over again (like the Packers in the Cleveland, Tampa Bay, and Carolina games) and a better team that manages to hang on and "win ugly" (like the Browns, Buccaneers and Panthers in those same games).

It is even more clear that, if the Packers were not as bad as their 0-4 record, they are not even close to being as good as they looked today. This was one of those games where just about everything went right (other than Najeh Davenport's season-ending injury, that is), and once it started going that way, things just snowballed on the poor Saints. They have got a few other things on their minds these days, and as Chris Berman said after the game, they are unfortunately going to have some games like that this year. So let's wait for the Packers to put together a few more good games before we start to think they have turned the season around.

For now, it will be enough if they can get a few of their injured players ready to go to Minnesota in a couple of weeks, and then try to string a few wins together. If they can do that, given how bad this division looks this year, they might actually have something going.

Andrew Chen update. The young man from northern California, who attended his first Packer game a few weeks ago, has put his name on the Packer season ticket waiting list. I forget his exact number on the list, but it is something over 69,000. It looks like a long wait.