1 Team - 1 Trophy
The Journey is the Reward
Green Bay Packers
13 Time NFL World Champions
GO PACK GO
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Two of the best articles I've read about the Super Bowl Champions:
Notebook: Green Bay Packers Mike McCarthy, Aaron Rodgers agreed on aggressive air game before the Super Bowl
greenbaypressgazette.com (02.07.11)
http://packersnews.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20110207/PKR01/110207123/1058/PKR03
DALLAS ? The first clue came about two hours before kickoff when the inactive list was released for Super Bowl XLV. Packers fullback Quinn Johnson was not on the active 45-man roster for the final game of the 2010 season.
Apparently, bruising blocking backs would not be needed Sunday afternoon. The Packers tied an NFL record held by the Rams with the fewest rush attempts (13) by the winning team.
Coach Mike McCarthy wanted to be aggressive through the air with Super Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers.
?The play-caller and the quarterback are on the same page,? McCarthy said Monday. ?Just the conversation we had in the locker room before the game.
It was simply, ?Let me be aggressive as the play-caller; you have to be the disciplined one and keep us in favorable plays and throw it away if you have a bad look.? And he did a great job with that. I think he has the best set of skills in the league as far as his pinpoint accuracy, his athletic ability, and all of his best football is in front of him
?He let the play-caller be aggressive and he managed the football game.?
The run was an absolute afterthought in the second half. The team had six rushes and two were scrambles by Rodgers. Only four handoffs were called after the break.
Rodgers took over on both second-half scoring drives. He and Jordy Nelson connected for a 38-yard slant on third-and-10, one play after Nelson had a drop. Rodgers found Greg Jennings for an 8-yard touchdown two plays later to go up 28-17.
The quarterback responded again late in the fourth quarter when the Steelers cut the lead to 28-25. Only one run was called as the Packers tried to work the clock down. He completed passes to Nelson, Jennings, James Jones and Tom Crabtree en route to a 23-yard Mason Crosby field goal.
The entire gameplan was to live or die on Rodgers? performance.
?I felt good about the plan, felt good about the way I practiced, the way I prepared, the way I studied and just knew I was getting a lot of opportunities and expecting to make those plays that were going to be there,? Rodgers said.
Green Bay pours on the cheers for returning victors
jsonline.com (02.08.11)
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/115537144.html
GREEN BAY -
People don't know where to go with this much Packers love. So on Monday they came by the thousands to Lambeau Field to meet the team buses and gush their affection.
"Anything Green Bay Packers, you have to show up. This is just what we do," Marie Hongisto told me. The De Pere woman showed up as one must, and she had three bundled-up grandchildren in tow. Nikolai is 3, and Aubrey and cousin Elianna are both less than a year old, so they've never known a season when the Packers were anything but Super Bowl champions.
"They won't remember this, but I will," Marie said. "We just hope to see faces and hands waving and cheering and maybe the trophy."
A novice at these things, I mostly saw the white tops of about a dozen buses that pulled into the Lambeau Field parking lot at 2:24 p.m. Monday. The windows were tinted and most were closed. I got a good look at Donald Driver later, wheeling a piece of luggage to his vehicle.
The Packers are back home in Titletown, at the moment a town living up to that title.
I don't have to tell you how deliriously happy this entire state became Sunday night when the Steelers were finally daggered with less than a minute to go in Super Bowl XLV. Even my wife, who really got Packer religion once the playoffs began, was singing "We Are The Champions" Monday morning and hanging on every word of TV press conference appearances by coach Mike McCarthy and MVP quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Cameo Roets came to Lambeau with her family from Merrill. I heard her say she snapped 350 photos with a zoom lens, capturing anyone even remotely a Packer exiting a bus and heading into the stadium. She also caught my attention because she was wearing a dead coyote on her head, a hat trophy that used to roam her grandparents' land.
Let's just call it a geez-head.
Cameo was 16 when the Packers last won the Super Bowl in 1997.
Around here, we mark time by how long we wait between world championships. Hope runs high that we only have to hang on 12 months for the next one.
Jon Hoppen was alive in 1997 but only a year old. No memory there, but someday he'll recall that he brought a vuvuzela to the Packers' homecoming on a February Monday in 2011.
He blew the six familiar notes, the ones that make everyone chant "Go Pack Go!" That cheer filled the air at the homecoming, though at the moment the Pack has gone as far as you can go toward total NFL domination. It would make a tricky tongue-twister: sixth seed succeeds stupendously!
Jon's school, Green Bay Southwest, let out at 11:15 a.m. Monday, four hours ahead of schedule. They had a good reason. "So we could come see the Packers!" he said.
Something productive probably was accomplished somewhere in Green Bay on this day of celebration, but I doubt it. The win means everything, people are saying, and there's a good chance they mean that literally.
Monday's warm-up rally for Tuesday's actual rally broke up around 4 p.m. after the last players had trickled out of the stadium and gotten in cars to leave. I asked Cameo and family if they were heading back to Merrill. Nope, they said. They were walking to their vehicle in the Lambeau lot and
firing up the grill for a tailgate party. Like game day minus the game.
I decided to skip the 20-minute wait to get into the Packers Pro Shop inside Lambeau, though my wife had sent me in search of Packers gloves.
You could sell a turnip right now if it had a G on the side.
Leaving the parking lot, I spotted a car with Green Bay
Packers license plates. Nothing unusual there, but the plate "number," which most seasons would be an expression of longing, now sums up our jubilation:
THISYR.
GL
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2010 NFL Regular Season: 37-46 (-14.65*)
2010-2011 NFL Postseason: 9-4 (+4.32*)
2010 NCAA Regular Season: 49-45 (-3.40*)
2010-2011 NCAA Bowl Season: 14-10 (+4.15*)
Top Plays (included above): 5-6 (-3.75*)
2010-2011 All Games: 109-105(-9.58*)
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