Tag Archives: Green Bay Packers

SUPER BOWL XXXI RUNNER UP 1996 NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS

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The casual football fan may or may not remember when the NFL had a period where the NFC won 13 Super Bowls in a row. True free agency didn’t come to the NFL until the 1993 season yet the disparity between the two conferences in terms of physicality was pronounced.

Or at least it had been leading up to the mid 1990s. However a series of long time NFC Head Coaches started to switch conferences beginning with Bill Parcells. Coaches look to sign players they are most familiar with.

The ’96 Patriots roster was populated by players from the NFC. Keith Byars (Eagles), S Willie Clay (Lions), CB Ricky Reynolds (Bucs), DE Mike Jones (Cardinals), DT Mark Wheeler (Bucs), and starting G William Roberts with reserve G Bob Kratch from the New York Giants respectively.

Then you had  third down back / kick returner Dave Meggett (Giants) who made the Pro Bowl, CB Otis Smith (Eagles) and reserve CB Michael McGruder (49ers).  They drafted NFC style players in LB Chris Slade and DE / LB Willie McGinest. Defensive Coordinator Bill Belichick platooned his personnel based on individual strengths from week to week. McGinest was their only defensive Pro Bowl performer. Their stats didn’t wow you, finishing 19th overall, they seemed to always come up with key stops.

Before there was the draft question of Ryan Leaf or Peyton Manning in ’98, the first was Drew Bledsoe or Rick Mirer in 1993. Bledsoe, the #1 overall selection, had come into his own leading the Patriots to the playoffs in just his 2nd season in 1994. Now in his 4th season he threw for 4,086 yards and 27 touchdowns leading New England to the Super Bowl.

However the Patriots in ’96 had 2nd year runner Curtis Martin. During the season they forgot to give him the football as his stats fell from 368 carries for 1,487 yards to 314 attempts gaining 1,152. This trend continued in the Super Bowl as Martin had just 11 rushes for 42 yards in the game. One of which was the 18 yard touchdown in the 3rd quarter where he broke 4 tackles.

super-bowl-logo-1996This touchdown set up Desmond Howard’s 99 yard kick return to ice the game for the Packers. New England could have won had they fed Martin the ball. This would have kept Bledsoe’s passing lanes open. Instead Bledsoe’s 4 interceptions, 3 in the 2nd half sealed New England’s fate.

How different would Bledsoe’s career and legacy been had New England won Super Bowl XXXI?

2015 NFC Divisional Round Predictions

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Green Bay Packers @ Arizona Cardinals

cardinals_vs_packersIts time for the rubber to meet the road here in Glendale Arizona. The Packers just lost 3 weeks ago 38-8 to the Cardinals in this building so what has changed? They went on to lose to the Vikings who took the NFC North from them 20-13 in Lambeau. The saving grace is last week’s wildcard win over Washington.

Last week saw a rebirth of the running game as Eddie Lacy and James Starks combined for 100 yards and 2 touchdowns. This helped settle a schizophrenic Rodgers down who started the game being sacked for a safety and throwing off his back foot. He found his rhythm in the 2nd half. Can he repeat that against Arizona?

Carson-PalmerThe Packers come into this game with the NFL’s #6 passing defense. If you look at the stats, Palmer only threw for 265 yards 2 TDs and 1 interception. Pedestrian numbers until you remember Aaron Rodgers was bludgeoned for 8 sacks and 4 turnovers. Palmer, an MVP candidate, can do this without a short field. He threw for 4,671 yards and 35 touchdowns comes in this game hot. With Larry Fitzgerald (109 rec/ 1215 yds /9 Tds) John Brown ( 65 rec / 1003 yds /7 Tds) and Michael Floyd (52 rec / 849 yds / 6 Tds) they are averaging 28 points per game at home.

If the Cardinals rushing attack stays productive, the Cardinals should repeat their week 16 performance and wins today 40-17.

NFC Wildcard Predictions

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How can we top that Cincinnati Bengal v Pittsburgh Steelers for drama? You have to love the NFL playoffs and its time to get into day 2 with both NFC games on the same day.

nfl-iphone-wallpaper-2First game up is the Washington Redskins hosting the Green Bay Packers in the nation’s capital. All year long you’ve heard The Chancellor of Football state the Packers are a flawed football team. They have gone 4-6 down the stretch and have the NFL’s 23rd ranked offense. Twenty third?? Not only that, the supposed great Aaron Rodgers and the Packers passing game ranks 25th. No team has won with more smoke and mirrors than Green Bay.

What this game will turn on is Kirk Cousins and the 11th ranked passing attack facing the 6th best passing attack of Green Bay. The reason the Packers rank so high against the pass is they have been run on all year…ranking 21st. Also the fact they have gone 6-2 at home and won 5 of their last 6, the Redskins will win 31-17 sacking Rodgers 5 times.

As for the Seattle Seahawks vs Minnesota Vikings it is nostalgic to have this game outside. Teddy Bridgewater will make it to the divisional round…next year. Today in below zero weather is not the time to develop your downfield passing. Seattle gave up 125 yards to the Vikings  in week 13. Too many match-ups Seattle won on the line of scrimmage. The Seahawks will win this 27-13. It will be closer than the last time due to the cold.

There you have it…thanks for reading and please share the article.

SUPER BOWL XXXI CHAMPION 1996 GREEN BAY PACKERS

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Reggie White, Mike Holmgren, and Brett Favre brought the term “Titletown” back to Green Bay when they beat New England 35-21 in Super Bowl XXXI.  It was fun to actually have a champion Packer team in my lifetime because it had a great feel to just say it. The championship had been gone from the land of Lombardi for 29 years.

One of the strongest teams of the 1990s and maybe the strongest team in Packer history.  This team had absolutely no holes and overcame injuries to receivers Robert Brooks, and Antonio Freeman (playing the latter half with a plate in his arm). With Brett Favre throwing a conference record 39 TDs. They wound up becoming the first team since the ’72 Dolphins to score the most points (456) while allowing the fewest (210). Although they were 13-3 with Brett Favre coming of age, they needed that signature game which would show the league they were going to win it all. In came the perennially strong San Francisco 49ers for the divisional playoff.

The NFC Championship was fitting in that it pitted the Packers (NFL’s richest tradition) against the NFC’s newest team in the Carolina Panthers.

I’m normally an underdog guy, but not this time. Especially after watching the 1995 Packers get jobbed with a ton of bad calls in the Championship game in Dallas. Talk about a twelfth man…damn! That game left you feeling like the best team didn’t win but set the course for this team to dominate 1996 from start to finish.

Possibly the first true champion of the free agent era. Reggie White (Eagles), DE Sean Jones (Oilers), FS Eugene Robinson (Seahawks), Mike Prior (Colts), TE Keith Jackson (Dolphins), WR Andre Rison, and KR Desmond Howard (Jacksonville) gave the Packers a veteran group that added to the team’s sense of urgency. Not bad for an organization that was used arguing against free agency. It was expressed the Packers wouldn’t attract black players if true free agency came to the NFL. Once they nabbed Reggie White, the rest was history.

Now let’s be honest, this team should have gone back to back but Holmgren over-coached against the Broncos in Super Bowl XXXII in 1997.  Dorsey Levens was ripping off 13 yd runs repeatedly in the first quarter and Holmgren took the ball out of his hands. Which fed right into the blitzing Broncos and the Pack was having a problem picking them up which forced the fumble and interception that forced Green Bay to play catch-up.  Further taking the ball out of Dorsey Levens hands….of course that’s just my opinion I could be wrong.

super-bowl-logo-1996The 1996 Green Bay Packers were a meteor that you could see coming from a year away. A game New England Patriots team tried to stop them and narrowed the score to 27-21 when Desmond Howard brought the house down with a 99 yard return. Game…set…match 35-21 and the Lombardi Trophy returned to Green Bay.

If you look at the difference between the ’96 champion team and the ’97 squad, the difference was Antonio Freeman couldn’t break games open as Howard could. Desmond set the NFL record with 875 punt return yards alone. A quick vignette on how dominant he was coming down the stretch:

 

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The Super Bowl XXXI Championship Trophy in The Packers Hall of Fame visited by The Chancellor Alumni Weekend 2017.

This article is dedicated to the memories of Fritz Shurmur, Reggie White, Wayne Simmons, Pete Rozelle, & Vince Lombardi.

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SUPER BOWL XXX CHAMPION 1995 DALLAS COWBOYS

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One year after the San Francisco 49ers won a record fifth Super Bowl the Dallas Cowboys equaled that feat. The hardest pill to swallow for Dallas was the lost chance to 3-peat when the 49ers dethroned them in Candlestick Park that January day in the NFC Championship.

sbxxx3Ironically that 38-28 loss was easily one of the greatest games in Cowboys history.  During their championship years they had never been challenged like that, faced so much adversity, yet kept fighting on valiantly when all seemed to be lost. The game concluded the greatest series of championships between two teams.

Let’s take you back to January 15, 1995. The league was still reeling from the surprise departure of Jimmy Johnson (The U) and although Barry Switzer was there at the press conferences, we were waiting for the April fool’s joke to end.  It was Jerry Jones insistence that any coach could win with the talent the Cowboys had that led to the hiring of Switzer without any changes to the rest of the staff. That was plain goofy.

After losing Pro Bowlers Thomas Everett, Ken Norton, Jimmy Jones, Kevin Gogan, and sparkplug special teamer Kenny Gant to free agency, the Cowboys still marched to a 12-4 record.  Emmitt Smith was still the engine of the offense.

Aikman, Novacek, Irvin (The U), and Harper still posed a formidable passing attack. Charles Haley, Tony Tolbert, Darren Woodson, Russell Maryland (The U), James Washington, and Darrin Smith (The U) anchored one of the league’s best defenses despite the personnel losses. They marched into the 1994 playoffs with the chance of equaling Lombardi’s Packers in winning 3 straight championships.  So what happened??

The 49ers treating the 1993 Pro Bowl as a college recruiting trip is what happened.  The 1994 season was to be the first with free agency and it was actually Dallas’ fault that the 49ers coaching staff was there in the first place.  Back then the team that lost the conference championship to get to the Super Bowl is the coaching staff who coached that year’s pro bowl squad.  Going into the ’93 NFC Championship game, then coach Jimmy Johnson called into a radio show proclaiming “We will win the ballgame, and put it in 3 inch headline!” which irked the 49ers brass and players.

The Cowboys had prevailed in the ‘92 championship game also over the 49ers and it was a declaration that Dallas IS now the heavy between the two.  Oh you gotta love that “U” swagger! The 49ers came unglued getting roped into a pregame fight and behaved completely out of character.  They lost the game in a very boisterous embarrassing fashion 38-21.  On a quiet elevator ride down amidst the din of a celebrating Texas Stadium, Eddie DeBartolo turned to Carmen Policy and said simply “We must never be embarrassed like this again”

super-bowl-logo-1995Carmen Policy accompanied the 49er coaching staff to the Pro Bowl and went to work on specific changes the Niners needed to make to dethrone Dallas. Stealing Ken Norton from the Cowboys, whispering in the ears of  Bart Oates (Giants), Charles Mann (Redskins), Ricky Jackson (Saints), Richard Dent (Bears), and Deion Sanders (Falcons) ‘Pssstt, you know if you helped us on defense, we have the offense to knock off Dallas and we can get you a ring.’  I can so picture Policy saying that with a used car salesman smile / smirk and it worked. The 49ers were going to field an NFC Pro Bowl defense to stop Emmitt, Aikman, and Irvin and it came to full fruition January 15, 1995.  Each had a specific assignment.

Both teams came into that game extremely fired up. This time it was the 49erswith the bravado and starting the pre-game shoving matches and was the more intense team.  First assignment was fooling Dallas into thinking Deion Sanders was going to cover Irvin, when he was there to cover Harper.  Harper had become the playoff all time yardage per reception leader based upon his games against the 49ers. This confused Dallas into the first interception that made it 7-0. The offense was not only unprepared for that they benched Harper to try to figure it out. Two more turnovers ensued in that confusion and the white hot 49ers scored to make it 21-0 in the first quarter.

It was from this point on that the Cowboys showed a determination not shown in collecting the two championships from the seasons before.  They were in hostile territory, hopelessly behind, against an all star team put together piece by piece to defeat them and halt their progression into history.

They valiantly tried to stay in the game; Aikman threw for a career high 350 yards (first 300 yard game of career), Irvin set the team post season reception record with 12 for nearly 192 yards and 2 TDs while providing leadership. Emmitt Smith scored twice before his bad hamstring forced him out of the game.  In the end it wasn’t enough but the fight they showed for 3 quarters was tremendous to say the least.  To defeat the Cowboys the 49ers had to buy an all star defense with 5 pro bowl defenders. The 38-28 defeat provided the springboard into the next season.

After a few more free agent defections it became clear that this was the last hurrah for the team that Jimmy Johnson had built. They had been withered away in the two years of free agency however in the spirit of cold war double agent dealing, they wrested Deion Sanders away from the 49ers to return the favor of stealing Ken Norton from them.  An 8-1 start pointed that the Cowboys were clearly the team to beat yet a 38-21 loss to the 49ers brought them back down to Earth.

Another late season loss and it seemed the chance to win 3 out of 4 was going down the drain like the dream of a 3-peat. Then came the famous 4th down failures in a late season loss to Philadelphia 20-17. Yet Emmitt Smith, who went on to lead the league with 1,773 yards rushing kept chugging along and carried this team on his back.  He went on to set the record with 25TDs for the year. Going into the playoffs everyone thought they’d face the 49ers for the 4th straight season but the Green Bay Packers put an end to that.  Playing the Packers in the NFC Championship at home gave the Cowboys an edge as they won 38-27 to advance to Super Bowl XXX. For a more visceral feel:

There they outlasted the Pittsburgh Steelers 27-17 to become the first team to win 3 Super Bowls in 4 years and the first franchise to win the Super Bowl with 3 different coaches.  The Steelers punched the Cowboys square in the star but MVP Larry Brown’s interceptions sealed the game for Dallas.

The Cowboys of the early 90’s was the first champion to be besieged by free agency.  How many times would they have won if Jimmy Johnson’s original squad been able to stay together as the Dolphins, & Steelers of the ‘70s had?  I think they would have won 5 or 6 titles…What do you think?

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Ran into the NFL’s All Time Leading Rusher after the Hall of Fame ceremonies August 2018

Dedicated to the memories of T Mark Tuinei, LB Godfrey Miles, & Special Team Coach Joe Avezanno

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The Soul Of The Game: Willie Davis

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Hall of Fame President David Baker presenting Jim Taylor and Willie Davis new PFHofF rings.

Hall of Fame President David Baker presenting Jim Taylor and Willie Davis new PFHofF rings.

One of the truly great moments in recent years have been the Hall of Fame rings given to the new inductees. David Baker, who is the President of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, has been presenting rings to those previously enshrined in tributes at early season games. Back in September Willie Davis along with Jim Taylor received new rings from the Hall of Fame.

However the television execs only allow us glimpses of these presentations instead of hearing Mr.Baker’s presentation or the players themselves. We’re truly missing the opportunity to share the history of the game to a new generation.

Willie Davis with his Hall of Fame presenter... the legendary late Grambling Head Coach Eddie Robinson.

Willie Davis with his Hall of Fame presenter… the legendary late Grambling Head Coach Eddie Robinson.

Hopefully some kid asked his Father, Uncle, or Grandfather who Willie Davis was. A youngster could learn how Davis was one of the best Defensive Ends in pro football history. A living legend dating back to the legendary Green Bay Packer teams of the 1960’s.

Although fellow Hall of Famers Ray Nitschke, Willie Wood, and Dave Robinson were on that team, it was Davis who made the biggest defensive plays during their dynasty. Remember the “million dollar fumble?” Well that is just one… take a look

Willie Davis was definitely A Soul of the Game defender who showed up in big games. An interesting aspect to Davis’ career was the fact he was the Defensive End to the strong side of the offense. He was only 240 lbs yet took on the double team of the Tackle and Tight End and had to play the run as well as the pass. Yet you saw he recorded sacks in the 1965 NFL Championship as well as Super Bowls I & II. Most of the time you think of light pass rushing ends they’re predominant weak side rushers. Not Mr. Davis.

Vince Lombardi stealing Davis from Paul Brown’s Cleveland team could have been the difference between the Packers ruling the 60’s instead of the Browns.

We may not have been able to hear from him during that Monday Night telecast but we could at least bring you his retirement speech from 1969.

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