Pondering the Packers’ Future

Given all that’s going on in our world, a short frolic note.

Granting that I turned the game off before it reached its conclusion last night – I could sense how it was going to end even while the Green Bay Packers were still leading the Chicago Bears in their playoff contest, ultimately won by the Bears – I went to bed reflecting on the relevance of a decades-old observation to the Packers’ future.

We came to Wisconsin in the mid-1970s, during the quarter-century Packer wasteland between the Vince Lombardi Packers’ last Super Bowl victory in 1968 and the rise of the Ron Wolf – Mike Holmgren – Brett Favre Packers in 1992.  Having been raised in the Chicago area, I was a Bear fan when we arrived.  What caused me to switch my allegiance from the Bears to the Packers over time — during the heyday of the Mike Ditka Bears and long before Mr. Favre’s arrival — was the same sympathy for the underdog that had made me a Cub fan in the early 1960s:  the team tried so hard, but still lost.  [As with the rise of the Cubs in the late 1960s (despite our ultimate crushing disappointment), watching the Packers become good in the mid-1990s was all the sweeter because one had rooted for the team when it had been a doormat.]

One cannot live in Wisconsin without being emersed in Packer lore.  The observation that came to mind last night was one that I had heard made by an old NFL coach (now undoubtedly long dead) who had competed against Mr. Lombardi’s Packers, speaking about the period in which the two professional football leagues — the traditional “NFL” of the Packers, Bears, New York Giants, et. al., and the upstart “AFL” of such teams as the New York Jets, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the Oakland Raiders – were in the process of effecting their merger into the NFL we know today.  The observation was this:  By the time Mr. Lombardi’s Packers won their two Super Bowls, they were an aging team past their prime; that by that point, there were two or three traditional NFL teams, including Coach Tom Landry’s Dallas Cowboys, that “on paper,” were better, more talented teams than Green Bay; that for those Packers, reaching the Super Bowl was more of a challenge than winning it.  He stated that the reason that the Lombardi Packers won their last two NFL championships – overcoming those more talented teams, which got them into the Super Bowl, was simple:  they had greater pride, more will to win.

I saw enough last night to conclude that even without Linebacker Micah Parsons, Tight End Tucker Kraft, and Defensive Lineman Devonte Wyatt, the Green Bay Packers were a better football team than the Chicago Bears.  The Bears won because they had the greater will to win.  If I were Packers General Manager Brian Gutekunst this morning, I would have to be doing some soul searching.  The spirit in any team is instilled at the top.  Mr. Lombardi’s Packers were his embodiment.  Mr. Gutekunst hired Packers Head Coach Matt LaFleur a number of years ago, and clearly Mr. LaFleur is technically an excellent coach, but one must question whether he has sufficiently instilled in his players that pride, the will to win, that is required to win a Super Bowl. 

It doesn’t look to me like he has.

Likewise, although the color commentator lauded Packers Quarterback Jordan Love at one point last night, indicating that Mr. Love had moved beyond the legacies of his two storied predecessors, Mr. Favre and Aaron Rodgers, I wasn’t so sure.  Say whatever you will about Messrs. Favre and Rodgers’ behavior off the field, there have been no greater competitors, no players with a greater will to win, in the history of the NFL.  Sometime in the third quarter last night, as Chicago changed its defensive schemes and was effectively thwarting Green Bay’s offensive game plan, either Mr. Favre or Mr. Rodgers would have said, “F—k this.  We are done running the football.  Put in the back who’s the best blocker and receiver.  I am taking this G-d D-n game over, and we’re going to win.”  Everybody in the Packers’ huddle would have straightened up, that football would have been flying at warp speed in every direction … and the Packers would have won.  You know it.  I know it.  And every Bear fan who reads these notes who’s lived through the last 30 years knows it.

There seems to me to be a question whether Mr. Love, a fine young man who is without doubt a talented quarterback if even a shade less so than his predecessors, has what it takes to win a Super Bowl.  It’s not physical talent; 40 years ago, Bear Quarterback Jim McMahon won a championship on an indomitable will to win despite having much less talent than Mr. Love has.  It’s not his football smarts; he effectively executes the Packer offense.  It’s not his low-key manner; nobody could be lower key than Joe Montana, the best quarterback I’ve ever seen, whose manner masked a fierce will to win.

It’s whether he has the will. 

I would suggest that Mr. Gutekunst — who has essentially staked his legacy on Messrs. LaFleur and Love – should be asking himself this morning:  Do these guys have … what it takes?  

If he isn’t, the Packer Board of Directors should be asking themselves: Does Mr. Gutekunst have what it takes?

Three final thoughts: 

First, all congratulations to the Bears and best wishes to those Bear fans who read these notes.  Although I have trouble believing that the Bears have the talent to win a Super Bowl, the point of this note is obviously that one never counts out a team that has the will to win that the Bears have.  Although I probably won’t be tuning in, I’ll be rooting for the Bears as long as they stay in the hunt.

Second, despite the disappointing outcome of last night’s contest from a Green Bay Packer fan’s point of view, it was refreshing to have even a couple of hours’ distraction from the many challenges to our way of life that we currently face.  No harm in that, only good.

Third, nothing that went on last night brought either National Guardsman Sarah Beckstrom or Renee Good back to life.  Our continuing peaceful work on behalf of American democracy lies before us.