With forced mediation resuming for the NFL’s owners and its player’s association (and me being a bit of a completist), I felt it was as good a time as any to flashback to the last moment when all felt right in the world of pro football: The Super Bowl. It was the calm before the proverbial storm that has taken the form of the NFL lockout and all the courtroom mess that has resulted from it. On a more personal note: this was the last moment before my home-state of Wisconsin became a cesspool of political turmoil. The battles over budgets and unions took over the battles between the Packers and their opponents as if they were some distant memory instead of recent bits of victory and glory for the state and its people to be proud of. All the while I wondered why all of this mess had to come so soon after the Lombardi Trophy came home. Since the now famous and infamous bill was introduced five days after the game itself, the only thing I can conclude is that it was either incredibly bad timing, Scott Walker isn’t a sports fan, or he believed that the euphoria the state was feeling over its one pro football franchise winning a world championship would be enough of a distraction to introduce this bill without issue. Whatever the reason, the timing made the party quick as there would be no afterglow for the hometown and home state fans with the joy of victory and the shock of what this bill contained all coming in the week proceeding Green Bay’s win. For football fans there would be just as little of an afterglow from what was one of the better Super Bowls in recent years with the lockout countdown resuming the day after the championship was decided.
This was an overall great game, not a game marked by one or two defining moments that created an overrated sense of how good it actually was (see the Giants upset of New England in Super Bowl XLIII), but a game that saw twists and turns throughout. This was one that was fought to the end with the result in doubt until that final fourth down pass by Big Ben fell in complete. Simply put, it was the way a championship game is supposed to go.
It didn’t come as a surprise to me that Roger Goodell tried to make the week of the Super Bowl all about him. Two bits of news involving Goodell provided the major news items of game week: his quote to Peter King that was initially misinterpreted by everyone including King, and then the meeting with DeMaurice Smith the day before the Super Bowl.
Let’s start with the quote for King’s SI piece. When the subject of Ben Roethlisberger’s off the field actions during the last off-season came up, here was Goodell’s quote: “I bet two dozen players … Not one, not a single player, went to his defense. It wasn’t personal in a sense, but all kinds of stories like, ‘He won’t sign my jersey.'” Initially it was interpreted by King to be referring to just Steelers players—which would have been a more provocative story if true—where in reality it was referring to NFL players in general, not just teammates of Big Ben’s. The fact that is was misinterpreted doesn’t matter because what Goodell did with that quote, one that he knew would be in a published piece, was throw those cooperating players under the bus. Even if he didn’t name names, the fact is he let loose that quote means that whatever trust the players had when it came to cooperation in league investigations or matters the like had to be damaged, it may not have been broken, but it couldn’t still be in pristine condition.
And while such a quote has already been virtually forgotten, I would like to take a moment and note how tragic it is if this quote has already been forgotten by players, fans, and media. The fact is that a breach of trust (an accidental one maybe) like this creates a lose-lose situation for players in the future: if they cooperate they have to wonder whether or not it will come out later what they said in regards to a particular investigation—even if they are lumped together, as was the case here—and words like “Not one, not a single player went to his defense” is pretty damning in how it identifies how many of the cooperators shared this opinion of a fellow player on the matter in question. But what can they do? Refuse to Cooperate? That’s not an option because potential fines, suspensions, and any other way Goodell, NFL management, or a team’s owner could lay the hammer down would be used if a player refused to cooperate in a league investigation, even if they fear that what they say won’t be held in confidence. It may seem like I’m reaching a bit, but the main reason this quote didn’t get the play that it deserved is because of the Big Game and the Lockout that followed. Had it not been for the Lockout, who knows how differently that quote would be remembered and perceived today.
As for the Smith/Goodell meeting, it begs the same question as one should have at reading Goodell’s quote: WHY?! What possible good, other than a headline the day before the biggest football game of the season, could this meeting have produced? Nothing was going to be solved in one day—as the later mediation hearings would prove—and how much preliminary work, as far as getting the negotiations between the owners and players off on the right foot, could have gotten done in one day? It was delusional thinking at best for these two to think that a one-day meet was going to solve anything. However I do understand the delusional thinking involved here: just think of how big a story it would’ve been if they had by some miracle come across an olive branch that the owners and players’ association could have used in the post-Super Bowl talks, and found it right before the Big Game. A story like that may have trumped the game itself because of all the implications a lockout would have on the league, its players, and its fans. But again, it was both delusional and unnecessary and only served, in my opinion, as another way for Goodell to get his name in the headlines (with DeMaurice Smith getting a piece in this case) during a week when the only headlines should have been centered around the game itself.
That is why that magic Sunday couldn’t have gotten here soon enough. And when it did, all the bullshit went out the window for a good four hours as two teams battled for football’s biggest prize. For everyone who was watching, it was a brief time to forget about the likelihood of a lockout and a delay from the immanent worries of whether or not pro football would even be played next season. On this day, it was about finishing up this season and hopefully finishing it up in style. Thankfully, the Packers and Steelers indeed finished off the 2010 pro football season in style.
Simply put, persistence was the key in Green Bay’s win.
In making Titletown into Titletown again, the Green Bay Packers showed that persistence may be all that is necessary to complete a championship season. At least that is when that team is loaded with talent to the point where it doesn’t matter how many men you lose.
Everything that Green Bay experienced in the Super Bowl they had been conditioned to expect by having to deal with these same issues throughout the whole season. They suffered injuries to their defense: they were used to it, they suffered a key injury to their receiving core: they were used to it, their offensive line didn’t stop Aaron Rodgers from getting hit often: they were used to it, and Rodgers had to put on a top-level game in a pressure situation in order for Green Bay to pull off a big win: they were used to it.
The injury bug simply wouldn’t stop for Green Bay this season as they entered the playoffs with nearly fifteen men on injured reserve, and had nearly lost Rodgers late in the season when he suffered his second concussion of the year. But like every other time they suffered a major loss—Ryan Grant in the backfield, Nick Barnett and (for a little bit) Clay Matthews on defense, Rodgers for the game against New England—the Packers bounced back and found a way to make due with what they had. Their defense appears to just be that loaded as losing people in all phases of defense (line, linebackers, secondary) couldn’t derail them. Evidence in their title win was almost overwhelming as the defense built the Packers’ early 21-3 almost by themselves with Collins’ spectacular return touchdown and the interceptions on Big Ben. This was followed by the Pack losing Charles Woodson and Sam Shields before the end of the first half, then nearly give the game away before forcing the pivotal fumble by Mendenhall early in the fourth, and finally stopping Big Ben late when it nearly looked like a replay of the ’09 meeting’s final possession was going to take shape.
To Pittsburgh’s credit, they never gave up. Falling behind by nearly three touchdowns early with a route seemingly in the making would be reason for a lot of teams to crumble, and that has been what has happened in many Super Bowls. But Big Ben did rally the troops and in the second & third quarters was able to get his team back into the game. He did so with much needed assistance from Rashard Mendenhall who bum rushed the Packer defense in the third quarter to help swing the momentum in Pittsburgh’s favor. And while it was his fumble that swung that momentum back to Green Bay, he didn’t quit and neither did the Steelers.
And because of that lack of quit from the team constantly having to come back in this game, the fourth quarter became a supercharged back-and-forth chess match with critical plays galore and some gutsy calls along the way. For Rodgers, it was two 3rd & 10 conversions of over thirty yards that prevented Pittsburgh’s comeback from completing itself. And while the conversion to Greg Jennings wasn’t as much a risk, the earlier conversion to Jordy Nelson certainly was. Nelson had notoriously poor hands in this game dropping several sure catches, but was always able to rebound when given a second chance. And Rodgers never let Nelson wait for his second chance as on more than occasion (including the third down in question) that second chance to make things right came on the very next play. After dropping another sure catch on second down, Rodgers went to Nelson again and, like every other time in the game he was given the opportunity, Nelson came through, pulling in the pass and moving for a near forty-yard gain that set up what turned out to be the game-winning score. Pittsburgh’s gamble wasn’t just going for the two-point conversion after their final touchdown (they had to given the score, but it’s a risk no matter what), but what play they decided to go with in converting the try. How often do you see a triple-option play used in pro football, let alone at your team’s most crucial moment of the biggest game of the year? Considering how he played in college, Antwaan Randle-El was the perfect guy to take the pitch from Big Ben and it worked like a charm.
This game was an absolute joy for me to watch. With booze in my blood for the first half and then anxiety and nervous energy flooding into my brain for the second, it was a pure experience for me as a fan. Being from Wisconsin and a Packer fan there was some bias (that I’m not ashamed nor that I’ll apologize for), but that was part of what made the experience: the journey through this weird season with its final destination being decided right in front of my eyes. I’ve always tried to split my sports viewing into the entertainment/being a fan part of the game and the constant analysis of the game. The two tend to go hand-in-hand, but on this day analysis could wait until the celebration got under way. There was no time to fully and logically analyze what was going on with euphoria and joy rushing up and down my body as the Pack Attack blitzkrieged Pittsburgh in that opening quarter and a half, only to be replaced with intense worry and fear that the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history was going to come at the expense of my beloved Packers. And when that final fourth down pass hit the ground, it was all about letting that emotion and energy out in the company of my family, even my mom who stopped being a full-blown Packer fan once Number Four left. At that moment, it didn’t matter.
Sadly, by the end of the week, things has reascended into hell: Walker’s budget battle had just begun and the NFL’s in-fighting had just gotten under way. From as early as 2009—when some of the key issues in the lockout arguments first came to light—I knew that a lockout was going to happen. And maybe that played a part in my savoring of this year’s Super Sunday. But it was immanent with the one-week extension, a textbook example of pissing in the wind, being powerless to do a damn thing to stop it. And the forced mediation that the NFL finds itself embroiled in isn’t going to do the trick either, mainly because these meetings are taking place virtually against the will of the owners and the players; they all want there to be a football season (too much money at stake), and they know the fans do, but both sides want to come together on their own terms, not because a judge is forcing them to.
The bigger issue at hand in these meetings and talks is that there is simply too big of a gap between the sides on two key issues: the $9 billion in overall revenue and the proposed 18-game schedule. There are other factors at play, but if some kind of an agreement could be reached on these two, the others will likely figure themselves out. I may be naïve in thinking that simply, but it is where I am at after watching this thing unfold over the last few months. The 18-game schedule is an absolute joke and does show, more than the revenue sharing argument, how much money factors into things in the NFL. The revenue sharing argument is basically both sides bitching about what their rightful share is, but an extra two games on the schedule is an argument of T.V. dollars versus player safety. There’s also the matter of how many players who need the last two pre-season games (games that would be eliminated with the addition of two more regular-season games) to give them a better shot at earning spots on the roster. With only two games instead of four for coaches to make their rosters final for the regular-season, a lot of less known, less looked at, or less experienced players looking for their shot are going to be left out in the cold. Focusing back to the players on the rosters of NFL teams, two extra games does put them at more of a risk for injury. Think of how many potentially harmful hits come to a player during the regular-season and add two more games on top of it. This is why I’ve always felt a bit off when I hear this topic brought up after either Goodell or some analyst talks about the need for player safety and less head hits in pro football. The reality is that the head hit “epidemic” in pro football can be traced back to coaches teaching child players the wrong way to hit for the last fifteen to twenty years. What came out of it was a generation of players who would rather launch themselves into their opponent’s head instead of executing tough, but correct ways to hit an opponent. The problem is a lot deeper than the cheap shots that are caught on camera as head hits are going to be commonplace no matter how much or how many times you fine a man. The problem is about what fundamentals these guys were taught when they were first learning the game. Until that changes, the head hits aren’t going away, they may go down in quantity, but they won’t go away and this generation will have to bear the brunt of them so hopefully the generation that follows will have learned the right way to execute a hit, historically the way it’s been, in pro football until recent time.
The sad truth might be that the NFL needs a lockout. I don’t want to get behind that notion, being a football fan, but the truth may be just that. If there is such a disconnect and such a lack of compromise between the owners and players on these major issues and other minor issues (in comparison), then either the players are going to cave (as is usually the case) or there won’t be pro football this fall. I’ve always been more of a college football fan than a pro football fan so my appetite for great football won’t be suppressed if the guys getting paid can’t come to terms with the money men over amount. A lot of people, season ticket holders understandably, won’t agree with me on that point, but what I’m getting at is that not only do I have a football alternative in the event that there is no NFL come September, but that there is one out there for those who still want to watch football. And to be completely honest, if my last image of pro football for 2011 is Aaron Rodgers posing with the Lombardi Trophy and The Big Gold Belt, hey, I can live with that.
