by Paul Zimmerman Desmond Howard was the unchartable element. Two of his long punt returns set up 10 points in the first half for the Green Bay Packers, and his 99-yard kickoff return for a touchdown put the game away in the third quarter. In between, Brett Favre caught the New England Patriots in favorable coverage and hit each of his wideouts for long scores. And that, plus one good-looking drive near the end of the first half, was the Packers' offense. The running game started to kick in late in the second quarter, mostly in three- and four-wideout alignments against the Patriots' nickel people, and it was useful at times in the second half when the Pack was sitting on the lead and running down the clock. Desmond Howard celebrates after scoring on a kick return in Super Bowl XXXI. photograph by Al Tielemans The offensive statistics for Green Bay weren't anything to get excited about: 323 total yards and three of 15 in third-down conversions, which won't win many games for you. The Packers were O.K., but nothing special. But the defense came up big in the second half of Green Bay's 35-21 victory, and that, plus Howard's heroics, is the reason why the Packers will be wearing the rings. The Patriots decided very early that they weren't going to get anything going on the ground against the Packers' defensive front with only seven carries for 14 yards in the first half. They put the ball in Drew Bledsoe's hands and said, "O.K., you're gonna beat the best pass defense in the NFL, and the way you'll do it will be with play action passes." It worked for a quarter. "All week long that's all they had talked about, how they were gonna run the ball," Green Bay defensive end Sean Jones said. "That's what we worked on. We spent a lot of time working on that crack-toss, when they pitch to Martin, with the fullback or tight end cracking back on the defensive end. They didn't run it one time. "But we sat around for a quarter waiting for the run, and finally it dawned on us that they just weren't going to do it. It was all play-action passing. We were playing for the threat of the run and we were losing the game." It was late in the first quarter, and the Patriots were up 14-10. The last touchdown was set up by a 44-yard deep crossing pattern to Terry Glenn out of a very neat play fake, and the Packers' defense decided to settle down. That's when the game turned. The Packers had been running fire zones, sending a linebacker to rush Bledsoe and dropping a lineman into coverage. Now they started blitzing for real with defensive backs and linebackers and playing tight man-to-man behind it, suckering Bledsoe into throwing into double coverage or throwing off-balance, which he is prone to do. The result was four interceptions and five sacks. The Patriots generated one serious drive in the last three quarters, when they finally opened a few holes for Martin and popped him on a quickie inside for an 18-yard score. The rest of the time they never got closer to scoring than the Green Bay 42, and in the fourth quarter they never crossed midfield. The war of attrition had gotten to them. The Packers started alternating defensive linemen as early as the first series, and as the game wore on they were fresh while the Patriots' offensive line was crumbling. Bill Walsh once said that pass-rush late in the game is the key to NFL football, and in Super Bowl XXXI, it was like a heavyweight fight in which one guy is just hanging on while the other one is going for the knockout. I'll tell you when I knew it was over. Late in the third quarter, after Howard's kick return had put the final points on the board, the Patriots ran a series that ended with two straight sacks, both by Reggie White against tackle Max Lane. For some reason the Patriots decided to let Lane try to handle White by himself, or maybe the guard next to him was supposed to help out and just couldn't get there, but White's last sack came from a three-man pass rush. As I watched the Packers trot off the field, high-fiving each other and then took a look at the weary Patriot linemen, dragging themselves to the sideline, I said that's it. The game's over. Green Bay added two sacks in the final period, again from a three-man rush, but by then it was window dressing. What kind of a game did Favre have? Careful for the most part, but opportunistic, too. It was almost as if he were saying, "Yeah, I've had trouble early, but it ain't gonna happen in this one." On the second play of the game he checked off (don't forget that this was one of Mike Holmgren's scripted plays he was getting out of) and found Andre Rison, lined up wide left with a receiver slotted inside him, for a 54-yard TD. The slot alignment had produce single coverage on Rison and Favre gave it a shot. His second long scoring pass, 81 yards to Antonio Freeman early in the second quarter, was a gift. The Packers came out on first down with three wideouts and New England stayed in its base defense, which meant that Freeman, in the slot to the right, was covered by the strong safety, playing him head-up, with deep help from the free safety. Forget it. For Holmgren it must have been déjá vu, recalling a time seven Super Bowls ago when he was offensive coordinator for the 49ers and the Broncos tried to cover Jerry Rice, out of the slot, with strong safety Dennis Smith ... with much the same result. A workmanlike win, keyed by some dazzling kick and punt returns, a few big plays and a defense that finally woke up and took over the game. That was the story of the 1997 Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers.