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Warm fuzzy feeling Positive end to 2000 contrasts with 1999's disappointment
Updated: Monday December 25, 2000 2:17 PM
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- It was 3:06 p.m. local time when it officially ended, the fairy-tale dream that the Green Bay Packers were going to the playoffs this season. Turns out, there was not quite that much magic in this day, even though it was Christmas Eve, and this was Lambeau Field. It was one of those wacky afternoons of scoreboard watching that only the NFL playoff races can give us. When a win can get turned into a loss in the time it takes to go from field to locker room. In this case, word was slow to reach the frozen tundra. When the St. Louis Rams' 26-21 road win against the New Orleans Saints was in the books, keeping the Packers home for the holidays, no one wearing green and gold seemed to know. Certainly not head coach Mike Sherman, or quarterback Brett Favre. Before them and the rest of the Packers was a game tied at 14 with two minutes remaining in regulation. A game with plenty of plot twists still to come. A game that could still be theirs.
And win it they did, nipping the talented Tampa Bay Buccaneers 17-14 on kicker Ryan Longwell's 22-yard field goal in overtime. Then afterward, the Packers let the truth slip out. It sounds sacrilegious as we approach the holiest of holy NFL seasons -- the postseason -- but in the end, the playoffs weren't the whole story for this Green Bay team. Sunday was about more than this year. It was about hope. About creating it, nurturing it and keeping it alive all offseason. And in that sense, Green Bay got exactly what it was seeking against the Bucs. After the stench of 1999, these Packers received the next best gift besides a playoff trip: the promise of the future. Green Bay is suddenly a team going places, even if it's not going anywhere this postseason. "It's a great feeling, but it's an odd feeling," said Favre of his team's mixed emotions. "There was the jubilation after the game with the win, and then finding out our season is over. Last year, this didn't feel very good at all. But this year, with all the adversity we had, this is definitely a stepping stone for this team. "There are high hopes for this team. It's unfortunate it's over. But there's a lot of anticipation for next year." By now you know that two-thirds of the Packers' Christmas miracle came true. Chicago's woeful Bears somehow upset the Lions at the Silverdome. And Green Bay did its part, quelling the Bucs. But the Packers also needed the Saints to handle the Rams, and that part of the scenario fell agonizingly short. But somehow, in the aftermath of Green Bay's body-numbing but heartwarming victory, it didn't seem to matter. Don't misunderstand. The Bucs (10-6) lost and are going to the playoffs. The Packers (9-7) won and will stay home. Green Bay would take it the other way around in a heartbeat. But the Packers took satisfaction in the complexity of their season on Sunday, a season that stood 5-7 and sinking fast before the uplifting work of a 4-0 December. In the end, it was fitting that Sherman kept the all-important Rams and Lions scores off the Lambeau scoreboard. That way his Packers played it to the hilt, not knowing their fate, just the way they did to get here in the first place.
"Our goal to start the season was to make the playoffs, and we didn't," said Sherman, the team's studious-looking first-year head coach. "And that's a disappointment. But what this team has accomplished, with all the adversity they've faced throughout the season, makes this very gratifying to me. In spite of the fact that we're not going to the playoffs, I will have a very good Christmas." I tend to think most Packers fans will, too. Even if their favorite obsession finished fourth in their division and isn't part of the NFL's 12-team January tournament. Sherman got it just right when asked what his reaction was to finding out the bad news from New Orleans, so soon after the happiness that unfolded at Lambeau. "I found out when I walked into the locker room and they told me who won," he said. "My reaction was, 'We'll get 'em next year.'" They almost got them this year. Leave it to Favre to verbalize what many playoff teams around the league are thinking. "The Packers missed the postseason? Whew." "Had we gotten into the playoffs, I don't know if anybody would have wanted to play us," Favre said. "If we would have gotten in, I liked our chances. Who would have said that five weeks ago?" Nobody. At least not out loud. But that was before Green Bay finished 5-3 in the tough NFC Central, tying first-place Minnesota for the best record in the division. And before the Packers closed the season with back-to-back wins against the Vikings and second-place Bucs, going 3-1 overall against their playoff-bound division brethren. Remember last year at this time? The Packers won their regular-season finale at home against Arizona, then waited for playoff-qualifying help that never came. That Green Bay team finished 8-8, a mere game worse than Sherman's Packers. But with an entirely different feel, prompting general manager Ron Wolf to dismiss head coach Ray Rhodes and his coaching staff after just one tumultuous season. Wolf can take the next couple days off this time. Despite dealing with an unrelenting plague of injuries this season, Sherman and his players were tested, and passed with flying colors. "This whole season was about guys filling in and guys stepping up," Favre said. "After we beat Arizona last year, we were hoping to go to the playoffs. But I don't know if we wanted to or even deserved to go. This season, we battled all year to get back to 9-7. "We could have ended up like Washington did. Maybe this team has got a lot of guys nobody knows, but as I told Mike Sherman last week, in my nine years here, this is the best chemistry we've had. This is the closest team we've ever had." These Packers are close, all right. Close to being back where they think they belong. "I hope this sends a message that things in Green Bay are getting to the point where you'd better have your chin strap buckled when you play Green Bay," Sherman said. "I think we're a playoff-caliber team right now. Very often 9-7 gets you in the playoffs. Another year we might have gone. We just came up short in the end." Don Banks covers pro football for CNNSI.com.
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