The oldest American football rivalry is set to meet again this Sunday for the NFC championship. This is only the second time these two teams have met in the playoffs since seven days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
D is excited. He wanted us to play the Bears and he got his wish. I simply wonder whether we want to play the Bears or a team that beat the Saints and the Bears (which Seattle didn’t, of course). It doesn’t matter. Sunday approaches. Who wants it more? Also, who do the refs want more?
You who know me well and visit here often know of my immense love for the Green Bay Packers franchise and why. It’s just that. Love. The love that envelops this team and its fans – people who own the team – and shoots from Lambeau Field to the most impossible corners of the earth. We are proud Cheeseheads of the Packer Nation, we wear, eat, drink and share goofy crap and don’t care who thinks what of it and the Bears still suck. Whatever happens, two things: 1) Whether our team is stinking it up with a 0-16 record five years in a row or in the playoffs, we never, ever leave a game early. Hell, with more than 80,000 names on the season tickets waiting list (that’s approximately a 60-year wait and I’m being generous), we demand and stick around for a fifth quarter. 2) The only beer bottle we’ll throw at you is one you have to catch and drink from.
It’s real, old love, baby.
Despite my love for football and the Packers, I don’t post much about them here given that I’m not into post-mortem analyses, prognostication and pools when it comes to sports. For me, it’s completely the athleticism and strategy of the moment. They play, score, win or lose, next game.
Another reason I don’t blog a lot about the Packers is you don’t want to know what’s in my head when it comes to this team. Imagine something louder than a Mardi Gras parade, all covered in green and gold and old-fashioneds and pasties and snowboots and antlers, that barrels down the field and plows into the stands for a Lambeau Leap. While Clay Matthews does this.
And you’re not even close. Everybody sing!
