Old Fashioned Shootout Saves Weekend

There’s usually a stinker or two in the NFL Wild Card Weekend, particularly since there’s usually a team or two in one conference or another that, upon further review, made the playoffs by default (this means you, Bengals and, it turned out, Eagles).

This year, the first three playoff games, while they had what looked like interesting matchups, mostly lacked second-half drama.  Game four was headed in that direction, too, with the Packers doing their darnedest to let it get away in the first two minutes, let alone the first two quarters.

But the Packers-Cardinals game turned out to be the best of the bunch — and one of the most entertaining in Wild Card history, reminiscent of the old AFL shootouts.  As a dedicated Pack fan for 30 years, I was most reminded of a crazy Monday Night Game in 1983, in which the offensively-minded and defensively-challenged guys in Green and Gold, led by Lynn Dickey and James Lofton, beat the defending Super Bowl Champion Redskins, 48-47, in the same kind of up-and-down-the-field battle that went on in Glendale yesterday.

After a big drought — two playoff appearances in 20 years — the Brett Favre Era had Packers fans like me a little spoiled, with nearly annual postseason trips from 1993-2004 and a Super Bowl.  The five ensuing years have provided some surprises, including an improbable 13-3 mark in ‘07, disappointments (the loss that year to the Giants in the NFL Championship Game the most dramatic), and finally a competitive team this year that looked poised for a serious run in the playoffs.

It wasn’t to be, and the defense that all year was among the top 2 or 3 in the league, couldn’t keep up with one of the all-time great postseason QBs (really, Kurt Warner just refuses to be written off).

The bottom-to-top-back-to-bottom (scream, rinse, repeat…) mood swings that yesterday’s game provided was a fun, though ultimately sad, way to end my team’s season.  My self-imposed 24 hour mourning period now approaching its expiration, I’m ready to take on the rest of the postseason, but with another important date in mind… Feb. 17, Pitchers and Catchers.