Pro Football Talk counted down the four worst moments in Green Bay Packers history since 1987, which was the last season with a work stoppage.
Here’s their list.
4. Brett Favre’s return to Lambeau Field as a member of the Minnesota Vikings
3. 4th-and-26 (2003 NFC Divisional loss to Philadelphia)
2. Super Bowl XXXII loss to Broncos
1. 2007 NFC Championship game (loss to Giants)
Not surprisingly, the top two involve [intlink id=”41″ type=”category”]Brett Favre[/intlink] crapping the bed.
Both the 2007 NFC Championship game and Super Bowl XXXII were pretty devastating, but I’d have to put the Super Bowl loss at No. 1.
Despite what happened with Favre after that championship game, the Packers still would have had to go through the undefeated New England Patriots to win the Super Bowl in 2007. Who knows how that would have turned out.
Tell us your thoughts or if you can think of another moment worthy of inclusion.
Hmm, maybe the season opener vs the lions when we lost Javon Walker & Ahman Green in the same game for the year. Finished 4-12 that year, got the # 5 pick in the draft & ended up with Hawk. I can remember wanting Reggie Bush that year in the draft & we had a shot at the # 1 overall. SAMKON GADO anyone ?
Now that I really think about it, that loss to the 49ers in the wild card game where Steve Young drove the field and hit Terrell Owens for the winner was pretty brutal. I won’t say it’s worse than any of those listed above, but I’d probably put it at No. 5. That was one of Reggie White’s final seasons, if not the last and well, I hated fucking T.O. way more then than I do now.
don’t forget the Jerry Rice fumble that was clearly recovered by the Packers.
I agree with Monty but I always put an asterick on that game because Jerry Rice fumbled the damn ball on the last drive and the ref’s totally blew it. That last pass should’ve never happened. The Philly game was just devastating, Fucking Freddie Mitchell. I’ve got 2,3,1,4
The 4th-and-26 game is easily the most painful for me. That 2003 team started 3-4, but then got on a roll through the end of the season. It seemed like something special was happening, especially after the Al Harris pick-six in OT against the Seahawks in the wild card round.
The offensive line was maybe the best we’d had during Favre’s career, and they were just pounding the Eagles with Ahman all day. Then things came off the rails late in the game when Sherman decided not to go for it on 4th and 1, the punter gave them a touch back, the 4th and 26 completion, and of course, Favre’s INT in OT. Only in a perfect storm of bad decisions could we have lost that game.
We would have played the NFC championship game in Carolina, which I think we would have won, and then played a very beatable Patriots’ team in the Super Bowl.
As far as the two games ranked ahead go, in Super Bowl XXXII we just lost to a slightly better team. The Broncos were on the way up (starting the next season 13-0) and the Pack was on the decline. Even if we had won the 2007 NFC championship game, I don’t think we had the pass rush necessary to beat the Patriots. That the Giants did is the saving grace of that game.
I can not consider a loss in the Super Bowl or the NFC Championship Game to be a “worst” moment. You are damn fortunate to make those games in the first place. Maybe if you were completely embarrassed in the game (ala Vikings), then maybe.
5. Brent and the Vikings go 2-0 against the Packers in 2009, win the division.
4. Packers lose to Eagles in 2003 Playoffs. Packers look poised for easy win when perfect shit storm ensues. A-hole Sherman refuses to give Ahman effin Green the ball on 4th and 1 from the Eagles 31, punts. The Eagles convert on 4th and 26. Then the Brett Favre playoff special- INT in OT. Debacle.
3. Freddy Joe Nunn throws Don Majkowski on his shoulder on November 18, 1990. After Infante refused to give Majik Man a new contract, under the false assumption that Anthony Dilweg could play football, Majkowski holds out into the regular season and the Pack starts 2-4 before the bye. Majkowski is back and the Pack is rolling. One week after beating a decent Raiders team in LA, the Pack is up three scores on the Cardinals when Freddy Joe intervenes. Majkowski is out for the season and never the same, his brief era over. The Pack loses the last 5 games of the season and goes 6-10 a year after going 10-6.
2. Steve Young hits butterfingers TO for a 25 yard TD with 3 seconds left to beat the Packers in the 1998 Playoffs and end the Holmgren/Reggie White era in GB. The league admits Jerry Rice fumbled before that. Darren Sharper (coincidently also involved in #4 on this list) still doesn’t admit that he was hoping TO would deflect the ball in the air so that Sharper could intercept it, do his electric slide, and then act like he just won the game himself.
1. December 24, 1994- The Packers pound the Buccaneers 34-19 to finish 9-7 and earn a wildcard. However, Sterling Sharpe injures his neck near the end of the game and never plays another NFL down. His final game statline- 9 rec., 132 yards, 3 TDs. His final NFL season- 94 rec., 1119 yards, 18 TDs. Find a WR with a final year better than that once. Still holds NFL records for consecutive games with at least 4 catches (34), and number of games with 4 TDs (2). Shoe-in for the Hall of Fame if he keeps playing. Instead, in a heartbeat, it is all gone. I literally cried.
The 4th-and-26 game is #1 for me, because it is just plain humiliating. Every team loses some heartbreakers (like SB 32…just not their day). But most don’t completely shit themselves at the end of a game they were dominating.
Nationally, no one has forgotten it either. I still hear sports talk reference it from time to time.
Although, when the Giants kicked to DeSean Jackson that took some heat off of us.
How about the day we drafted Tony Mandarich? We could have had our choice of a number of future Hall-of-Famers instead. The superbowl may have come to Green Bay a lot sooner had we not drafted that juiced up piece of shit.
Number 1 has to be the XXXII loss. A Super Bowl loss trumps all.
2, for me, is the 2002 Wild Card game we lost to Atlanta. First home playoff loss ever, just painful.
3 is the 4th and 26 game, still have nightmares about that play
4 is Judas Favre’s return to Lambeau when he lit us up. That was humiliating.
I have to say one of the worst as to be hiring mike Sherman as gm
I’ve been to two of those games. The NFC Championship game and Favre’s return to Lambeau. Lucky me.
The 4th and 26 might have the biggest overall impact of any of the 4.
The 4th and 26 had this origin –
The Packers had 4th and a foot and a half, after having rushed for 210 yards that day, and the backs had another 30 yards through the air, they punt. If the Pack get a first down, they could pretty much ice the game, or at least get in down real thin on time. Instead, Sherman tries to draw the Eagles offside, and then punts, which went into the endzone, netting about 20 yards. It was on that ensuing drive the 4th and 26 occurs. It was out of that set of circumstances that Mike Sherman showed his true colors – as GM he traded up for a punter that never had even a scintilla of an impact, and as coach he scapegoated Ed Donatell as defensive co-ordinator.
I think it’s conceivable to say if the Packers, in my opinion the best team in the NFC in 2003, had taken care of their business, # 3 wouldn’t have happened, nor #1 and #4, and perhaps the implosion of the team circa 2005, which is an addition in one of the comments above. The whole painful Favre affair may have ended differently in general. It was the CAROLINA PANTHERS that made it to the Super Bowl that year, of course losing by 3 as the NFC did every time to the vaunted Patriots. Put the Packers in instead? Who knows. But it doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination from there if the Pack had just gotten a first down instead of being gutless on 4th and a foot and a half.
The Packers we have now certainly wouldn’t exist, but we had to traverse A LOT of pain to get here, pain that wouldn’t have existed in the alternative timeline.