It used to be a threat back in the 80s. Coaches would tell players, “Shape up or I’m going to trade you to Green Bay.”
Scared the shit out of guys. Shaped ’em right up.
If you’re wondering what would be so awful about playing for the Green Bay Packers, let us tell you. Mostly, they play in a small town lacking the distractions of a big city and that small town happens to be freezing-ass cold.
In the 80s, it didn’t help that the team was awful.
But this is 2014. Surely, everyone must want to play in Green Bay now!
Nope.
ESPN surveyed over 100 current NFL players and asked them where they’d least want to play. The question was actually phrased this way: “The only way I’d play for [fill in the blank] is if they doubled my salary.”
While the Packers weren’t first on the list like they would have been in the 80s (when it was laughable to even think they’d double anyone’s salary to begin with), they were on the list.
Six percent of the players surveyed said the Green Bay Packers would have to double their salary in order to play there.
That put the Packers fifth on the list, but they were lumped in with some real undesirable franchises. Franchises that don’t win. Franchises that are a laughingstock.
Oakland was first at 23 percent, followed by Buffalo (19 percent), Cleveland (16 percent) and Jacksonville (9 percent).
The Packers have one thing in common with those other four franchises — undesirable location.
Face it. No one has ever said “I want to move to [insert one of those five cities here]!”
Throw in shitty weather and that’s apparently enough to disregard Green Bay for a number of guys — guys who don’t value winning tradition or organizational stability.
It’s nothing new, though. And it always changes when they get to Green Bay and play there for a little while.
Charles Woodson has openly admitted he wanted nothing to do with Green Bay when he was a free agent. He only signed with the Packers because he didn’t have a decent offer from another team that promised to keep him at cornerback instead of moving him to safety.
After playing for the Packers, he couldn’t say enough good things about Green Bay.
And so it goes.
This made me remember when Aikman said he would not play in Green Bay… Must have been after this article. Another thing in the story – when Tom Braatz’ greatest dream was a 9 – 7 Packer team. Wow.
http://articles.latimes.com/1988-12-08/sports/sp-1601_1_green-bay
Yea I believe it, hell it took a message from god to get Reggie into town.
Amen and hallelujah! Reggie saw the light and entered into the promised land were the rivers flow with beer and cheese and the sacred field is bringing forth Lombardi’s.
Pretty sure it was Holmgren pretending to be God on the answering machine and the 14 million we gave him was a record at the time…
Yeah, I get the idea, but everyone in this survey was lying.
Have that team they don’t want to play for offer even $1 million more, and 99.9% would be with that other team.
Sing it with me:
It’s sure is hell about the money, money, money
We’re talking about the paycheck…
Its all about the paycheck….
Seriously, it’s the weather, the small town and Wisconsin taxes.