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The party is over at Lambeau Field
Posted: Sept. 20, 2006
Bud Lea
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Green Bay - Game days aren't special at Lambeau Field anymore.
Last Sunday morning the Green Bay Packers fan and his wife from Milwaukee put on their green Packers shirts, gassed up the SUV, and headed for Green Bay with some Stevens Point friends and . . . and nothing.
No butterflies appeared as they pulled into the Lambeau Field parking lot. No sense of excitement touched their every thought.
When coach Mike McCarthy looks out onto the field, he sees a troubled team looking back.
New Orleans was in town, and it didn't matter. The Saints aren't the Chicago Bears, a team everyone in Cheese Nation has a bloodlust for you can only find in sports. Besides, the Packers just about always beat the Saints.
This wasn't a rivalry. The Packers had faced the Saints 19 times and had won 14 of them, including last year's 52-3 blowout.
This was a "Milwaukee game," part of the Gold package offered to Milwaukee fans who used to watch the Packers play home games in County Stadium until Bob Harlan moved all games to Green Bay after the 1994 season.
Rick Sturtevant has been attending games in Green Bay for years. He likes coming to Lambeau Field. Doesn't mind the two-hour drive. He says the environment is perfect for watching Packer football.
But these Packers aren't the world champion Packers of 10 years ago. Or the Packers of three years ago when they still ruled the NFC North.
Counting playoffs, the Packers have won just three of their last 12 games at Lambeau Field. The mystique is gone. The Cleveland Browns, you remember, rolled into town last year and left as winners.
OK, sooner or later, every team hits hard times. Maybe it's the Packers' time.
"I don't think they needed to let it go this far," Sturtevant, a financial advisor with Morgan Stanley, said. "They have the money. They could have done things."
The general manager is an easy target. They're saying good teams shop at Sak's Fifth Avenue for talent while Ted Thompson shops at Wal-Mart.
One-and-a half hours before kickoff, John Protiva and his wife sat in their 30-yard line bleacher seats and enjoyed the beautiful summer day. The other Milwaukee game is Nov. 19 when weather conditions could be harsh.
Protiva, an insurance broker from Elm Grove, owns 53 Gold season tickets. He's got that many because he kept buying them during the lean years when the Packers weren't that popular playing games in County Stadium.
No matter what the team does this year, he won't give up the ghost. "I'll never give up one ticket," he said.
But Protiva gave up on the Packers Sunday. At the start of the fourth quarter, when the Saints were leading, 20-13, he and his wife headed for the parking lot and drove home to beat the traffic jam on the interstate.
So, have these "Milwaukee" fans written off this season?
"I think so," Sturtevant said. "I don't know who they can beat."
"They'll be lucky to win four games," Protiva said.
Everyone must realize the party is over at Green Bay. The Packers might have been the league's winningest organization of the 1990s, but the Saints reminded a sellout crowd of 70,602 at Lambeau Field how drastically the NFL order has changed.
The vagabond Saints finished 3-13 last season but are off to an unbeaten start under new coach Sean Payton. Baltimore, coming off a 6-10 season, is undefeated. The New York Jets (4-12) are 1-1, and so are the Buffalo Bills (5-11), Arizona Cardinals (5-11) and San Francisco 49ers (4-12). The Super Bowl favorite Carolina Panthers are winless.
Mike McCarthy's second game as head coach of the Packers was another sobering fact that this team doesn't know how to win. If this was the Packers' first chance to make a statement, it was striking how often they became tongue-tied.
"It's not the outcome I was looking for, but I don't look at things as damaging," McCarthy said. "I'm focused on Detroit. We need to win a football game."
It is McCarthy's job to keep everyone's chin up, to buoy everyone's sagging locker room spirit, and to convince this team that it can win.
You can condemn the coach and general manager and bicker over who deserves the bulk of the blame. But if the Packers want to end their nightmare, they will have to start assessing their own inadequacies.
It's clear the Packers have many worthy scapegoats not named Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy. And it's not only the young guys. Veterans alike can share the blame for dropped passes, fumbles, interceptions, playing soft on defense. And the Packers running game, the seed from which everything grows, isn't even close to what it must be to take the pressure off the quarterback.
The bottom line is they're not very good. It looks like they are building this team from scratch.
The fans see a football team that is young and competitive sometimes and miles away at other times. They see an aging quarterback trying to pull out miracles, but also a team without many game-breaking offensive weapons to support him.
Often, they don't know what they see. Mostly, what they want is someone to tell them it all will be worth it. They want hope and they want certainty, and they want it now.
This is how it is going to be, I'm afraid. There will be no comfort level with this bunch. No home-field advantage.
If you're considering to give up your season tickets, think again. The Packers ticket office has more than 72,000 on their waiting list.
Posted: Sept. 20, 2006
Bud Lea
Green Bay - Game days aren't special at Lambeau Field anymore.
Last Sunday morning the Green Bay Packers fan and his wife from Milwaukee put on their green Packers shirts, gassed up the SUV, and headed for Green Bay with some Stevens Point friends and . . . and nothing.
No butterflies appeared as they pulled into the Lambeau Field parking lot. No sense of excitement touched their every thought.
When coach Mike McCarthy looks out onto the field, he sees a troubled team looking back.
New Orleans was in town, and it didn't matter. The Saints aren't the Chicago Bears, a team everyone in Cheese Nation has a bloodlust for you can only find in sports. Besides, the Packers just about always beat the Saints.
This wasn't a rivalry. The Packers had faced the Saints 19 times and had won 14 of them, including last year's 52-3 blowout.
This was a "Milwaukee game," part of the Gold package offered to Milwaukee fans who used to watch the Packers play home games in County Stadium until Bob Harlan moved all games to Green Bay after the 1994 season.
Rick Sturtevant has been attending games in Green Bay for years. He likes coming to Lambeau Field. Doesn't mind the two-hour drive. He says the environment is perfect for watching Packer football.
But these Packers aren't the world champion Packers of 10 years ago. Or the Packers of three years ago when they still ruled the NFC North.
Counting playoffs, the Packers have won just three of their last 12 games at Lambeau Field. The mystique is gone. The Cleveland Browns, you remember, rolled into town last year and left as winners.
OK, sooner or later, every team hits hard times. Maybe it's the Packers' time.
"I don't think they needed to let it go this far," Sturtevant, a financial advisor with Morgan Stanley, said. "They have the money. They could have done things."
The general manager is an easy target. They're saying good teams shop at Sak's Fifth Avenue for talent while Ted Thompson shops at Wal-Mart.
One-and-a half hours before kickoff, John Protiva and his wife sat in their 30-yard line bleacher seats and enjoyed the beautiful summer day. The other Milwaukee game is Nov. 19 when weather conditions could be harsh.
Protiva, an insurance broker from Elm Grove, owns 53 Gold season tickets. He's got that many because he kept buying them during the lean years when the Packers weren't that popular playing games in County Stadium.
No matter what the team does this year, he won't give up the ghost. "I'll never give up one ticket," he said.
But Protiva gave up on the Packers Sunday. At the start of the fourth quarter, when the Saints were leading, 20-13, he and his wife headed for the parking lot and drove home to beat the traffic jam on the interstate.
So, have these "Milwaukee" fans written off this season?
"I think so," Sturtevant said. "I don't know who they can beat."
"They'll be lucky to win four games," Protiva said.
Everyone must realize the party is over at Green Bay. The Packers might have been the league's winningest organization of the 1990s, but the Saints reminded a sellout crowd of 70,602 at Lambeau Field how drastically the NFL order has changed.
The vagabond Saints finished 3-13 last season but are off to an unbeaten start under new coach Sean Payton. Baltimore, coming off a 6-10 season, is undefeated. The New York Jets (4-12) are 1-1, and so are the Buffalo Bills (5-11), Arizona Cardinals (5-11) and San Francisco 49ers (4-12). The Super Bowl favorite Carolina Panthers are winless.
Mike McCarthy's second game as head coach of the Packers was another sobering fact that this team doesn't know how to win. If this was the Packers' first chance to make a statement, it was striking how often they became tongue-tied.
"It's not the outcome I was looking for, but I don't look at things as damaging," McCarthy said. "I'm focused on Detroit. We need to win a football game."
It is McCarthy's job to keep everyone's chin up, to buoy everyone's sagging locker room spirit, and to convince this team that it can win.
You can condemn the coach and general manager and bicker over who deserves the bulk of the blame. But if the Packers want to end their nightmare, they will have to start assessing their own inadequacies.
It's clear the Packers have many worthy scapegoats not named Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy. And it's not only the young guys. Veterans alike can share the blame for dropped passes, fumbles, interceptions, playing soft on defense. And the Packers running game, the seed from which everything grows, isn't even close to what it must be to take the pressure off the quarterback.
The bottom line is they're not very good. It looks like they are building this team from scratch.
The fans see a football team that is young and competitive sometimes and miles away at other times. They see an aging quarterback trying to pull out miracles, but also a team without many game-breaking offensive weapons to support him.
Often, they don't know what they see. Mostly, what they want is someone to tell them it all will be worth it. They want hope and they want certainty, and they want it now.
This is how it is going to be, I'm afraid. There will be no comfort level with this bunch. No home-field advantage.
If you're considering to give up your season tickets, think again. The Packers ticket office has more than 72,000 on their waiting list.
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