The Pack Is Back in Title Game, 30-13

GREEN BAY, Wis. — They were on their feet, although they could very well have been frozen to their seats after more than three hours of chilling anticipation, and now as Reggie White toured their hallowed field--the Halas Trophy high above his head symbolizing an NFC championship--the Packer faithful would not leave.

With a tip of their cheeseheads, a Titletown USA crowd of 60,216, which began arriving as early as 6 a.m. Sunday to tailgate and defied a windchill of minus-27 degrees at times, pounded its mittens together in appreciation of the end of 29 years of less-than-legendary football, a 30-13 NFC championship game victory over the Carolina Panthers.

The grainy flashbacks of Vince Lombardi being carried from the field on the shoulders of such household names as Nitschke, Jordan and Davis will be replaced with replays of Sean Jones and White dropping an orange bucket of ice on the head of Coach Mike Holmgren.

“Hey, Green Bay,” screamed Ron Wolf, the general manager who assembled this team. “How about this? Guess where we’re going?”

The Packers are going to the big game, the first time since winning Super Bowls I & II, after relying on the unlikely heroics of running back Dorsey Levens to make the Panthers look like a second-year expansion team at Lambeau Field.

“The real America’s Team,” Packer President Bob Harlan suggested at postgame ceremonies. “There are a great number of Packer fans out there who have waited so long for this to happen.

“I think it’s a great story and I think pro sports needs a story like this. You know everybody that has ever come in here has been compared to Lombardi, and the players have been compared to what the Packers did in the ‘60s. But these players have written their own chapter to Packer history, and may have many more to come.”

While their fans pitched victory cigars at them on the field, the Packers (15-3) hugged each other and promised to bring the Lombardi Trophy back to its proper resting place.

“We’re going to win the Super Bowl for Green Bay,” proclaimed Jones, a Packer defensive end.

The way the Packers have had it pegged, this has been their destiny all season. Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre predicted it in training camp, and although it had prompted a gag order from Holmgren, the expectations were not about to go away.

“We can talk about the Super Bowl now, finally,” Holmgren said, but there will be no talk about renaming Lombardi Avenue quite yet. “I think the two men [Lombardi and Don Hutson] who have things named after them around here were very special and were really good reasons to name the fields, the streets and the schools after them. They were special.

“Maybe if we keep going for another 10 years, there will be a little alley they can name in my honor.”

Phil Bengston, Dan Devine, Bart Starr, Forrest Gregg and Lindy Infante failed to fill the giant footsteps left by Lombardi, but after five winning seasons, Holmgren’s Packers have made their own name.

“When I talked to the team after the game I couldn’t get the words out,” said Holmgren, who turned away from the cameras in the locker room to keep his tears from going public. “These guys have been such great people, such great players, I’m just so happy for them.”

A year ago the Packers were not ready for this. They had the lead in the fourth quarter in Dallas in the NFC championship game, but lost, 38-27, and on that return flight to Green Bay, many of their more experienced players vowed to remain motivated by the bitterness they felt.

“No way we were going to let that happen again,” safety LeRoy Butler said. “And that’s what made winning this game so sweet. I think that’s the first time for some of us to see so many grown men cry in the locker room. You think about this kind of thing as a little kid, and you get chills realizing it’s really happening to you now.”

Forget Carolina’s early lead. It was never going to last on this field, where the Packers have won 18 games in a row and 28 of 29. Down, 7-0, after a Favre interception to set up a three-yard Kerry Collins touchdown pass to Howard Griffith; and then trailing, 10-7, because of another Favre turnover, the Packers were merely getting warmed up.

“God always has the last laugh,” said White, who claimed vindication in his opting to move here four years ago as a free agent. “I made a decision to come here because I thought this team had a chance to win a Super Bowl. I thought we had a quarterback who could lead us. I thought we had a coach who could build this team. Everything I said has come to pass.”

The master plan needed only to run its course. Favre’s 29-yard toss to Levens beyond the late coverage of cornerback Eric Davis tied the game at 7-7, and then Favre found Antonio Freeman for a six-yard touchdown in the second quarter to give Green Bay a 14-10 lead it never surrendered.

Two Chris Jacke field goals extended Green Bay’s advantage to 20-10, and then a 66-yard screen pass to Levens set up a four-yard Edgar Bennett touchdown in the third quarter to establish a 27-13 Packer advantage. Another Jacke field goal only highlighted the Packers’ dominance of the Panthers (13-5).

“They outplayed us,” Carolina Coach Dom Capers said after the Packers rolled up 479 yards to the Panthers’ 251. “This was the best team we played this year.”

The Packers, who had been confronted by the NFL’s toughest schedule and who had survived a series of devastating injuries to their wide receivers, responded to Carolina’s mostly reject team with Levens, a no-name sensation of their own.

Levens, who once scored 50 points in a high school football game, had a personal-best 88 rushing yards in 10 carries and 117 yards on five receptions.

“We finished 11th in the NFL rushing the ball and people talked about us like we were 31st out of 30 teams,” said Levens, a fifth-round draft pick three years ago who transferred from Notre Dame to Georgia Tech after two seasons with the Irish. “I think we took that personal, and I think we made a statement that we can run the football.”

The Packers did as they pleased against the Panthers, and for the 12th time in franchise history, they will be playing for the opportunity to be the NFL’s best team.

“I think we’re a really good football team,” said Favre, the NFL’s most valuable player the past two seasons and now the leading candidate to be MVP in Super Bowl XXXI. “Everyone expected us to win today, and we did. I’m assuming everyone is picking us to win the Super Bowl, but anything can happen.”

Win or lose, the Cheeseheads will be there for their Packers,

“This is what the NFL should be all about,” Wolf said. “If a person is really and truly a pro football fan, it’s incumbent upon them to come here and watch a game and witness what occurs here. It’s unreal.”