Sports News
Well, we've entered the black hole of male existance.Unless you're entertained by rolling billboards going in circles, we've hit the period of time between the Super Bowl and March Madness where there is nothing happening.
Sure basketball is still on, but they are on their all-star break. College basketball is winding down and no one really cares about it until the conference tourneys.
But the week of the Super Bowl I heard something on Steve The Homer True's sport talk show that pissed me off. It's about the Packers Super Bowl loss to Denver.
Apparantly, Andy Reid talked about the Packers loss during the week as he prepared his Eagles for the big game:
It did not surprise Levens when Reid, who was the Packers' quarterbacks coach in '97, brought up Green Bay's Super Bowl loss in a recent meeting with the Eagles. Reid told his team that the Packers lost focus during the week leading up to the Super Bowl and warned the Eagles not to repeat the mistake.
Then he called Levens into his office.
"I guess he thought he might have offended me by saying something like that," Levens said. "One of the trainers came to me and said, 'Andy wants to talk to you.' I went in there and said, 'The only thing I was offended about was that you didn't give me the ball in the second half.'
"That's when he said he'd tell me the real story once I retired."
It is still a mystery why after gaining 62 yards in 12 carries in the first half, coach Mike Holmgren gave Levens the ball just seven times the rest of the game, including just once in the final 15 1/2 minutes after the Broncos took a 24-17 lead. In the second half, the Packers could neither solve Denver's blitz nor keep running back Terrell Davis from running up and down the field.
Levens still feels he could have helped solve both problems.
"I have not come up with a logical explanation as to why we didn't run the ball in the second half," Levens said. "The biggest thing was keeping them on the sideline. We run the ball, grind the clock out and give our defense a chance to rest and then our defense is fresher. We came out and they couldn't stop the run in the first half.
"One of the most heartbreaking things (Broncos tight end) Shannon Sharpe has ever said to me was when we got back to Atlanta in the off-season, he was like, 'Tell Mike I said thank you for not running you because we still haven't stopped you yet.' All I could do was walk away from him. That's all I could do."
So, Steve The Homer True asked another former Packer coach (I forget the name) about it. What's the mystery?
He said: Mike Holmgren's ego was so big, that he wanted to prove that they could stop the Denver blitz with his passing attack. He wanted to do it HIS way so that the glory would come to him and his brilliant passing scheme.
That's it.
Everyone wanted to run the ball but Mike.
Denver couldn't stop Dorsey.
I've always known that the Packers beat themselves that day, ...now it's out in the open.
The Packers lost by one score. They had the ball in Denver territory with one minute left on the clock. It was a close game. How different would it have been if the Packers were able to run off some clock and tire the Denver defense, keeping them on their heels?
Not to mention the momentum they would have had.
That game still stings. Last year's loss at Philly and time has overtaken some of that sting, but I don't think I'll ever be totally over it.
At least now I know who, specifically, to blame.
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