Picture me as hair-faced Chuck Todd moderator of "Meet the Press". He usually starts his program with the line, "If it's Sunday, It's Meet the Press". In my case? "If it's Wednesday, my blog is a day late." No excuses. And my apologies to new blogger and old friend Julie Rowley, who I was advising on her attempt to Blog. Not a good example here Julie.
First of all, let me get this off my mind. I was at "The Game" Sunday night in Green Bay. My old friend, John B. and traditionally go to the opening game in Green Bay every year. I have been going to Packer Games since the mid-sixties. That means I've saw Gerry Kramer lead Paul Horning around the end on the famous Packer Sweep and I saw him Sunday night hobble out to receive an ovation with the rest of the veterans that returned for recognition, which by the way included Paul Horning.
So it goes without saying, I've seen a lot of great games and players on that field. Many of the memories were of great teams and some of them were not so great. Bart Starr, Lyn Dickey, and Bret Favre were worth watching win or lose. And I could go position by position and say the same thing about many players that I've watched. Some of the great ones were opponents, Barry Sanders of Detroit and Walter Payton and Gale Sayers of the Chicago Bears to name a few.
During the last four minutes of the game, when I stood with seventy thousand plus fans, in Lambeau Field, all of yelling our selfs hoarse, I knew I was in a moment of history that would be talked about for years. The short version of the story is simple. During a terrible first half of football for our Packers, our quarterback Aaron Rodgers left the game with a bad left knee injury. When he came out with the team at halftime he was favoring that leg but he was walking. When he walked onto the field for the first offensive possession in the second half, we were losing to the Chicago Bears 20 -0. In the last four minutes of the game, he engineered the final offensive drive that resulted in a comeback 24-23 win for us. Add to that accomplishment that the defense stopped the Bears from scoring on a number of attempts. The last play of the game was a sack of the Bear quarterback which snuffed out any chance of a field goal attempt to win the game.
It's easy to say that Aaron Rodgers is the greatest quarterback to ever play the game. His predecessor, Bret Favre was tremendously talented and fun to watch. And there are many players active and retired that would like to claim that title and maybe they deserve it. But here is my reason for giving it to Rodgers. He is a phenomenally talented player who works hard at being better. He's a team player. He knows he is the face of the team but he acknowledges they other parts of the team that makes him successful. He is outstanding under pressure and has tremendous mental discipline. By all appearances, he is a great guy.
He was doing some outreach work with young people in Milwaukee. In one episode of this effort he was talking to three young kids and it was apparent that one of them didn't even know who he was. The way he handled that was touching for his humility and his realization that what he was doing was about the kids, not him.
First of all, let me get this off my mind. I was at "The Game" Sunday night in Green Bay. My old friend, John B. and traditionally go to the opening game in Green Bay every year. I have been going to Packer Games since the mid-sixties. That means I've saw Gerry Kramer lead Paul Horning around the end on the famous Packer Sweep and I saw him Sunday night hobble out to receive an ovation with the rest of the veterans that returned for recognition, which by the way included Paul Horning.
So it goes without saying, I've seen a lot of great games and players on that field. Many of the memories were of great teams and some of them were not so great. Bart Starr, Lyn Dickey, and Bret Favre were worth watching win or lose. And I could go position by position and say the same thing about many players that I've watched. Some of the great ones were opponents, Barry Sanders of Detroit and Walter Payton and Gale Sayers of the Chicago Bears to name a few.
During the last four minutes of the game, when I stood with seventy thousand plus fans, in Lambeau Field, all of yelling our selfs hoarse, I knew I was in a moment of history that would be talked about for years. The short version of the story is simple. During a terrible first half of football for our Packers, our quarterback Aaron Rodgers left the game with a bad left knee injury. When he came out with the team at halftime he was favoring that leg but he was walking. When he walked onto the field for the first offensive possession in the second half, we were losing to the Chicago Bears 20 -0. In the last four minutes of the game, he engineered the final offensive drive that resulted in a comeback 24-23 win for us. Add to that accomplishment that the defense stopped the Bears from scoring on a number of attempts. The last play of the game was a sack of the Bear quarterback which snuffed out any chance of a field goal attempt to win the game.
It's easy to say that Aaron Rodgers is the greatest quarterback to ever play the game. His predecessor, Bret Favre was tremendously talented and fun to watch. And there are many players active and retired that would like to claim that title and maybe they deserve it. But here is my reason for giving it to Rodgers. He is a phenomenally talented player who works hard at being better. He's a team player. He knows he is the face of the team but he acknowledges they other parts of the team that makes him successful. He is outstanding under pressure and has tremendous mental discipline. By all appearances, he is a great guy.
He was doing some outreach work with young people in Milwaukee. In one episode of this effort he was talking to three young kids and it was apparent that one of them didn't even know who he was. The way he handled that was touching for his humility and his realization that what he was doing was about the kids, not him.
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