I Have Made a Decision

I’ve been a Green Bay Packers fan my whole life. I was born just after the Vince Lombardi Era had ended, so I was used to not having any expectations about how the team would do from year to year. In fact, I had almost no mental or emotional investment in the team or their prospects because doing so was a pointless exercise. When they won, it was fine. When they lost, it was fine.

Then came Mike Holmgren and a certain Trump-Supporter-To-Be at quarterback. Suddenly, the Packers were good and were actually fun to watch. Of course, it wasn’t just Favre, because this is a team game and Holmgren knew that. The defense was destructive. The acquisition of The Minister of Defense, Reggie White (RIP), added a whole new dimension to the defense. The coaching of the defense started under Ray Rhodes, who left after a couple of years to coach the San Francisco defense to a Super Bowl victory. He was replaced by defensive coaching legend Fritz Shurmur. What Rhodes started, Shurmur finished by coaching the Green Bay defense into top ten rankings every year until his last year there when they ranked at #11.

After all that success, Holmgren was tired of having to defer to a GM and EVP of Football Operations, so he took a job with Seattle where he was given all three jobs and he also took Shurmur with him (Shurmur would die of cancer within a year). Reggie White retired (the first time) the same year Holmgren left. Holmgren caught a lot of shit by Packer fans for his decision. They thought he was being greedy and stupid–and maybe he was because he never won another Super Bowl title. Thus began the now-going-on-21-year ordeal that has been the most painful period of my life as a Packer fan. Yes, I know about the 2010 season, don’t get ahead of me.

After Holmgren, Ray Rhodes returned to Green Bay as head coach. He lasted only one season after an 8-8 record and missing the playoffs for the first time in six years. There was a lot of controversy over Rhodes’ firing. I remember visiting my grandparents over Christmas and listening to sports radio in Milwaukee with my aunt (who is a SUPER FAN like you’ve never seen) while we were driving to pick up my great uncle for the family Christmas party. Both the host of the show and a bunch of callers said that the main reason why Rhodes was canned after only a single year was because of racism and that he needed more time to get things together after such a major shakeup within the organization. Remember, this is Wisconsin in 1998. Nobody talked about race, much less racism, but they were super pissed at how Rhodes got handed all the blame and was shoved out the door. Now, maybe Rhodes could have turned the ship around, and maybe he couldn’t. There are plenty of examples of Coordinators in the NFL who couldn’t make the leap to head coach. Rhodes had mixed success in Philadelphia before Green Bay, but after that experience he went back to coaching defenses for the remainder of his career. So, we’ll never know if he could have turned things around or not.

Mike Sherman was next and he looked like the second coming of Vince Lombardi, racking up wins left and right, but never making it to the Super Bowl. He even got a shot that Holmgren never was given by being named the GM. But, the year before he got fired, Sherman lost his GM duties. The official word is that the team leadership thought Sherman needed to focus on his coaching job. His only real free agent signing of note was Ahman “Fumble Machine” Green five years prior. So, he was replaced by Ted Thompson, which was the official beginning of The Dark Times. The next year, after the team was decimated by injuries and finished 4-12–the first time they’d done that poorly since the year before Holmgren arrived–Sherman got shitcanned and was replaced by Mike “The Beav” McCarthy in 2006.

McCarthy’s tenure was much like Sherman’s. Lots of playoff appearances, and lots of playoff chokes. Thompson was the kind of GM who was constantly emphasizing the importance of building a team through the draft, rather than free agency. Which is really just code for saying he was a cheap bastard. His only free agent signing of note was Charles Woodson. In fact, Thompson was known more for cutting loose high performing players once they got into free agency. He had a few good picks in the draft such as Clay Matthews, Bryan Bulaga and Jordy Nelson. He also picked up Aaron Rodgers, who basically fell into his lap–but let’s be real here. That was a one in a million shot. It had literally nothing to do with any genius moves on Thompson’s part. We can’t attribute that pick to Thompson’s GM prowess any more than Favre to Ron Wolf or Tom Brady to Bill Belichick.

Anyway, the Thompson/McCarthy Reign of Terror had only one bright spot, which was the victory in Super Bowl XLV. That was the year that they not only had a smokin’ hot offense, but a great defense as well. Believe it or not, Dom Capers was the guy who got the defense in shape in just a couple of years after the previous DC, Bob Sanders got fired because his defense sucked a big fat donkey ass. Now, you’d think that a guy like McCarthy, who had no compunction about firing an underperforming DC (along with five other defensive coaches who likewise sucked) would similarly feel free to show Capers the door once his leadership got stale and opposing offenses were able to figure out his schemes without much trouble. But, no. Capers lingered on, much like that extra 15 pounds you’ve been trying to lose since your freshman year in college. Capers’ high water mark was the Super Bowl winning year, with the #2 defense in the league. After that, the defense completely fell apart, along with Capers’ cognitive abilities. The very next year their defense ranked #19, and they never again cracked the top ten under Capers. Yet, McCarthy refused to show that old, broken asshole the door. The epic chokes against Seattle in 2014 and Arizona in 2015 weren’t enough. It wasn’t until 2017, the first time they failed to even get to the playoffs in eight years, when McCarthy was given a stark choice by Thompson: either Capers goes, or they both go. To this day, I wonder if Capers had blackmail photographs of McCarthy fondling a young boy, or being sodomozed by a horse. There is really no other logical reason why McCarthy allowed Capers to stay so far beyond his expiration date.

Capers was replaced by Mike Pettine. Now, I didn’t actually think it was possible to downgrade from Capers, but I was wrong. Before coming to Green Bay, Pettine was coming off a year as a “consultant” after getting fired as the head coach of the Cleveland Browns. His coaching record was 10-22, losing 18 of his last 21 games with them. Mike Pettine sucks, so obviously that made him the perfect pick for Mike McCarthy and the Green Bay Packers.

To be sure, McCarthy is not the next Bill Walsh. His soon-to-be-short tenure in Dallas is as much a testiment to that as anything (as I’m typing this, I’m watching McCarthy’s Cowboys getting manhandled by the Arizona Cardinals who scored 21 points before the Cowboys could muster a field goal in the first half). He didn’t coach to win so much as he coached not to lose–and he failed at that strategy plenty of times. Essentially, he was able to coast on the decisions made by GMs and coaches before him, and claim credit for the wins with Hall of Fame players on his roster. But, once he couldn’t place the blame for his shitty coaching on anyone else, it was clear to team leadership that he needed to go and the sooner the better. McCarthy was head coach of that team for 12 years, which was longer than any other coach of the Green Bay Packers, except for Curly Lambeau–but at least Curly had six championships to show for his tenure.

Ted Thompson should have been shown the door as well, but instead he was given the new title of “advisor” to football operations, which really is more akin to deliberately leaving a piece of a cancerous tumor behind just because you figure it can’t do that much damage in the future. He was replaced in the GM role by Brian Gutekunst. This is Brian’s first time in the GM seat. He has spent his entire NFL administrator career with the Packers, which I guess is nice–I can appreciate promoting from within. But, the problem here is clearly the fact that he’s being taught how to do his job by Ted Fucking Thompson and boy does it show. More “building through the draft.” More ignoring defensive shittiness by relying on a 1st ballot Hall of Fame QB, and drafting offensive players who don’t really amount to much. More cutting loose solid players the very second they enter free agency. Definitely more ignoring season-altering free agent possibilities like a certain DB from Oakland who is now playing for the Packers’ number one rival.

McCarthy got replaced by Matt LaFleur, whose primary qualifications for the job appear to be that he was younger than 40 and had shared the same air with Sean McVay in 2017. His first season with the team resulted in a 13-3 regular season record, which is great, right? Well…let’s look at one of those three losses. It was against the San Francisco 49ers, who proceeded to kick the shit out of the Packers, 37-8. The 9ers made the Packers’ offense look like the Lions’ offense. Then they proceeded to steamroll the defense, which wasn’t really that hard considering the fact that LaFleur decided to keep Mike Pettine on as the DC.

The rest of the season was the same old shit. They make the playoffs, and they get to the NFC title game, where they have to face…the San Francisco 49ers. Now, you can bet that the Packers suspected they would be facing this team again–and in San Francisco. They also had, at bare minimum, a full week to do nothing but study film and draw up some kind of plan that was in some way even a little bit different than what they did earlier that season. But, this is a team–no, this is an organization–whose most significant feature is their complete inability to learn from their own mistakes. Raheem Mostert alone accounted for 220 of San Fran’s 285 rushing yards in that game. He was so dominant that Jimmy Garropolo didn’t feel the need to pass for more than 69 yards in the whole game. I mean, why would you when you’re basically able to run at will against Cub Scout Troop 45. Now, let me be clear: I knew that the Packers had zero chance against the 9ers. I also knew that they would lose that championship game because their approach to that game would be no different than their approach to the regular season loss. That is the problem.

I haven’t even gotten to the whole problem of Aaron Rodgers not having a top-flight recieving corps to throw to, or a good offensive line to protect him because if you’re going to ignore the defensive needs of the team, then why wouldn’t you want to make your QB’s job as easy as possible? Nope, that would be cheating. Rodgers has to work for that shit. Now, to be fair, the Green Bay Packers aren’t the only organization that have taken the approach of pinning their entire success on the health and skill of a single player. The Indianapolis Colts did it with Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck (and both of them paid for it with their health and future ability to get around without a wheelchair); the Detroit Lions did it with Barry Sanders; the Lions did it again with Calvin Johnson; the Seattle Seahawks did it with Steve Largent. But you know what? I’m not a fan of the Colts, Lions or Seahawks, so I don’t give a shit what they did. The Packers have had the astronomically good fortune to have two consecutive 1st ballot Hall of Famers at quarterback, and only have two championships to show for it in almost 30 fucking years.

At a certain point, watching them play went from being enjoyable to being stress inducing. Then it went from being stress inducing to being agonizing. It has since gone from being agonizing to being a study in misery. A few years ago, I decided to stop expecting championships from them. I had decided that all I would expect is what they’ve delivered for most of the last three decades: winning seasons, a trip to the playoffs, and an epic loss anywhere from the Wild Card to the Conference Championship. But, it has simply become too difficult to do even that. Even when they win games, I am expecting them to lose. It certainly doesn’t help that the sports media appears hell bent on talking about the Packers as though it was still 1967. Just yesterday, I was watching the pre-game show before their game with the Buccaneers. The pregamers were talking openly about whether Matt LaFleur should win Coach of the Year–at week SIX–and if Aaron Rodgers should be MVP again. The crawl on the bottom of the screen listed the Packers as #1 on their NFL power rankings. The whole time I’m watching this, I’m thinking to myself, “who do these assholes think they’re kidding?” Now, that may sound stupid to you, because the Packers were 4-0 going into this game. But, those four wins came against the Vikings (1-4), Lions (1-3), Saints (3-2) and Falcons (0-5). This shit happens all the time. They start off against a bunch of weak teams and look great. The minute they face off against a good team, they get exposed for the frauds they are. But the real kiss of death was what I call the Stat Curse. They talked about Rodgers’ streak of completed passes without an interception. Then comes the game. The Packers start off decently, with a 10-0 lead. Then, Rodgers throws a pick-six, and then two tosses later, throws another interception, which was the start of yet another epic collapse as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers scored 38 unanswered points. I couldn’t stop laughing as the Packers fucked up over and over and over again in that game. It was hilarious, and I found myself applauding every single time they blew a play–which meant that my hands were red and swollen by the end of the game. Again, I knew before the game started that they were going to lose because the Buccaneers are a legitimately good team–but I also knew they would lose because of the same problems they refuse to address: shitty defense, medicore offense, and absymal coaching. That game could have easily been mistaken for any number of humilating losses over the past 21 years, for all the same reasons.

So, I’ve made a decision as the result of that game. I am no longer a fan of the Green Bay Packers. I will not cheer them, or hope that they do well in this or any other season. I will be giving my Donald Driver jersey to Goodwill (it’s the only jersey that I ever felt was worth spending the money on because Driver was an incredible–and yet again underutilized–player). I’m not wild about encouraging some other poor sucker to show their Packer Pride by wearing that jersey, but I simply can’t bring myself to burn it. I will absolutely make it a point to not watch them when they’re on TV. I may or may not actively root for them to lose–it’s certainly one area in which I will rarely be disappointed–but the journey to freedom is taken one step at a time. I don’t even care if they win the Super Bowl this year (they won’t.). I’m done wasting one more ounce of personal interest in this team.

When I told my wife of my decision, I wasn’t sure how she would react. Interestingly enough, she was overjoyed and relieved. She stopped watching Packer games with me years ago because I am such a miserable asshole while watching them play. She used to love watching football with me, but I have poisoned the entire experience for her because I am that much of a selfish killjoy.

Now is the time when I can hear people calling me a spoiled baby who doesn’t understand the pain of being a fan of a truly shitty team such as the Lions or the Browns. But, that is exactly the point. If I were a fan of either of those teams, I wouldn’t have any expectation of anything other than one embarrassing loss after another. The occasional victory would be received as a pleasant surprise. That was my life as a Packer fan in the 70s and 80s. But, there is nothing pleasant about being a fan of a team that just good enough to keep stringing you along without any realistic hope of meaningful progress or change in circumstances. I imagine it’s how a gullible young woman feels when she’s been dating a married man for years, all while he keeps telling her that he will divorce his wife soon but the time isn’t right yet. The Packers suffer from the worst kind of problem in professional sports: organizational stagnation. They keep making the same stupid mistakes over and over again, but they figure that as long as they make it to the playoffs on a fairly regular basis, they don’t really have to take a hard look at what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. After all, they have a rabid fan base who will support them no matter what. Now they will simply have one less fan and I’m sure nobody will be losing sleep over it. I simply cannot bring myself to continue supporting a team whose operational strategy can be accurately described as “square peg, round hole, bigger hammer.”

Instead, I am now a New England Patriots fan. No, this isn’t bandwagoning. It makes sense on a number of levels. First, it makes geographical sense because I now live in New England. Second, Tom Brady is already gone and it doesn’t look like Cam Newton has really grown into his new team’s system yet. He may, or may not stick around, depending on how things go. But, most importantly, this team makes no bones about changing what they’re doing if it’s not working. Bill Belichick is a ruthless, heartless, son of a bitch who will never shed a single tear when tossing aside an underperforming player or coach like a stale cookie. Robert Kraft, aside from his penchant for getting tuggies at seedy brothels, is likewise just as heartless. He’ll probably let Belichick stick around until he decides to retire, but if at any point ol’ Bill starts becoming 1980’s Don Shula, you can bet your ass that Kraft will kick him to the curb instead of allowing those diminishing returns to keep diminishing. To be sure, this team will have it’s own set of problems. But, after more than four decades of being the Charlie Brown to the Packers’ Lucy, I’m ready for a new set of problems. I may even buy a hat.