5 reasons to hate the Green Bay Packers, the Panthers’ Week 15 opponent
There are a lot of cool things about the Green Bay Packers. Green Bay is the smallest metropolitan area (only 300,000) with an American top-tier pro sports team, and the Packers are the only major sports team in the United States with a fan ownership model.
The Packers are also quite hate-able, and this former Minnesotan is here to tell you why:
(1) Fans from afar
I have two hardcore Packers fans in my life. One of them is audibly from Wisconsin, she has the accent and everything. Lifelong Wisconsiners rooting for the Packers? Not ideal, but I can live with it.
On the other hand is my friend decidedly not from Wisconsin. He was born here, in North Carolina, and roots for UNC and all that. Not only is he not from there, I’m pretty sure he has yet to set foot in the mediocre state of Wisconsin. Yet, he still wears one of those Rodgers jerseys and owns a cheese hat.
Charlotte does attract plenty of transplants, so there’s a good chance many of those stupid cheese hat things you encounter on Sunday will be attached to heads born in Wisconsin. However, plenty of those will be fans of the second variety. At least they don’t have stupid yellow towels to wave.
And no, I don’t think it’s relevant that any child of mine would probably be a die-hard Panthers fan no matter if we moved to, say, Wisconsin.
(2) Ridiculous luck
Those fans, whichever category they fall under, have had a lot to cheer for. More importantly, they haven’t really had a miserable season.
Remember 2010 when quarterbacks Matt Moore, Jimmy Clausen, and Brian St. Pierre all rotated being terrible as the Panthers went 2-14? How about 2007, when Jake Delhomme went down with Tommy John surgery, leading to Vinny Testaverde and David Carr turning a promising 4-2 season, into a lost 4-7 and then a 7-9 season? Or the 15-game losing streak of 2001?
Over the last 25 years, none of that has happened to the Green Bay Packers. They got Brett Favre for 15 years, which nearly came to a miserable end in 2005 with a 4-12 season. But, just two years later, Favre led the Packers to the NFC Championship Game.
Finally, with Favre out of the picture after the 2007 season, there was some chance the Packers might fall to Earth. The next man up was some guy named Aaron Rodgers. That 2008 season ended with the Packers at 5-11, but highly resembled Cam’s rookie season in 2011. A year later, the Packers were in the playoffs and celebrating a Super Bowl in 2010.
It’s been a ridiculous run of luck for the Packers, where not even Rodgers’ injured collarbones (one in 2013 and one this year) can derail playoff runs. Rodgers, of course, returns to the field this week.
(3) Ending the Panthers’ 1996 wonder run
The Panthers weren’t supposed to be so good, so soon. Just their second year into existence, an offense led by Kerry Collins and a defense led emotionally by Sam Mills won eight straight games to finish 1996 at 12-4. It was good enough for the NFC second seed and a first-round bye.
After beating Dallas in the Divisional Round, the road to the Super Bowl went through Green Bay and Lambeau Field. Sadly, however, the road stopped there, as did Charlotte’s magical first season (the first Panthers season was played at Clemson).
(4) Point differential dashing playoff hopes
Once or twice over the past three decades, fate smiled upon the country and forced the Green Bay Packers to miss the playoffs. But even in so doing, their fans have fun all the same.
Just head back to 1999, with the Packers and our Panthers both at 7-8, alongside the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys were scheduled to play the New York Giants on Sunday Night Football, and if the Cowboys lost, it would open the door for one of the Panthers or Packers, who were tied on conference record and record against common opponents. The next tiebreaker? In-conference point differential, where the Panthers entered the day 18 behind the Packers.
What ensued was perhaps the greatest two hours of offensive football in NFL history:
That’s right, Jake Delhomme (and the Packers) eliminated the Panthers from the playoffs. He actually was the leading rusher in the game, going for 78 yards on eight carries.
Later that night, the Cowboys won and rendered it all moot and, terrified that such a fun thing could ever happen again, the NFL pushed point differential behind strength of victory, strength of schedule, and several other things.
(5) Wisconsin’s dairy products are overrated
I went to Eau Claire, Wisconsin once for some student government retreat trip thing when I was in middle school and one of the leaders led us in a song about the superiority of Wisconsin’s milk. Not about to stand for this blatant disrespect of my adopted home state, I replaced the lyric ‘Wisconsin milk moo moo’ with ‘Minnesota milk moo moo.’ Unfortunately, we were five Minnesotans among some 200 Wisconites, so our protest went mostly unheard.
The point is, you may have heard about their milk (which isn’t as good as Minnesota’s), or their butter (how hard can it be to make butter?), or their cheese curds (which are delicious, er wait), but it’s probably just because they make too big a deal about them.
Photo: Observer file photo
This story was originally published December 14, 2017 at 9:00 PM with the headline "5 reasons to hate the Green Bay Packers, the Panthers’ Week 15 opponent."