Green Bay This friend of mine, a man of modest means, desperately wants to attend the Super Bowl but can't because he's paying college bills for his kids.
My advice to him was not to worry because the Green Bay Packers are going to make the Super Bowl seem like old hat by the time Aaron Rodgers and the stacked lineup around him are finished.
One of the most annoying remarks in sports is when a coach or a player for some down-in-the-mouth team says his goal is to win "championships."
If any player, coach or scout for the current Packers failed to use the plural case to state his objective, he would be guilty of grossly underselling the capability of what has been built in Green Bay or not telling the truth.
As far back as Dec. 20, one day after the Packers nearly won at New England with a backup quarterback, I knew exactly how I intended to wrap up a season in which the Packers battled gamely through a torrent of injuries but ultimately fell just short of making the playoffs.
They were going to win the Super Bowl next season.
Now the Packers find themselves playing in the Super Bowl next Sunday, a game they're favored to win against the Pittsburgh Steelers. And I'm spending my first non-football weekend in what seems like forever trying to make sense of a team whose future appears brighter than at any time since the Lombardi era.
Get ready, Wisconsin. You ain't seen nothing yet.