macbob
  • macbob
  • Veteran Member Topic Starter
14 years ago
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/eagles/20110208_Rich_Hofmann_.html 

DALLAS - The confetti is shot from the cannons, the sun rises in the morning, and the talk turns to dynasties. It is what happens at the Super Bowl, almost every year.

It is not a stupid conversation, but a meaningless one. Anybody who watches the NFL knows just how hard it is to win a championship, how many things have to go right, how two or three of the wrong injuries at the wrong time can derail everything, how prosperity is an NFL team's greatest enemy.

So this is not a dynasty discussion concerning the Green Bay Packers. It is a little bit more subtle than that. There will be no proclamations here that the Packers are loaded and ready to win another Super Bowl or two. Instead, this:

That the Packers appear prepared to be to the NFC what the Patriots, Colts and Steelers have been to the AFC.

That the Packers look as if they are ready to become a perennial and formidable obstacle in the path to the title.

Which is just one more reason why it is going to be even harder for Andy Reid finally to get his trophy.

For just about his entire tenure, the NFC has been the National Football Crapshoot. No team has been dominant, or been that kind of every-year force. (Truth be told, the closest the NFC has come to having that kind of team might just have been the 2002-03-04 Eagles. Which is now 7 years ago.)

Every year, there were a half-dozen decent teams. Usually, one or two came together and made a big run but it was always fleeting, the momentum evaporating in the spring air. You had the impression that the goal was to catch lightning and nothing more.

Well, now you have this Packers team - which has a 27-year old quarterback named Aaron Rodgers who can hit a moving target at 40 paces in a way that few before him have. It has a monster of a tight end named Jermichael Finley, who didn't even play in the second half of the season because of a hamstring injury. It has an offense that was superb without a real running threat, an issue that can be addressed. It has difference-makers like Clay Matthews and Charles Woodson on defense, as well as a top-level defensive coordinator in Dom Capers.

They have lots of pieces, if they can keep them healthy and motivated.

"Yeah, I know it's been a while," Rodgers said yesterday, when asked about repeating. "I think this is the 11th or the 10th different team, in the last 10 years, from the NFC, to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. It's a challenge, but I feel like we are kind of reloading.

"We are going to have the best tight end in the NFL back into the mix here. I think we are getting, I think, 15 guys back from IR. I'm sure a number of those guys will be back. It will be a different team. Every team has a different face to it, every year, different players, guys come and go, but I think the core, the nucleus of this team, is intact to make runs like this for the next 4 or 5 years."

It is hard to argue the point. This Packers team really does seem to be set up for a period of time. That doesn't mean it will be unbeatable, or even the prohibitive favorite. But it will be there, persistently there, starting next year.

"It's going to be exciting," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. "On paper, it's a lot like this year. Coming out of training camp, it was the best football team that I'd stood in front of. I knew we had an excellent opportunity to win the Super Bowl, and definitely, you look at our returning roster next year, it's going to be the same type of situation. I'll be very excited to coach these guys. It's a great core group. Our locker room is better than it's ever been. Winning definitely helps it, no doubt about it. Definitely I'll be very excited just like the rest of the coaching staff to get started when it comes around."

Someone asked about the pressure of trying to win the Lombardi Trophy while playing in a stadium that sits on Lombardi Avenue.

"Well, I look at history and tradition as an asset, and we feel very blessed in Green Bay to have a tremendous history and tradition, and that's something that now we're a part of, we're permanently part of, and that will be something that we'll use as a strength and an outlook," McCarthy said.

"So I don't look at it as pressure. I don't feel stress from it. I embrace it. It's something that players feed off of. We celebrate it as fine as any sports organization in the world, and we've added to it. So to me, our tradition and history and our ability to repeat, that's exciting to us. That's the next challenge."

They are neither an immovable object nor an irresistible force. But they are there, and they aren't going away. Right now, the next-best teams in the NFC - and the Eagles are one of that handful - are clearly a cut below. That was the message of the Eagles' two games against the Packers last season. That was the message underlined by Super Bowl XLV.

Philadelphia Daily News wrote:

zombieslayer
14 years ago
The Falcons and da Bears are no slouches but they didn't get mentioned. The Eagles? I think both the Falcons and da Bears are better, although I do think da Bears won't be as good next year as they were this year.
My man Donald Driver
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(thanks to Pack93z for the pic)
2010 will be seen as the beginning of the new Packers dynasty. 🇹🇹 🇲🇲 🇦🇷
Pack93z
14 years ago
Mark it down.. Atlanta will be a team to be dealt with next season.. that team is more talented that the showing in which we spanked them.
"The oranges are dry; the apples are mealy; and the papayas... I don't know what's going on with the papayas!"
mi_keys
14 years ago

Mark it down.. Atlanta will be a team to be dealt with next season.. that team is more talented that the showing in which we spanked them.

"Pack93z" wrote:



When I watched Rodgers and Ryan in their first years starting I felt we could be seeing the next Brady v. Manning type "rivalry." Atlanta and Green Bay I think are, at least right now, the two best teams in the NFC heading into next year and I will not be surprised in the least bit if the two of them meet several times in the playoffs in the next five years.
Born and bred a cheesehead
warhawk
14 years ago
I think for Atlanta to get where the Packers are they are going to have to open it up more on offense. Matty Ice had one of the lowest YPA of all the QB's out there. Their plan is to play mistake free and methodical. They are technically sound and solid but they find themselves in far to many very close games.

This year they won most of those but you keep playing with fire and you get burned. The question is can their QB put the team on his back and open it up enough to be the kind of threat our QB has been. Based on what the Packers did to him from what I saw he isn't ready to do that.

I think the team we have to watch is in our own backyard and that's the Lions. Fifteen years of getting a top five pick and sooner or later you gotta be good. They are very close. If they can keep their QB healthy he does have the talent to be real threat with his arm.
"The train is leaving the station."
Nonstopdrivel
14 years ago
Indeed, Matt Ryan was tied (with Shaun Hill and Mark Sanchez) for 26th in the league in yards per attempt, with a stellar 6.5 YPA, beating out only passing dynamos Derek Anderson, Sam Bradford, and Mark Clausen.
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doddpower
14 years ago

Indeed, Matt Ryan was tied (with Shaun Hill and Mark Sanchez) for 26th in the league in yards per attempt, with a stellar 6.5 YPA, beating out only passing dynamos Derek Anderson, Sam Bradford, and Mark Clausen.[u]

"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:



Mark Clausen?


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Yerko
14 years ago
Packers will be the big threat in the NFC next year. Atlanta and maybe Philadelphia will slowly fall behind them. Packers found their beat, without some major players. I think it will take some time to hit that same beat with these 15 IR players, but when they do I can honestly say I do not think there will be a team in the NFL that can take on the Packers next year.

The writer makes a good point; 1-3 key injuries can derail a team, but the Packers have already proved that statement wrong. They took the long road to the Super Bowl and won with key players out during the season AND during the Super Bowl.

I am still riding my Super Bowl high and a lot has to go down till the next season begins. I think I will remain confident in the Packers though when all is said and done.
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warhawk
14 years ago
The Packers will have Finley, Burnett, Grant, Neal, Chillar, probably Barnett and Jolly, all back and haven't even made room for new draft picks coming on board you have to figure some of the guys that don't make this team will be starting somewhere else.

I guess probably Hawk goes, Lee, and Lee, Underwood, somebody in the DL rotation, a backup OL, a backup DB. I don't know, some people have to go.
It's more than likely that late draft picks don't stick this time although Ted Thompson seems to find a hell of a player late in the draft almost every year.

The only thing I can say is the opening day 45 is going to be freaky solid.
"The train is leaving the station."
warhawk
14 years ago

Indeed, Matt Ryan was tied (with Shaun Hill and Mark Sanchez) for 26th in the league in yards per attempt, with a stellar 6.5 YPA, beating out only passing dynamos Derek Anderson, Sam Bradford, and Mark Clausen.

"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:



Also, Atlanta doesn't draw the NFC West like it did this year either.
"The train is leaving the station."
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dfosterf (14-Jun) : TWO magnificent strikes for touchdowns. Lose the pennstate semigeezer non nfl backup
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Mucky Tundra (10-Jun) : I might be late on this but Aaron Rodgers is now married
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Zero2Cool (10-Jun) : Bo Melton taking some reps at CB as well as WR
Zero2Cool (10-Jun) : key transactions coming today at 3pm that will consume more cap in 2025
Zero2Cool (9-Jun) : Jaire played in just 34 of a possible 68 games since the start of the 2021 season
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