During a span of sixty-five years, beginning in 1936, the Green Bay Packers never lost a home playoff game at City Stadium, which was rebuilt in 1956, and renamed Lambeau Field in 1965.    ESPN sports anchor Chris Berman took to referring to the venue as “the frozen tundra”, and the nickname stuck. 


Any playoff game the Packers hosted at Lambeau was considered a sure victory.  Nobody wanted to come up in the cold and play the Pack in January.  That was especially true of the warm weather teams from the south and the west.  Lambeau was the most feared home field advantage in all of pro football, perhaps in all of sports. 


The mystique ended in 2002 when quarterback Michael Vick and the Atlanta Falcons came to Lambeau and thoroughly whipped the Packers 27-7 in the wild card round.  Since then, Green Bay has gone just 7-7 in the post season on their home turf.  The last two defeats were particularly disheartening because, in both cases, the general consensus was the Packers had the better team.  Following the 2020 season, Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Bucs made the cross country trip to northeastern Wisconsin and beat the Packers 31-26 in the NFC championship game.  After the 2021 season, the San Francisco 49ers knocked the green and gold out of the playoffs at Lambeau with a 13-10 upset. 


Green Bay went 7-1 at home during the 2019 and 2020 seasons.  In 2021 they were a perfect 8-0 in the friendly confines.  But this past season, the home record slipped to 5-3.  That doesn’t include the loss to the New York Giants, which was a home game but was played in London.   


It’s not like Green Bay lost those games to top of the league juggernauts.  They were beaten at home by the Jets, the Titans and the Lions.  None of those teams made the playoffs.  The Jets and Titans actually finished with worse records than the Packers.  The Lions game was, in effect, a playoff game, and represented yet another failure in the clutch in front of the home crowd. 


What has happened to Green Bay’s home field advantage?  We all have our own theories.  Here’s mine.  I believe the decline was inevitable considering the game’s continuing emphasis on the pass.  The NFL wants wide open, high scoring games, with big, exciting pass plays.  They have made it harder to defend the pass with numerous rule changes protecting quarterbacks and receivers.   


Understanding this, the Green Bay front office and coaching staff have tried to gradually assemble a dynamic offense emphasizing speed and athleticism.  And for the most part, they’ve been successful.  Last year notwithstanding, the Packers have had one of the most dynamic offenses in the league in recent seasons.  There was also a sense of not wasting the career of a Hall of Fame caliber passer.  Yes, the Packers have two good running backs, but the team has never seemed to commit to winning by running the ball.  Like most other teams, they run to set up the pass. 


However, that brand of team often comes at the expense of physicality and toughness, qualities that really become necessary when the weather turns cold.  How many times have you heard the Packers accused of being “soft” in recent years?  How many games has it seemed as though they are getting pushed around by opponents that are not as talented as them?  In short, Green Bay, which plays in the coldest venue in the NFL, may have built a team that is ill-suited for cold weather.  


And then there are the fans.  I am only going by the audio that I hear on my television, which can be deceptive.  You readers who have actually attended games at Lambeau recently can correct me if I’m off base.  But it seems to me that the amplitude of the cheering when an opponent does something positive is getting louder and louder.  I’ve even heard substantial noise from opposing fans when Green Bay lines up to call signals on offense.  This seems to indicate the number of enemy fans in the stadium has significantly increased.   


We’ve all seen Matt LaFleur flapping his arms like a wounded condor on the sideline, trying to elicit more noise from the home crowd.  Frankly, it’s kind of embarrassing that our own coach feels he has to do that.  I know from covering the team home and away for four years, that It’s always been a kind of unspoken sentiment among players and coaches that Packer fans aren’t as loud as fans in some other venues, particularly the Milwaukee crowd.   


Part of that has nothing to do with team spirit. For one thing, I also know from experience that it’s not easy to scream and shout when temperatures are below freezing, your face is numb, and you’re wearing parkas and gloves.  And  I empathize with fans who are dealing with the rising cost of season tickets.  I get that they need to sell some of the games off to be able to afford the package.  I don’t know how much control the fan has over whom those seats get sold to.  But it would probably help if they weren’t sold to opposing team supporters.  


Really though, I’m not sure how much crowd noise actually affects a game.  It’s probably overrated.  The Packers just need to find a way to reestablish Lambeau Field as their property.  Holding serve at home this coming season will be critical to their success.  In addition to their NFC North rivals, Green Bay plays the Saints, Rams, Chargers, Chiefs and Bucs at home.  To stay in playoff contention, they likely can’t afford to lose more than one of those games. 


The frozen tundra must rise again.  Something tells me that it will. 

CheeseheadTV wrote:

I think the article misses something: the games move slower thanks to tv timeouts, reviews initiated by coaches etc. Throw in parity from salary cap rules, it makes teams far more even and with rules favoring passing (with big gains from either plays or penalties), it makes it harder for teams to build up lead and maintain them with game flow/momentum and crowd noise. 

Originally Posted by: Mucky Tundra 

Seems like Gute's best moves were the ones that he hasn't been able to execute... and Bears beat them out on a couple of those, Claypool, OLB Mack, etc

beast wrote:

beast I noticed that too

The irony is that fans say he's not aggressive enough to do what's necessary but the aggressive moves he wanted to make would be a disaster

Mucky Tundra wrote:

I think the writer is also missing something, an intelligent argument. While the things he noticed are correct, what's his solution to fixing these issues?

Simply focus on the run game more? ... don't you think they and the other 31 ones teams are attempting to improve their running game? He's just saying here is the problem, they should fix it ... well no shit! I'm sure none of the Packers teams wanted to lose at home.


All this being said,  what do you want to do about it?Much some huge move? As we agreed on in shout


And the fact of the matter is, scouts are not prefect and certain teams have strengths I'm selecting certain positions and weakness is other areas.

And I think it's far to question if one of the Packers weak areas of selecting players might be OL.

A lot of people want to talk about how many #1 picks are on the defense, but Gute has a pattern of Round 1 on defense but then rounds 2, 3 and often round 4 on offense. Looks at how much value has been put into OL and how little we have gotten out of it so far.

Othere than maybe Jenkins (whom the Packers had his former offensive coordinator on staff as QB coach), Runyan and MAYBE just MAYBE Tom all of Gute's OL picks have so far under preformed their draft status and a lot of them have a lot better OL player drafted behind them playing on the Chiefs, Patriots or Bears.


So his seeming idea of let's just improve here is ridiculous and lazy writing, because they absolutely have been trying. So instead of suggestions maybe we should get better at the run game, how about put a little work into it, and say let's get OL scouting reports and improve our OL selections.

Also, as for drafting OL, Gute certainly seems to have a strict type, 6'4" - 6'6" must be from SEC, Big 10 or Pac 12 (Tom is the only exception, being from the ACC). Which of course for OTs, but it's a bit surprising all the interior guys as well have that height and not a single small school guy.

Originally Posted by: beast 

I think it's more of a rah rah article than a logical argumentation piece.

Man I hated Vick and Reeves for that. I was aware of our playoff home record. Nowadays I blame Sherman and Rosseley for being people who were not smart.

Originally Posted by: nerdmann 

However, that brand of team often comes at the expense of physicality and toughness, qualities that really become necessary when the weather turns cold.  How many times have you heard the Packers accused of being “soft” in recent years?  How many games has it seemed as though they are getting pushed around by opponents that are not as talented as them?  In short, Green Bay, which plays in the coldest venue in the NFL, may have built a team that is ill-suited for cold weather.  

I thought this was the best point in the article.  Many of us have the lamented the inability to consistantly run the ball successfully on 3rd (and 4th) and less than 2 yards.  We don't seem to get guys with the 'road grader' ability on the Offensive Line.

Originally Posted by: Martha Careful 

How much do you factor that the QB would see the defense give the offense a good look and then rather than running on 3rd and short, or passing it to a guy in the flat, or quick hitch route over the middle to move the chains the ball gets aired out 15+ yards down the field?

Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool 

It's my belief we could have had Christian Okoye the last 10 years and there wouldn't be an increase in rushing attempts on 3rd and short.

Only to the extent he, the OC, and the Head Coach all  knew the offensive line got very little movement so they would naturally be predisposed to look to pass first.
That's because its not as much about the RB, as it is about the 5 guys plus the TE moving bodies off the ball ala the Eagles this year.

Originally Posted by: Martha Careful 

Packers OL is pretty decent vs the run. Maybe defenses figured Rodgers would take a shot so they gave him the look they knew he wanted to bait him into it? 🤔

Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool 

I definitely believed that happened at times, defenses would give Rodgers defending the run looks, knowing if it was a run, he'd switch it to a pass and then out of that defensive run look they would pin their ears back and pass rush hard out of the false look. At least that what seemed to happen at times to me.

Of course, I believe it was former Packers Mike Wahle whom broke down Tom and Nijman video and pointed out that you can 100% tell if it's a run or pass call, just by their stances. With their feet being vertical if it's a pass and horizontal if it's a run. If Packers want to get better at disguising their looks, especially for play action that this wide zone is known for but the Packers haven't used a lot of lately, they need to either fix that by going to a single stance, or use the wrong stance on propose when it's play action, or when you want to fake the opponent out.

Originally Posted by: beast