The Packers won SB XLV in Rodgers' second playoffs. Can Love do the same? The two QBs and teams have much in common.
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The locker room was mostly empty, except for Josh Jacobs and Xavier McKinney. It was their first news conference after signing as free agents with the Green Bay Packers last offseason.
Yet, from the moment Jacobs and McKinney stepped inside Lambeau Field, they could sense what had happened less than two months earlier. They felt the Packers' last-minute playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC divisional round seeping from the walls.
But as disappointed as everyone in the organization was about the loss, there was a feeling a window had been opened to the future for the youngest team in the NFL, led by a rising star in quarterback Jordan Love.
"From day one, it's been mentioned," Jacobs said of the loss, shortly after he arrived in Green Bay. "Just between the guys, it's been mentioned."
In 2010, there was a similar mood among those who had just joined the Packers, months after the team lost an NFC wild-card game, 51-45 in overtime, to the Arizona Cardinals during quarterback Aaron Rodgers' maiden trip to the playoffs.
"You could tell it was a little bit of a driving factor going into it," recalled Packers tackle Bryan Bulaga, who joined the team in 2010 as a rookie first-round pick. "It seemed like it was more of a driving factor that we could go further, and we know we can do more. I didn't really know that, because I was a rookie, but you could tell other guys felt like this team had more."
That 2010 team went on to win Super Bowl XLV. Can this Packers team follow the same path to a championship? The 2009-10 and 2023-24 Packers have much in common.
Both had a young quarterback heading to his second straight postseason. Both were wild-card teams that few on the outside considered a Super Bowl favorite. Both had young rosters. The 2010 team won a championship by going on the road for every playoff game. This year's team, the No. 7 seed, begins its quest on the road against the second-seeded Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC wild-card round (4:30 p.m. ET, Fox).
"When you go through things like that -- and a young team at that -- you have those experiences and you go through the losing part of it. That helps you learn," said McKinney, the safety who signed with the Packers during the offseason.
"It's not necessarily that they lost, you're learning from that situation. Next time when it pops up, you know how to handle it and you know how to go about it. ...That added fuel to the fire. And just adding pieces -- myself, Josh -- to what they had already going on, I think really helps put it all together."
Though the 2010 team went into the playoffs on a high note, having to win their last two games just to get into the postseason, this season's team has limped in with back-to-back losses.
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