Let's be honest: The reputation of the Green Bay Packers outside of Wisconsin - rightly or wrongly - is that they are a finesse team.
They run a slick West Coast offense. Their offensive line has been pushed around easily. Running back Ryan Grant can't break a tackle. Receiver Greg Jennings complains any time somebody breathes on him.
On defense, statistically they are the top-ranked unit and Charles Woodson could collect some serious hardware in the off-season, but there aren't many players that strike physical fear in opponents.
That's the conventional wisdom around the country.
And the Packers have a chance to change all of that in their next three games, starting Monday night in front of a national television audience against the "big, bad" Baltimore Ravens.
More importantly, if the Packers prove they can match blows with the Ravens, the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field and the Pittsburgh Steelers, they will serve notice to the rest of the league that they are battled-tested, playoff-ready and a real threat do some damage there.
"Yeah, it's a pretty tough stretch," nose tackle Ryan Pickett said Thursday. "I think it's perfect. You've got teams coming in that pride themselves on being physical, and I feel like we're probably the most physical team in the NFL and it's a good chance to show them."
Since the Pittsburgh-raised Mike McCarthy was named Packers coach in 2006, he has constantly preached a want for a physical, hard-nosed beast of a team.
For most of McCarthy's tenure, it hasn't come to fruition. The one playoff victory in '07 came against the Seattle Seahawks, another West Coast offensive team that seemed to short-circuit off of its normal artificial turf. And in the frozen NFC title game, the New York Giants seemed to be the team delivering all the punches.
After going 6-10 in '08, the Packers again seemed more over-easy than hard-boiled this season. The Cincinnati Bengals, who ruled the Ravens' and Steelers' AFC North turf this season, pushed the Packers around on Sept. 20. And in the two biggest regular-season games, against the hated Minnesota Vikings, the Packers, for all intents and purposes, got knocked out early.
But there is evidence to suggest the Packers have turned the corner on toughness.
They completely dominated the Dallas Cowboys, who stood atop the rugged NFC East, in a 17-7 victory.
The following week, the Packers pushed around the San Francisco 49ers and their third-ranked rushing defense to the tune of a 30-10, fourth-quarter lead, 129 yards on 21 carries (6.1 average) for Grant, and the coup de grace - a smash-mouth, 10-play, 43-yard drive on which 38 came on the ground to finish off the final 5:50 of the game.
No harder punch can be delivered than imposing your will on a desperate opponent to finish a game.
"We have a physical team, man," Pickett said. "Offensive line is physical. They're driving guys down the field on the other team's defense. San Francisco was ranked the top in the run and our offense pretty much blew them off the ball."
And the fact the Packers have unofficially knocked 12 opposing players out of games this season - six in the past three games (the same number the Packers have sustained themselves all season) - has to be considered supportive evidence.
But the verdict is coming in against the Ravens and Steelers in particular.
"That's what they taught me when I got there, that we're going to be the toughest, meanest, baddest team out there," said former Raven-turned-Packer safety Derrick Martin. "And that's what they're going to try to bring out here. We've got to weather the storm. They're going to come out here swinging. After they throw their best punch, we've got to be ready for that KO, we have to be able to knock them out."
The Ravens certainly have more experience in street fights. Their Sunday night overtime victory over the Steelers was the latest of many knock-down drag-outs in the AFC North.
"Every division is definitely different, but I feel that we have one of the most physical divisions in football," Ravens linebacker/enforcer Ray Lewis said. "In terms of Pittsburgh's defense, our defense and now even Cincinnati's defense is really coming up on the rise, it's just a toss-up. It's physical every week in and week out.
"We just like playing physical football, bottom line."
The Packers want to see how they measure up.
"For us, I think the offensive line has really taken this as a really good character game," said guard Daryn Colledge. "For us, this is really that next step. We've got a dominant defense coming in here, and we need to go out and have a good performance against them."
And if the Packers want to change perception, real or fabricated, they can start by answering the bell each of the next three weeks, starting Monday.
"I almost know, but you never know. . . . I'm excited to see what we can do because I know the guys and what they're made of," said linebacker Brady Poppinga. "We have a bunch of scrappers in here, man. And I really believe that."
Said Pickett: "Oh, yeah, we're looking forward to it. They've had that label for so long. We'd like to have it. We're going to go and get it."