Brats & Beer

A Crushing Defeat

Twelve hours removed from the end of the NFC Championship game and it still hurts like hell. It’s going to take some time to get over this, but maybe in a month or so I’ll be able to look back and think about what a good season the Packers had in 2007. Maybe.

Right now everyone has their theories about what went wrong in the frozen confines of Lambeau Field, but the plain and simple truth is the Packers got beat by the Giants in every phase of the game. It wasn’t one player or one play. It wasn’t one side of the ball or the other. It wasn’t just Mike McCarthy. It wasn’t just Brett Favre. It wasn’t just the cold. Green Bay had the better regular season but last night New York played the better game.

Green Bay struggled for everything they got on offense. The running game never had a chance to get going because New York manhandled the line and closed off lanes as soon as they opened. Brett Favre was off target a lot of the time and his receivers failed to make some key catches that could have changed the flow of the game. When they did make catches, a New York defender was usually right there to make a sure tackle.

The Green Bay defense was unable to get pressure on Eli Manning and the secondary got burned time and again by Plaxico Burress. The Giants ran the ball 37 times and eked out about 3 1/2 yards per carry, enough to sustain some time consuming drives that eventually reached the end zone in the second half. New York finished 6 for 16 on third down attempts; Green Bay converted just one of 10.

Special teams, too, came up short, allowing some long kick returns that gave New York good field position most of the game. The big play, of course, was failing to recover the fumbled punt return in the final quarter that could have breathed new life into the offense and set up the Packers for a game-clinching drive. That was a killer. The writing was on the wall all game, but that’s when I knew it was probably over.

At least the Packers handled themselves well after the game. In all of the post-game interviews I heard, everyone took responsibility for not executing as well as they should have and everyone gave credit to the Giants for playing a good game.

Hopefully this loss will stick in Green Bay’s craw until training camp starts and give them some extra motivation for next season.