By now, it should be obvious that one thing didn’t defeat the Packers in the NFC Championship Saturday.

Not the fake field goal-turned-touchdown. Not the onside kick …

… which was apparently illegal, though unnoticed by the referees. (Screwed in Seattle again?)

Not the late touchdown and two-point conversion. Not the overtime touchdown.

To blow a 16–0 lead (which is still a two-possession lead) requires a series of events to all take place, rather like a plane crash. Consider, for instance, that five Seahawk turnovers led to just six Packer points. The finish might have been different had just one of those field goals — or, for that matter, Aaron Rodgers’ end-zone interception on the Packers’ first drive — been a touchdown instead. Broadcasting friends of mine like to trot out the Third Score of Death maxim — that it’s nearly impossible to come back from a three-score deficit, which is more than 16–0.

The counter to that is that one can’t know if going up 20–0 would have been an insurmountable margin either, which gets to the point of this post. The Seahawks have much more of a let-it-all-out philosophy than the Packers, which are a fundamentally conservative organization. Coach Mike McCarthy has no trick plays in his offense, and rarely brings out trick plays on special teams, like a fake field goal or punt. A develop-from-within philosophy is fundamentally conservative as well, because it eschews spending big money on free agents that may or may not pan out. Julius Peppers and Reggie White did; Joe Johnson (remember him?) did not.

Was the safe thing to go for field goals instead of going for a touchdown on fourth-and-goal? To settle for a field goal from inside the 1, when you have good running backs and a quality offensive line, is ridiculous. I’m not sure where I saw this, but the statistics-mongers would say your chance of getting a touchdown from the 1-yard line is pretty good. As one of my favorite NFL analysts, ESPN.com’s Gregg Easterbrook, says …

… this column pounds the table so much about not kicking on fourth-and-short that it’s amazing the table has not broken. Four times in the NFC championship game, the Green Bay Packers faced fourth-and-1. Four times Mike McCarthy did the “safe” thing by sending in the kicking team. How’d that work out for you?

Answer: It didn’t.

Somehow, the Packers managed to take only 64 seconds off the clock and leave Seattle with one timeout before booming a punt. On all three snaps, Green Bay rushed directly into a nine-man box. Seattle offered Aaron Rodgers a chance to ice the contest with a long pass — and as in every other instance in the game, given the choice between conservative tactics and being bold, the Packers went conservative. This gave Seattle possession again with four minutes remaining, and the football gods decided to calm the wind and rain. …

To open the season, Green Bay scored just 16 points at Seattle. In 2012, Green Bay scored just 12 points at Seattle. No contemporary team makes it harder to reach goal-to-go than the Seahawks. If the Packers were to win the NFC championship, they needed to be aggressive when close. Play-not-to-lose tactics wouldn’t work.

Yet after reaching fourth-and-goal at the Seattle 1 in the first quarter, Mike McCarthy sent in the field goal unit, after a third-and-goal play on which the Packers just ran straight ahead, with no misdirection. (At the Indianapolis 1 yard line, Bill Belichick had a tight end shift to split wide, then another tight end shift, then a man-in-motion away from the playside, which resulted in an uncovered man for the touchdown.) After reaching fourth-and-goal at the Seattle 1, again McCarthy opted for a placement kick. Then, upon reaching fourth-and-1 on the Seattle 22, again McCarthy sent out the kicking unit.

Victories don’t come in the mail! Had McCarthy played for a touchdown in any of these three situations, the Packers likely would have won, as Seattle would have fallen too far behind.

At least these mincing, fraidy-cat kicks resulted in points. McCarthy’s worst decision came with Green Bay leading 16-0 in the third quarter and facing fourth-and-1 at midfield. Seattle is the league’s best fourth-quarter club. The previous week, Seattle had sputtered until the fourth quarter, when it came alive to crush the Panthers. Deafening noise was likely in the fourth quarter. Green Bay, in turn, tends to peter out in the fourth quarter and entered the title contest with a 320-160 first-half scoring edge but having been outscored 98-133 in the fourth quarter. Tuesday Morning Quarterback noted two weeks ago the Packers tend to lose the fourth quarter. If there’s one place the visitors will lose the fourth quarter, it’s at Seattle. So Green Bay could not sit on its hands in the third quarter. On the day, Green Bay rushed for a 4.5-yard average. Go for the first down! The Packers needed to put the Seahawks away.

Instead, McCarthy sent out the punter. Disgusted, the football gods caused Seattle to march the other way for the touchdown that brought the crowd to life. That touchdown was on a fourth-and-10 gamble. “Safe” tactics failed. Fortune favored the bold!

Overreacting to one loss is not a good thing, but this one loss cost the Packers a Super Bowl berth, when Rodgers will not be the Packers’ quarterback and Clay Matthews will not be their leading defensive player indefinitely. (I’d also point out this is one fewer Super Bowl opportunity in our lifetimes, but why kick ourselves when we’re down?)

In my lifetime there have been two other NFC Championship losses, which are, as I’ve said before, the most gut-wrenching because the loss denies you the Super Bowl experience, whether the latter ends up with a win (Super Bowls I, II, XXXI and XLV) or loss (XXIII). I wasn’t that bothered by the 1995-season-ending loss to Dallas, though annoyed by the third consecutive playoff loss to the Cowboys, because it seemed obvious to me (though not everyone) that the Packers were far from done being contenders and had progressed from second-round losses (twice to Dallas) to at least get to the NFL’s Final Four. The 2007-season-ending loss to the Giants was far worse, because it occurred at home after it appeared the stars were properly aligned for a Super Bowl trip (thanks to the Giants’ previous-week win at Dallas, the NFC’s number one seed). It seemed like the end of an era, and it was, since that was Brett Favre’s last game as a Packer quarterback.

This one? It’s hard to say. Rodgers isn’t getting younger, but this is still a rather young team. Of bigger concern is that Rodgers is not as durable as Favre was (though that’s a really high standard), since Rodgers has lost significant parts of seasons to a broken finger and collarbone and was hobbled by his thigh injury this year, so he wouldn’t seem to have as many future Super Bowl opportunities as Favre turned out to have.

The thing that bothers me the excess conservatism and playing not to lose, instead of playing to put away the Seahawks, in the second half. The Seahawks and the Patriots are both risk-takers, both tactically (during games) and strategically (going into games and over a season). New England has spent much of the postseason running strange offensive line schemes, with not only linemen as eligible receivers (which many teams now do), but receivers as linemen. (The inside five offensive linemen are ineligible receivers, but the outside two — usually tight ends or split ends — are eligible, in the case of linemen with numbers of 50 to 79, if they report to the referee before the play). The Patriots are particularly good at using players where they don’t seem to belong, such as the touchdown pass caught by linebacker Mike Vrabel in Super Bowl XXXIX, and wide receiver Troy Brown, who also ended up playing defensive back. ESPN Boston has 10 examples of coach Bill Belichick’s unconventionality.

The Packers may need to rethink not their schemes, but their philosophy in games, particularly big games.