Category: Packers

Jason Wilde takes a few minutes with Wisconsin’s favorite quarterback, Aaron Rodgers:

Q: Brett Favre has made a lot of news lately, and you’ve talked a lot about it. Why did you decide to get involved in this? What was your thought process in not only doing the NFL Honors presentation but now continuing to be somewhat at the forefront, or being the catalyst, of this reconciliation?

Rodgers: Well first, I don’t want to be at the forefront of this. I really don’t think that’s my place. It’s the organization and Brett and retiring his number, bringing him back into the family … I just felt like I had the opportunity to bury anything that people thought had been between Brett and I. And it was an opportunity to see Brett, to talk, to reconnect beforehand and then to do something very public that was kind of making light of the situation in an atmosphere where many people, when we were announced together, probably were very surprised that one, we were on stage together, and two, that we both agreed to do it. So that was good, I think. The joke, it was almost an inside joke between Brett and I. The awkward comment was off the top of my head; it wasn’t contrived. But I think it was making light of the fact that getting to talk to him, we had patched things up, if anything needed to be patched up. I think it could and can set the tone and set things in motion for the organization and the fans – and Brett – being able to move forward. I think as the face of the franchise, it was important for me to show that I was ready to move on, and hopefully everyone else can as well.

Q: You were the one caught in the middle, though, during the summer of 2008. And we have to be careful about revisionist history here, in terms of your relationship with him when you were his backup. Did you need to hear something from him – “I’m sorry that I put you through that, that wasn’t fair to you,” something to that effect? And did you get it?

Rodgers:  Well, the stuff that we talked about I’m going to keep between Brett and I. But I think that we’ve all just moved past it. We’re 4 1/2 years on the other side of that. A lot has changed around here, obviously. We’ve been able to have success as a team, I’ve been able to have some success individually. I’m very, very secure with the stuff we’ve accomplished here. And proud of it. And I’m able to give the respect that Brett deserves for the many years that he played at a high level here and what he accomplished here. This league is a league that doesn’t wait around for people. It’s a tough league; guys are here one day and gone the next. I’ve seen a lot of friends go on to different teams or go on to a different profession. And change is a constant in our business. We made a change four years ago, five years ago, but Brett had an incredible career here. It’s time to bring him back and retire his number here before he goes into Canton.

Q: Let’s talk about your contract. What does $110 million mean, exactly? We throw these numbers around with professional athletes’ contracts, but for normal people trying to pay their mortgage and put their kids through college, that kind of money unfathomable. Does it blow you away?

Rodgers:  Yes, it’s humbling and silly at times to think about it. But money doesn’t change people, I don’t think. I think it highlights characteristics in your personality that maybe weren’t so visible when you didn’t have as much. So I’ve tried to remember that and stay true to who I am as a person and as a teammate. The guys have been great. There’s jokes every now and then, but I’m trying to be the same person in the locker room that I was when I was a backup and working on the scout team. It gives you an extra responsibility that you take care of the people that are important to you and realize that you have an opportunity to make an even bigger difference in your community and in your world. …

Q: In any way is the contract a burden? Do you worry about justifying the contract?

Rodgers:  No, I don’t think it’s a burden. You know, I’ve felt like I’ve had to justify myself every year, so this is nothing different. I wouldn’t look at it as a burden. When they drafted me, I wanted to prove I was worthy of being a first-round draft pick. When they named me the starter, I felt like I had to prove that I was worthy of being a starter. When we went 6-10 the first year, I felt like I had to prove that I belonged in this league and we could get to the playoffs. When we didn’t win in the playoffs (in 2009), I had to prove that I could help this team win a playoff game. When we won a Super Bowl, I had to prove that it wasn’t a fluke, that we could have another good season. There’s always going to be critics and doubters out there, and it’s about finding your inner motivation, because that’s what successful people can do.

Q:  So the world-famous chip on Aaron Rodgers’ shoulder hasn’t gone anywhere? You haven’t made it?

Rodgers:  I’m very self-motivated. We’ve talked enough about the chip. …

Q:  People who’ve been married a long time always say that the key to a long, successful marriage is that both people work at making the relationship grow, even after years together. This is now your eighth year with Mike McCarthy. That’s a long time. How do you view your relationship, and how do you grow it and strengthen it? Because there’s been some ups and downs.

Rodgers:  Well, I think it has grown. I think one thing that did a lot for us was starting to meet once a week back in 2010, and spending time talking together – about football, about life. I think when you really understand a person off the field, you can better get along with them on the field. I think that’s done a lot for us. You know, he leads by example – in the way he sets up the schedule and practice, a game plan. That’s how he gets the respect from the guys. And he gets more respect from me when he shows me he trusts me by allowing me to have a bigger input on plays at the line of scrimmage or have a bigger voice in the meeting room. And I think that does a lot for the relationship. I think trust goes both ways. We’ve played a lot of football together, been around each other for a long time – me around him as a young head coach, and him around me as a young player. And now, we’re old, grizzled veterans and it’s been fun to see how both of our lives have changed on and off the field, and I think there’s nothing but good things ahead.

Q: He’s said before that he believes conflict is good because it leads to growth. Did you two see your relationship grow after you screamed at him for throwing that challenge flag in Minnesota? I don’t know how you view how you reacted to that, but it was a very emotional reaction.

Rodgers:  Yeah, it was. That was definitely a conflict and we grew from it. And now, I think we can both laugh about it. Well, I laugh now. He’ll be able to laugh about it in the future, I think.

This is an interesting answer to a question posed to Packers.com writer Vic Ketchman. Question in regular type, answer in bold type:

“I’d like to remind my fellow Packers fans that from the ninth game in 2009 until the 16th game of 2011, the Packers went 36-9.” I’d like to remind everyone that it’s Super Bowls the average fan remembers, not year-to-year records. Fans don’t care about how well we fought in a losing effort, how far we went in the playoffs or what rank our offense was that year, fans care about that final W. “Winning is not a sometime thing, it is an all-the-time thing.”

That sounds nice, but in what season was winning an all-the-time thing for Vince Lombardi’s teams? You want the truth? OK, here’s the truth. Those teams that won five NFL titles played in a league that was watered down by the emergence of the AFL. The NFL of the 1960s was a league full of cash-strapped franchises that had no chance of competing for a title. They were just trying to stay alive in the NFL-AFL wars that were skyrocketing salaries and making it impossible for cash-strapped teams such as the Steelers to even be competitive. In 1966, the Steelers selected a running back named Dick Leftridge in the first round. It was such a reach pick that it was a terrible embarrassment for the franchise. They picked him because he agreed to sign a contract far beneath what a first-round pick would earn. The Packers of the 1960s played in a 14-team NFL that included two expansion franchises (Dallas and Minnesota) and a third (Atlanta) on the way. Of the 15 teams in the league in 1966, more than half of them were not competitive and, frankly, weren’t even attempting to be competitive. They were just trying to outlast the AFL. With all due respect to those wonderful Packers teams of the 1960s, they would not have won nearly as many titles if they had played in today’s 32-team, ultra-competitive NFL. In this NFL, a Super Bowl title is a sometime thing; it’s a very special thing. In this NFL, the record the Packers have achieved since 2009 is extraordinary.

In 1959, Vince Lombardi’s first season as Packers general manager and coach, the NFL had 12 teams, each of which had rosters of 36 players. One year later, the American Football League and its eight teams entered the pro football world, the same year the Dallas Cowboys joined the NFL. I couldn’t find the AFL’s roster size rules, but assuming they were similar to the NFL’s the number of people who could call themselves pro football players expanded by three-fourths from 1959 to 1960. One year later, the NFL added Minnesota. Atlanta joined the NFL and Miami joined the AFL in 1966, New Orleans joined the NFL in 1967, and Cincinnati joined the AFL in 1968. Between the NFL and AFL and roster size growth, between 1959 and 1968, the number of football-team roster spots grew by nearly 2 1/2 times.

Between 1960 and 1969, the Packers played in six NFL championship games, winning all but in 1960. The New York Giants lost their three championship game appearances, 1961 through 1963. The Cowboys lost their two, 1966 and 1967. Cleveland won one (1964) and lost three (1965, 1968 and 1969). Philadelphia (1960), Chicago (1963), Baltimore (1968) and Minnesota (1969) won their only title game appearances of the ’60s. Los Angeles got in the playoffs three consecutive years, but not the NFL title game, in the late ’60s.

So from this we can conclude that the best NFL team of the ’60s was indeed the Packers, followed by the Browns. The Colts (they also tied for a division title in 1965, forcing a one-game playoff with the Packers that ended in overtime) dipped and then revitalized under Don Shula, the Cowboys, Rams and Vikings were on their way up, the Giants were on their way down, and the Eagles and Bears were one-year wonders. That leaves the rest — St. Louis, Detroit, Washington (the last NFL team to use black players), Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Atlanta, New Orleans, and, not counting one season each, Philadelphia and Chicago — as almost being out of the running for the playoffs after their first game.

The other difference between then and now is the bigger role of the general manager. Recall that most of Lombardi’s Glory Years players — Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Jerry Kramer and so on — were already there when he showed up in 1959, courtesy of the late Packers scout Jerry Vainisi, who did his job much better than the coaches he worked for did his jobs until Lombardi arrived. GM Lombardi was less successful — he drafted Herb Adderly, traded for Willie Davis, and signed Willie Wood as a free agent — than coach Lombardi. Numerous NFL observers will tell you that there is little difference in overall talent level between the best and worst NFL teams.

Lombardi Avenue explains why firing defensive coordinator Dom Capers is not the Packers’ answer:

As always, the numbers do not lie. The defense finished eleventh in points allowed, a feat made all the more impressive by the fact the Packers play in the league’s highest scoring division. Even more telling, Green Bay finished eighth overall in Football Outsiders’ weighted defensive rankings. Now, consider the fact that the 2012 Green Bay defense lost Clay Matthews, Charles Woodson, Sam Shields, D.J. Smith, Nick Perry, C.J. Wilson, and Mike Neal for multiple games this season. This meant consider playing time for many rookies such as Casey Hayward, Dezman Moses, Jerel Worthy and Mike Daniels. To perform at the level Green Bay did with so many injuries and shifting lineups is a credit to the coaching staff, and we haven’t even gotten into Desmond Bishop and the “bad tackling.”

The perception that the Packers were a bad tackling team this year is perhaps the most frustrating. It was a constant theme during the three games against the Minnesota Vikings and their all-everything running back Adrian Peterson. It’s the calling card of just about every armchair general manager who wants to see Capers ousted.

Well, here’s the reality: the Packers had the third fewest missed tackles in the NFL this year. That’s top three in the league, ladies and gentlemen. If the Packers weren’t a good tackling team this year, then nobody was.

You’ve read suggestions that the Packers should replace Capers with former Bears coach Lovie Smith.

Prior to his hiring by the St. Louis Rams, many were calling for Rob Ryan. Why? The only explanation I can conjure is he coaches a 3-4 and he’s not Dom Capers. Any cursory analysis of Ryan’s defensive record should quickly dismiss him as a reasonable candidate. He’s been a defensive coordinator every year from 2004 through 2012. In that time, he’s never finished with a top 10 defense in points allowed. Worse still, he’s finished in the bottom half seven times. Most of these teams had very capable defensive talent, especially these last few years with the Dallas Cowboys. Ryan is just not a good coach, and certainly not someone worthy of replacing Capers.

Yet, the far more egregious replacement suggestion is Lovie Smith. Now, Smith is one of the better defensive minds in the league. He’s run strong defenses during his time in Chicago and St. Louis and will be a good hire for someone. That doesn’t change the fact he’s a terrible schematic fit for the Packers. Smith runs a cover-2 base 4-3 defense. This defense demands pressure primarily from the four man rushes with the middle and weakside linebacker have the freedom to play in space.Even though Green Bay has a fair amount of talent on the defensive side of the ball, that talent does not fit into Smith’s defense. Specifically, the cover-2 has no position for the Packers’ best defensive players, B.J. Raji and Clay Matthews. …

If Smith were to be hired, Clay Matthews would essentially become Aaron Kampman the sequel. For those who have forgotten, Kampman was the Packers’ best pass rusher back when they featured a 4-3 base defense. In the four years prior to the Packers’ switch to a 3-4, Kampman averaged just under 11 sacks a season. In all the years combined since the switch, Kampman has only acquired 7.5 sacks. If the Packers don’t want to repeat history, they’ll steer clear of Lovie Smith and a switch back to a 4-3.

Moreover: You know why Smith’s defenses played so well? Because defensive players and one running back have been the only competent Bears draft picks for more than a decade. Any competent coach would finish near the top of the NFL defensive rankings with linebackers Brian Urlacher (in his prime) and Lance Briggs. Meanwhile, the Bears’ offensive line is a disaster, the team hasn’t developed a competent quarterback since Jim McMahon, and the worst Packer wide receiver you could find over the past 20 years would have been the number one Bears receiver before they traded for Brandon Marshall. Capers has one more Super Bowl ring than Smith, and Smith had one more opportunity for a ring (Super Bowl XXXVI as the Rams’ defensive coordinator) than Capers.

I’ve pointed out more than once that the regular season and the postseason are different seasons. Capers and the Packers deserve criticism for how they played in the NFC playoff loss to San Francisco, but it wasn’t just the defense, in the same way it wasn’t just the defense in last year’s playoff lost to the New York Giants. I said before the 49ers game that the Packers needed to make quarterback Colin Kaepernick throw, not run. Notice that the Falcons made Kaepernick at least hand off; he ran with the ball once Sunday.

The Packers hired Capers and switched to a 3–4 in 2009. The first half of that season, the Packer defense made the much-maligned 2011 defense look like the 1985 Bears in comparison. Changing defenses would accomplish the same thing — that is, nothing good.

Before we discuss Saturday night’s Battle by the Bay, read this excellent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story about the depth and breadth of Packer Nation:

When the Green Bay Packers meet the San Francisco 49ers in the NFL playoffs Saturday night, the hopes and dreams of a nation will be riding on the outcome.

Packer Nation.

On Guernsey Island, off the coast of Normandy in the English Channel, Paul De La Mare will cheer for the team he adopted in the 1980s, when he discovered American football on the Armed Forces Radio Network.

In Rome, orthopedic surgeon Stefano Ruzzini, 61, will be as emotionally involved as any Packers fan in Appleton or Little Chute. Why? Ruzzini lived in Wauwatosa as an AFS student in 1967-’68, the tail end of the Glory Years in Green Bay. He’s been a die-hard ever since.

In Montreal, Hugues Bertrand, who teaches a high school leadership class and refers often to the example of Vince Lombardi – the iconic coach he read about as a teenager – will be glued to the television.

And, of course, in living rooms across Wisconsin, thousands of fans will jump out of their chairs on one play and sink into them on the next.

The Packers are not the only professional sports franchise with passionate fans scattered across the globe.

But there is something different about Packer Nation.

It’s hard to define. It’s difficult to articulate. It’s something you know to be true but can’t quite explain.

Take it on faith. Take it from the fans themselves.

The Journal Sentinel recently asked for submissions from fans describing how and why they became Packers fans. The response was over whelming: 272 emails poured in, along with four handwritten letters, from 32 states and nearly one dozen countries. …

In many cases, kids cheering for Aaron Rodgers and Clay Matthews today have parents who cheered for Lynn Dickey and James Lofton in the 1980s, grandparents who cheered for Paul Hornung and Ray Nitschke in the ’60s and great-grandparents who cheered for Don Hutson and Tony Canadeo in the ’40s. …

Greg Steffen grew up in Iowa and watched the Ice Bowl with his brother, a Cowboys fan. Steffen did not have a favorite NFL team and decided he’d pledge his loyalty to whichever team won.

“It all came down to that final gutsy call with 16 seconds left,” Steffen wrote. “Starr snuck the ball across the goal line for the victory. I still remember my brother collapsing in front of the TV. And I had a favorite NFL team, the Green Bay Packers, for the rest of my life.

“Not lost on me over the years is the fact that I came one great Jerry Kramer seal block away from being a Cowboys fan for life. Yikes!”

Kelly Mayo of West Bend watched the Ice Bowl with his family and the experience of seeing his tough father – “an Irish cop right out of central casting” – shed tears when Starr scored has stayed with him his entire life.

“I had never seen this giant of a man cry and I have never seen it since,” Mayo wrote. “Not when his mother died, not when his sons went to Vietnam or more importantly when they came back, not ever before or since.

“But watching my Dad cry on that glacial Sunday, I became a rabid, dyed-in-the-wool, lifelong Packer fan! I began to understand what they meant to my Dad – hope, a collective that was bigger than ‘one,’ pride, belonging, something to help escape the mundane and perhaps most essential something human and personal.

“And that is what the Green Bay Packers exemplify to me to this day.”

In 1966, 8-year-old David Welsh of Lexington, Ky., wrote a school report on Starr, an athlete his pastor-father admired and respected. He got an A-plus grade (“Thank you, Mrs. Collins”) and decided to mail a copy of the report to Starr.

“I don’t know if he ever saw it, but a few weeks later I received an autographed picture from the future Hall of Fame quarterback,” Welsh wrote. “That day, standing at the mailbox in a foot of snow, I became a Packer fan for life.”

Never in my life have I ever cried over the result of a sporting event, including the three Super Bowls I remember watching. (I probably watched Super Bowls I and II too, but given that I was 1½ and 2½, respectively, I don’t remember the games.) I have gotten murderously angry at the results of certain Packer games, though not of Super Bowl XXXIII. My wife and I are Packer shareholders, and our kids are on the season ticket waiting list (five digits in each), so we have a personal commitment, as opposed to fans of lesser NFL teams.

If you were asked to identify the Packers’ biggest rival that is not in the NFC North, you probably would answer one of three choices — Dallas, the New York Giants, or San Francisco.

The Packers–Cowboys rivalry dates back to the Packers’ first two Super Bowl appearances, both of which went through Dallas, and was heightened by the three consecutive seasons in the ’90s where the Packers’ playoff trips ended in Dallas. The Packers–Giants rivalry is one of the NFL’s oldest, stoked by the hiring of Giants offensive coordinator Vince Lombardi to be the Packers’ coach (resulting in consecutive NFL championships), and recently amped by the Giants’ ending the Packers’  playoff trips in two of the past five seasons.

However, neither the Cowboys nor the Giants are in the 2012 NFL playoffs. The 49ers are.

Even though the 49ers and Packers have been in the same league since the 49ers moved in from the  late All-American Football Conference, the real rivalry dates back to when Packers general manager Ron Wolf hired 49ers offensive coordinator Mike Holmgren to be the Packers’ coach. Before that, the Packers and 49ers were never good at the same time, though in many seasons they were bad at the same time.

Holmgren, a San Francisco native, brought with him not just the 49ers offense as designed by Bill Walsh, in which passing replaced running as a means of ball control. (Which is an interesting story in itself. Walsh was an assistant coach Paul Brown, one of football’s greatest innovators, with the Cincinnati Bengals. which one particular season saw their cannon-armed quarterback get injured. The quarterback’s backup was decidedly not cannon-armed, but lacking much of a running attack, Walsh had to make do with what he had, and it worked, with the Bengals throwing short passes to control the ball through the air.)

Holmgren also brought the absolute insistence of doing things the right way, even off the field. (I’m not sure where I read it, but one Packer book tells the story of Holmgren’s upbraiding the Packers’ traveling staff because of some sort of hotel issue. Whatever the issue was, it never happened again.)

Brett Favre’s autobiography, Favre, tells the story of the Packers’ 27–17 upset in San Francisco in the 1995 playoffs. Packer defensive end Reggie White had a swear jar in which anyone who swore was supposed to put money in the jar. So when Holmgren began the first meeting the beginning of the week before the 49ers game, he announced, “We’re going to beat these fuckers,” and put in a $100 bill. And then to be sure everyone heard him, he said, “We’re going to beat these fuckers!” and added another $100 bill. Favre wrote that that got everyone’s attention.

That win started a run of four consecutive Packers–49ers playoff meetings (usually after regular-season meetings the same season), with the Packers winning the first three — 35–17 in the slop in Green Bay in 1996, and then 21–7 in San Francisco one season later — before the 49ers won 30–27 in Holmgren’s last game coaching the Packers.

The 1996 Packers beat the 49ers in an epic Monday Night Football game 23–20 in overtime before their playoff win on the way to New Orleans (the site of Super Bowl XXXI, but also Super Bowl XLVII). The 1998 Packers beat the 49ers 36–22 before losing to the 49ers in the playoffs.

Saturday will be the first Packers–49ers playoff game since 2001, when the Packers won in coach Mike Sherman’s first playoff win.

Most seasons, though, the Packers and the 49ers have played each other because of the NFL’s scheduling formula. They would play each other anyway every third season because every team plays every team in one other division of their conference each season. But teams also play the other two teams in their conference that finished in the same place in their own division. And in many seasons, the Packers’ NFC North place was the same as the 49ers’ NFC West place.

One unusual thing about this game is that the 49ers the Packers are playing Saturday are rather different from the team that beat them in week one of the season. That team had Alex Smith, who the 49ers famously picked instead of Cal quarterback Aaron Rodgers, at quarterback. Saturday’s game will feature quarterback Colin Kaepernick (who even more ironically was born in Milwaukee, adopted by parents from New London, and lived in Fond du Lac until he was 4 years old), who will be making his first career playoff start after replacing Smith earlier this season.

The 49ers’ choosing Smith over Rodgers was said to be the choice of then-49ers coach Mike Nolan, of whom the San Jose Mercury News reported, “Nolan was no-nonsense, a strong personality who didn’t like to be challenged. He met with Rodgers and Smith before the draft. He caught a whiff of attitude from Rodgers, and that was that.” Who was the 49ers’ offensive coordinator? Mike McCarthy, who is now the Packers’ coach. Nolan is no longer the 49ers’ coach.

The starting quarterback isn’t all that’s changed, Vic Ketcham notes:

The two teams that will face each other in Candlestick Park on Saturday night are not the same teams that kicked off the season in Lambeau Field.

You’ve heard that said repeatedly, but it’s not just coachspeak, it’s the truth. For starters, six Packers players that were in the starting lineup on Sept. 9 will not be in the starting lineup in Saturday’s divisional-round playoff game.

The Packers of today are in no way representative of the team that was dragged up and down the field on Sept. 9 by an overpowering 49ers offense that made it look easy. The Packers defense that will step onto the field on Saturday night is a legitimate postseason outfit that’s ranked 11^th in the league overall and fourth in sacks per pass play.

Maybe it’ll be that loss to the 49ers in the opener that’ll be the Packers’ greatest ally. Maybe the 49ers will remember how easy it was in the opener and think it’ll be the same on Saturday. It won’t. By halftime, that fact could be a pie in the face for the 49ers.

The Packers might get a little splash of water themselves when they find out how different the 49ers are. That paint-by-the-numbers offense the Packers faced in the opener is gone. Predictability has been replaced by improvisation, in the form of a hot-blooded young quarterback who has brought energy to the team and its fans.

The Packers, meanwhile, have straightened out the offensive line issues that bedeviled them early this season. (The 30–22 season-opening loss was not as close as the score indicated; one touchdown was a Reggie Cobb kickoff return, and the other was when the 49ers were playing the up-two-scores prevent defense.) Saturday’s game features the fifth-best scoring offense against the second-best scoring defense and the 11th-best scoring offense against the 11th-best scoring defense, which makes one think this game will be decided on what the 49ers do on offense.

That begs the question Saturday of whether the Packer defense will be able to deal with a balanced 49er offense. That was supposed to be the issue last week, but the Vikings failed to cooperate because quarterback Christian Ponder was unable to play due to injury, and replacement Joe Webb was unable to play due to inability. If the Packers can bottle up 49ers running back Frank Gore close to as effectively as they bottled up Vikings running back Adrian Petersen one week ago, and if they can force Kaepernick to throw instead of run, they have a good chance of winning. Defensive end Justin Smith will return from injury for the 49ers, but he will be sort of one-armed, playing with a triceps injury, which blunts the 49er pass rush. Candletstick Park, or whatever they’re calling it these days, is not a place where road teams go to die, with the 49ers going 6–1–1 at home this year, coming off their NFC Championship loss to the Giants.

It goes without saying that Rodgers needs to have a good night too. Consider this from ESPN.com’s Kevin Seifert:

A total of 29 quarterbacks have won Super Bowl titles. Only 11 have won multiple championships … and that achievement represents the next step on Rodgers’ career path. His style makes him ideally suited for the historic profile of multiple champions, and he isn’t hiding from the meaning of a second Super Bowl as Saturday night’s divisional-round game at the San Francisco 49ers approaches. …

Rodgers is universally considered one of the NFL’s top quarterbacks (near-unanimous, at least). Still, there are many examples in league history of elite quarterbacks who couldn’t win multiple championships. Look no further than Rodgers’ predecessor in Green Bay.

So what could separate Rodgers? Simply put, he is the least error-prone quarterback in league history.

Turnover totals are among the most reliable indicators of team success, and for quarterbacks, that mostly means interceptions. As you may know, Rodgers has, by far, the lowest interception rate — interceptions per attempt — in NFL history.

Most focus on yards, completion percentage and touchdowns in this fantasy age, but you might not realize that Rodgers has thrown only 46 interceptions in 2,665 regular-season attempts over his career. His corresponding interception percentage of 1.73 is well ahead of the second-best in history, the 2.06 percent of the New England Patriots‘ Tom Brady, and is among the few statistics that don’t have to be curved for the modern-day explosion in NFL passing numbers.

In his seven playoff starts, Rodgers has thrown four interceptions over 253 attempts. That percentage of 1.58 is fourth-best in postseason history. It’s worth noting that in his four most recent games — the final three of the regular season and Saturday’s wild-card victory over the Minnesota Vikings — Rodgers hasn’t thrown a single interception while tossing 11 touchdowns. …

The gang at Cold Hard Football Facts tracks this topic in great detail on their insider site. The correlation between interceptions and victories, especially in the playoffs, is overwhelming.

This season, teams that threw fewer interceptions than their opponents won 80 percent of their games. As playoff intensity ramped up beginning in Week 14, that winning percentage jumped to 95.7. Since Rodgers became their starter in 2008, the Packers have won 90.2 percent of their games in those situations.

Taking care of the ball is especially critical in the playoffs between teams that are presumably closer-matched than in the regular season. In a study updated through most of 2009, CHFF found that a team’s chances of winning a playoff game drops about 20 percentage points with every interception it throws. Teams whose quarterback threw just one interception in a playoff game won only 56 percent of their games. Two interceptions dropped that winning percentage to 31.4.

You might think we’re hashing our way to an obvious conclusion. Interceptions are bad. We know that. But it’s not that Rodgers simply avoids interceptions. Over a five-year span, he has avoided them to a substantially better degree than any quarterback in league history. History tells us the Packers have a better playoff advantage with Rodgers than most any other quarterback. Ever.

Ketcham adds something to a comment that because the 49ers defense is more physical than the Packers’ offense, the Packers will want to quicken the tempo of the game, as they did in Super Bowl XLV:

Make a team that wants to hit think.

We’re going to combine two Presteblog traditions here — schadenfreude over a win over an archrival, and starting the hype machine for Saturday night’s NFC divisional playoff game at San Francisco.

Saturday’s win proved a point I made here Friday, that late-regular-season games usually end up with different results than postseason games.

One big difference between Sunday and Saturday was the subtraction of Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder, who hurt his right elbow during Sunday’s game, tried throwing before Saturday’s game, and couldn’t.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune’s ancient Sid Hartman:

If you want an expert’s opinion on the Vikings’ 24-10 playoff loss to the Packers, former NFL MVP Rich Gannon said the Vikings would have certainly had a legitimate shot to win Saturday night had they had a healthy Christian Ponder.

But with Ponder sidelined by a bad elbow after not practicing most of the week and Adrian Peterson operating with a quarterback who hasn’t played all season and lacking the passing ability to make Peterson’s running game effective, the Vikings were eliminated from the NFL postseason.

At halftime, the Packers, behind Aaron Rodgers, had 197 passing yards, compared to the 6 net yards passing for the Vikings with Joe Webb at quarterback.

Gannon, the former Vikings and Raiders quarterback now in his eighth season working as an analyst for CBS, said a big reason for the loss is that when coaches spend time during the week trying to get two quarterbacks ready to play while not knowing which one will, it creates complications that mean neither one is ready to do well in the game.

“That poor kid Joe Webb goes in there, and the speed of the game is so different and you know you’re flying around,” Gannon said. “It’s tough. He doesn’t have the timing and the rhythm with the receivers and the passing game, the offense, it’s tough. It’s a tough way to do it. It’s hard.”

On how Webb handled himself, Gannon said: “I thought he handled himself OK. He didn’t throw the ball well. He was all over the place with his footwork. He was missing throws high, I mean, you know you go up against a good defense like that, tight coverage, he was very erratic with his location on throws and his accuracy.”

The amusing irony is that before the game some Packer fans on Facebook were freaking out because of the last-minute QB switch.

The oddity was the late nature of the switch, as the Star Tribune’s Dan Wiederer reports:

Before Saturday, the prospect of Webb starting seemed unlikely. Christian Ponder had been limited in practice and was put onto the injury report as questionable Friday, still battling an elbow and triceps injury he suffered in last week’s victory. But the Vikings were hopeful the tightness in Ponder’s bruised throwing arm would subside and allow him to play.

It didn’t.

Suddenly, with Ponder’s limited range of motion pushing him onto the inactive list 90 minutes before kickoff, Webb became the emergency starter.

“It just wouldn’t have been smart to put [Christian] in that position,” Vikings coach Leslie Frazier explained. “Some of the things we asked him to do, he wasn’t very good at getting them done. And he needed to be able to do them for us to put him out there.”

And if ever, in an NFL playoff game, there has been a greater disparity between quarterback competency, it’d be difficult to find.

Rodgers, making his 85th career start including playoffs games, threw for 274 yards and one TD.

Webb? He hadn’t throw a pass in a game since Aug. 30 in the preseason finale. And Saturday, on a brightly lit stage with a national TV audience, he demonstrated why the Vikings have firmly favored Ponder as their starter since last spring.

It wasn’t only that the Vikings had only 6 net passing yards in the first half and didn’t have a passing first down until midway through the third quarter, it’s that so many of Webb’s throws were way off.

His first pass, with pressure coming, bounced a yard short of Michael Jenkins. Later, a deep ball to Jerome Simpson sailed 4 yards too long.

A pass to Jarius Wright on an out-breaking route might as well have been intended for sideline reporter Michele Tafoya. And we haven’t even gotten around to the inexplicable pass he threw straight up in the air on his second series while being hogtied by Erik Walden.

Or the lost fumble in the third quarter, forced and recovered by Clay Matthews. Or the interception by Sam Shields later that quarter. …

Sure, Webb and Adrian Peterson (22 carries, 99 yards) led a 53-yard march for a field goal on the opening series. But that 3-0 lead never had much chance of holding up.

Not with Rodgers holding target practice, spreading the ball to 10 different receivers and commanding the offense with ease. In all, Green Bay scored 24 unanswered points.

The game proved that Peterson is the Vikings’ best offensive player, but you can’t win NFL games just with running backs. The Strib’s Mark Craig:

The Vikings’ plan to bludgeon the Packers with Adrian Peterson for the third time in five weeks worked.

For five carries and about four minutes, that is.

After that, All Day was pretty much All Done as a factor in Saturday night’s 24-10 playoff loss at Lambeau Field. After rushing for 33 yards on five of the game’s first six plays, Peterson gained only 36 yards on his next 14 attempts as the Vikings trailed 24-3 entering the fourth quarter. …

A week earlier, Peterson and quarterback Christian Ponder worked perfectly in tandem to upset the Packers 37-34 at the Metrodome and make the playoffs.

But Ponder’s absence because of right-elbow and triceps injuries enabled the Packers to ignore the passing game and focus entirely on the running of Peterson and backup quarterback Joe Webb, who hadn’t thrown a pass all season.

Peterson and Webb combined for 53 yards rushing on the first eight snaps of the game. But the ninth snap was a 2-yard loss by Peterson, followed by a Webb incompletion and a field goal.

“We needed seven there,” fullback Jerome Felton said. “When we got three there, it seemed to throw off our rhythm. And we started going three-and-out, which gave the Packers the energy they needed to stop the run.”

What also didn’t help the Vikings was dumb play. The St. Paul Pioneer Press’ Ben Goessling:

The way the Vikings’ 2012 season ended, with a 24-10 loss to the Green Bay Packers on Saturday, Jan. 5, was laced with peculiarities from the time the team’s bus pulled up to Lambeau Field.

Quarterback Christian Ponder was unable to play in the game because of a deep bruise on his right triceps muscle, watching the game from the sideline after a short pregame throwing session proved he was unable to drive the ball.

He saw the Vikings hand the Packers one first down when defensive tackle Kevin Williams lined up in the neutral zone, and saw the Packers score a third-quarter touchdown after a 12-men-in-the-huddle penalty gave them five yards on a fourth-and-4 play. And after turning the ball over just twice in their last four games, the Vikings gave it away three times Saturday.

And whose fault is it that that Vikings had an inadequate replacement for Ponder? The St. Paul Pioneer Press’ Bob Sansevere:

While dissecting his wretched performance against the Green Bay Packers, Joe Webb noted several times that he would use it as a learning experience. He isn’t the only one in the Vikings’ organization who needs to learn, and not just from the playoff loss to the Packers but from the regular season as well.

General manager Rick Spielman and coach Leslie Frazier have every right to be proud of the way their team went on a four-game roll to finish 10-6 and make the playoffs. Then they watched, likely in horror, as Webb made panicky decisions that often resulted in a display of his erratic arm.

Spielman and Frazier need to learn from that, as well as be held accountable for not having a bona fide backup quarterback who could give the Vikings a chance of winning a big game.

Webb’s scant resume includes wins over the Philadelphia Eagles in 2010 and the Washington Redskins in 2011. Even in those victories, it was apparent to anyone watching that Webb was a terrific runner but not much of a passer. He is a nice, likable young man — as nice and likable as anyone in the Vikings’ locker room. But unless he is used in an occasional role that features his running skills, his quarterbacking days should be over.

Meantime, how inadequate must third-stringer McLeod Bethel-Thompson be to be left stranded on the sideline while Webb imploded the offense.

Instead of spending the duration of the 24-10 loss Saturday night, Jan. 5, tweeting about the game, Sage Rosenfels should have been playing. The Vikings cut him in training camp, though, choosing to go with Webb as the No. 2 quarterback. That worked fine during the regular season because Webb wasn’t called upon other than to hand off twice and kneel down to run out the clock in the fourth game against Tennessee. But when Christian Ponder was unable to play because of a deep contusion to his triceps, Webb went in and the Vikings’ season went south.

As for Ponder, he played decent down the stretch and appeared to have locked down the job. Now you have to wonder about his durability. Can you imagine Tom Brady or Peyton Manning or Aaron Rodgers missing a playoff game over a contusion, even if it’s to their throwing arm? Ponder should have started against the Packers. The decision to make him inactive was made after he struggled to throw about 10 passes more than two hours before the game began. Ponder talked afterward about injuring his arm in the first half of the final regular-season game and banking on adrenaline to be able despite the injury. If he had started Saturday night, chances are adrenaline would have kicked in again and he might have been able to play — at least better than Webb did. Of course, we’ll never know.

Spielman and Frazier need to go back to the more traditional lineup of quarterbacks. If you have a young starter, as they do, you should have a veteran backup who can at least manage a game and offer some concern for defenses that he might be able to beat them with a throw.

On to Saturday night, when the Packers face perhaps their biggest non-division rival, the 49ers. SFGate.com’s Vic Tafur:

The Packers got a first round bye after all. With Minnesota quarterback Christian Ponder sitting out with an elbow injury that was worse than anyone thought, the Vikings turned to Joe Webb, better known as the guy on the sideline always seen wildly cheering Adrian Peterson in the highlight clips. …

Make no mistake, though. Green Bay, with receivers, linebackers and cornerbacks looking healthy for the first time all season, looked ready to make a run at another Super Bowl championship. The Packers will face the 49ers in a divisional round game at 5 p.m. Saturday at Candlestick Park.

Green Bay would like to avenge a 30-22 season-opening loss at home to San Francisco, and you know its quarterback has had a chip on his shoulder for longer than that. The 49ers chose Alex Smith over Aaron Rodgers in 2005, and Rodgers fell all the way to 24th to the Packers.

Now the ever-grinning Chico native and Cal product gets to make his first NFL start in Northern California.

“It will be fun to go back to Northern California,” Rodgers told reporters Saturday night. “Hopefully, we’ll get a lot of Cheeseheads from Chico to go down to the game. It will be a good test.” …

The Vikings had 6 passing yards in the first half. In what was a truly ugly start to the postseason, that was the fewest first-half passing yards in a playoff game since the Bengalshad negative-6 a few hours earlier.

Webb finished 11-for-30 for 180 yards, and at one point under pressure, threw the ball straight up in the sky.

“There’s a reason he’s not starting,” Packers nose tackle B.J. Raji said.

Webb can still tell his grandkids that one day he started an NFL playoff game. If they ask for details, he can tell them to go to bed.

Rodgers, meanwhile, might be able to tell his grandkids that he won multiple Super Bowl rings as the Packers are peaking, especially health-wise, at the right time. He completed 14 of 18 passes for 205 yards in the first half before the Packers booked their hotel in San Francisco and started humming Tony Bennett. …

The Packers play especially well with a lead – now 9-1 if they’re up at halftime – and are trying to get running back DuJuan Harris going (47 yards rushing, 53 receiving and a touchdown).

For the 49ers to have a chance win, it sure seems like they are going to need All-Pro defensive tackle Justin Smith. Smith missed the final two regular-season games with a partially torn left triceps, but returned to practice this week wearing a bulky black brace.

He and the 49ers will be rested. But so will the Packers, thanks to the Vikings and a future footnote in history named Joe Webb.

More later this week.

The headline has nothing to do with the current crappy weather. (Cold weather should be illegal.)

January means the greatest spectacle in sports — the NFL playoffs.

The NFL playoffs combine the every-week-counts feel of the regular season with the finality of a lose-and-go-home postseason. That’s something college football and basketball have, but Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association do not.

(What’s that? The National Hockey League doesn’t have one-and-done either? You mean there’s professional hockey in the U.S.? Shouldn’t they be playing now?)

Consider the 2003 season, when in consecutive weeks the Packers won the NFC North title because Minnesota blew a two-touchdown lead and lost at Arizona …

… and the Packers then beat Seattle in overtime in the first week of the playoffs …

… only to go from the thrill of victory to the agony of defeat one week later:

I’ve been going back and forth all week about Saturday night’s Vikings–Packers game, played six days after the Vikings beat the Packers Sunday to secure a playoff spot.

History indicates a Packer win:

1967: The Los Angeles Rams defeat Green Bay 27–24 in the next to last week of the regular season …

… but two weeks later (in the only playoff game played at Milwaukee County Stadium) the Packers win 28–7:

1993: Detroit beats Green Bay to win the NFC Central title and force the Packers to return to Detroit one week later. The Packers win the important game, though, because of …

2004: Many churches’ Christmas Eve services are augmented by listening to the Packers beat the Vikings 34–31 to win the NFC North. Two weeks later in Green Bay, though, the Vikings beat the Packers 31–17, the last playoff game GM/coach Mike Sherman would coach. (Sherman lost his GM title after the game, and lost his coaching job one season later.)

2009: The Packers beat Arizona 33–7, but when they return one week later for the wild card game, the Cardinals win 51–45 in overtime because the officials don’t know the definition of roughing the passer.

This pattern doesn’t just fit the Packers. Cleveland beat Houston 28–23 at the end of the 1988 season, but six days later back in Cleveland, the Oilers beat the Browns 24–23 in the first round of the AFC playoffs.

So why is that? Some of those games counted more than others. Both the Packers’ and Cardinals’ playoff positions were set, so each team knew they’d be right back at each other a week later. That’s the only possible explanation for how Arizona could score seven points one week and 51 the next. Conversely, the Lions’ and Vikings’ games were for division titles (and thus home playoff games), and Sunday the Vikings had to win for a playoff berth.

It seems counterintuitive to suggest that a team can completely change an unsuccessful approach on one side of the ball to turn one week’s failure into the next week’s success against the same team. But either that is what happened, or the playoff winners played much better once the win-or-go-home games came up.

More recent history suggests a Packer loss Saturday night. The last time the Packers entered the postseason after a loss was in 2002, when the Packers followed a 42–17 loss to the New York Jets with their first home playoff loss in team history, 27–7 to Atlanta. (Which was also a Saturday night game.) Besides the aforementioned 1993, the only other times the Packers won even one playoff game following a season-ending loss was 1982 (after losing to Detroit at the end of the strike season, they beat Atlanta but lost to Dallas in the playoffs) and 1967 (they lost their last two before the aforementioned Rams win, the Ice Bowl and Super Bowl II).

I now wonder if winning the division and getting a home playoff game (or possibly two if you get one of the top two seeds) is really worthwhile. The Packers have won their last three road playoff games (the entire 2010-season postseason, which ended in Super Bowl XLV), but have lost their last two home playoff games, both to the New York Giants (2007 and 2011 seasons). Over the past decade, the Packers are 2–4 at home in the playoffs. And this is a franchise that went 80 years without losing a home playoff game, and had a three-season-long home winning streak.

A few seasons ago, after a Packers home loss, Packer radio announcer Larry McCarren suggested the Packers didn’t have that much home field advantage because Packer fans don’t engage in “mindless noise” during opponent disruption opportunities. The other reasons for the home field advantage fade could be improvements in travel — charter jets, hotels and road food — and stadium facilities for visiting teams. (The NFL frowns upon visiting locker rooms with, say, no hot water in the showers. Or, in the alleged case of the Al Davis-era Oakland Raiders, listening devices.)

To that end, Fox 11 in Green Bay reports:

Heading into wild card weekend, quarterback Aaron Rodgers is looking to control the tempo of the game and is asking fans to get rowdy.

“Two parts, starting fast. We spotted them 13 points, had three real poor drives to start the game. Then getting our crowd into it. We’re calling on our fans this week to be that 12th man and to be real loud from the get-go. It’s going to be a cold night game. But you win your division so you can get a home playoff game, so we need our fans to be real loud on Saturday and give us that advantage,” said Rodgers.

(Saturday forecast: Mostly cloudy, low 16. Sadly, no snow.)

Again, it’s not just the Packers. NFC number one seed Atlanta lost its last home game. (And as you know, the Falcons’ last home playoff game didn’t go so well from the perspective of Falcons fans.) NFC number two seed San Francisco lost one and tied one home game. (And the 49ers’ last home playoff game also was a loss to the aforementioned Giants. That history won’t be repeated, since the Giants went from Super Bowl XLVI champion to out of the playoffs.) NFC number four seed Washington lost three home games. AFC number one seed Denver lost one home game, and number two seed New England, number three seed Houston and number four seed Baltimore lost two home games each.

What Packers fans learned in the past two seasons is that the regular season and the postseason are separate. I imagine as many people thought the NFC’s sixth seed, which had to win its last two regular-season games just to get into the playoffs, was as likely to win Super Bowl XLV as the NFC’s number one seed, at 15–1, was likely to lose its first postseason game at home.

It seems obvious that defense is more important in the postseason than the regular season. That was proven one season ago, when the team with the best defense among the playoff teams won the Super Bowl. (And, again, missed the playoffs entirely this season.)

It seems obvious that generating turnovers and avoiding your own is more important in the postseason. But to prove that every rule has an exception, there are the 1981 San Francisco 49ers …

… which advanced to their first Super Bowl despite having no running game to speak of and committing six turnovers in the NFC Championship.

Football is about players and execution. The Vikings have probably the best running back in the NFL in Adrian Peterson. The Packers finished 17th in rushing defense. Saturday’s game features the fifth best scoring offense, Green Bay, against the 15th best scoring defense, Minnesota, and the 14th best scoring offense, the Vikings, against the 11th best scoring defense, the Packers.

On the other hand (are you dizzy yet?), the Packers haven’t been playing with a full roster for most of the season. No regular running back, no Greg Jennings, no Jordy Nelson, no Clay Matthews and no Charles Woodson for much of the season. That may strike you as being similar to the Packers’ 2010 season (except that Ryan Grant and Jermichael Finley were lost for the season,  not just much of the season), and you know how that season ended. Four of this season’s five Packer losses were by eight or fewer points. So maybe the Packers are better than 11–5.

And the Packers have something no one else has,  as This Given Sunday points out by ranking the Packers fourth in the NFL and second in the NFC:

The Niners are tougher but the Packers have a championship quarterback. …

That’s the key for Green Bay. No other quarterback in the NFC playoff picture has had any playoff success.

One day late, StevePrestegard.com brings you our great tradition of dumping on Da Bears after yet another defeat at the hands of the NFC North (repeat) champion Packers.

(“Our”? Is your dog writing columns now? you ask. Answer: No, because fat chihuahuas don’t have opposable thumbs.)

The Chicago Sun–Times’ Sean Jensen thinks this is indeed a representative game for Da Bears:

In the most pivotal of regular season games, against the rival Green Bay Packers, the Bears many maladies in recent years under Lovie Smith were on full display.

The unforced errors, like Jay Cutler’s interception near midfield with 96 seconds remaining in the first half of a 7-7 game. The repeated failure to convert short-yardage runs. And the inability to prevent Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers from making the clutch plays to extend drives and toss touchdowns.

Even when the Packers handed them a couple of gifts – a fumble and a botched lateral on a punt return – the Bears could only muster a pair of field goals.

The Chicago Tribune’s Brad Biggs quotes wide receiver Brandon Marshall, who shot off his mouth last week:

“It’s the same every single game,” said Marshall, who stirred things up during the week with his passionate anti-Packers news conference. “We need to be held accountable. What I have to do is try my best to keep it together and not let this affect me because it’s starting to affect me more than it should.”

There is no guarantee general manager Phil Emery, who gambled in trading for Marshall, will shake things up at the end of the season and fire coach Lovie Smith, who is signed through 2013. The Bears close out the season at Arizona and at Detroit, and with 10 victories, they would have a reasonable chance at reaching the postseason.

Things are slipping for Smith when it comes to battling Green Bay, the opponent he made such a big deal of in his introductory news conference. This game was made closer by two missed field goals from Mason Crosby, whose job status is now tenuous, at best. Smith is 2-9 against quarterback Aaron Rodgers after ending Brett Favre’s mastery of the Bears.

On his third offensive coordinator in four seasons and fourth overall, it’s fair to wonder if the team will ever get that side of the ball right under Smith. It’s also worth wondering if chairman of the board George McCaskey will play a central role in end-of-season decisions. It may come down to candid discussions about whether Smith and his staff or a flawed roster are more to blame for a painful free fall.

Consider this: If you add up the records of Brett Favre as a Packer and Rodgers against the Bears, you get 29 wins and 12 losses. That’s the record of two quarterbacks against Jay Cutler, and before him in reverse order, Jason Campbell, Caleb Hanie, Josh McCown, Todd Collins, Kyle Orton, Rex Grossman, Brian Griese, Jonathan Quinn, Chad Hutchinson, Craig Krenzel, Chris Chandler, Kordell Stewart, Henry Burris, Jim Miller, Shane Matthews, Cade McNown (not to be confused with the aforementioned Josh McCown), Moses Moreno, Steve Stenstrom, Erik Kramer, Rick Mirer, Dave Krieg, Steve Walsh, Peter Tom Willis, Will Furrer and Jim Harbaugh — the complete list of Bears starting quarterbacks since Favre’s first start against Da Bears Oct. 25, 1992.

This piece from the Sun–Times’ Rick Morrissey fits in the circular firing squad category:

‘Two of the people I don’t care about: fans or media.’’ — Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher, Dec. 16, 2012

That might be the quote of the year, not just for its Yogi Berra clumsiness, but because it perfectly represents the disdain the Bears have for the people who follow them.

Usually we get only a glimpse of the team’s true feelings via a dirty look or good, old-fashioned condescension. But now it’s all on the table, in words, impossible to misconstrue. Urlacher, the Bears’ future Hall of Famer, made the above statement Sunday after Fox-32 sports anchor Lou Canellis asked him what he thought of the people calling for the firing of coach Lovie Smith.

“Those people don’t know what they’re talking about, obviously,’’ he added.

Urlacher doesn’t care about the fans. And neither do the Bears, who charge an average of $111 a ticket and laugh at you poor, witless slobs all the way to the bank.

It would be easy to say Urlacher was simply lashing out on an emotional issue, but if you’ve paid any attention to this franchise during the Smith era, you know that the Bears treat media members like nonpersons. It means that fans, by extension, get the same nonperson treatment, with all the eye-rolling contempt that goes with it. …

In his nine years as coach, Smith couldn’t have been more dismissive of the media. He has never cared that, by doing so, he was also deeming fans as unworthy of his valuable time and deep well of football knowledge. He has made a career out of saying nothing — not out of having nothing to say, but out of sheer disregard for his audience.

He’s not alone.

Phil Emery rarely talks with the media. He is the general manager of an NFL team. Amazing.

Virginia McCaskey, the owner of the team, makes herself available to reporters about as often as white smoke wafts from the Sistine Chapel.

You can count on one or two fingers the times chairman George McCaskey, her son, has sat down with the media as a group this year.

That’s how a player of Urlacher’s stature — a player whose jersey hundreds of people wear to Bears games — can say publicly that he doesn’t care about the fans. It’s shocking it came out of his mouth. It’s not so shocking an attitude like that would be allowed to take root and grow in Lake Forest. …

Holding to form, Smith said Monday he was unaware that the person most closely associated with the franchise had ripped the paying customers the night before. At least quarterback Jay Cutler admitted Bears fans had a reason to boo.

I’d like to tell you all this would change with Smith’s firing, but I’m not sure it would, not with the McCaskeys in charge, which, as far as I can tell, is for eternity.

I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve had people tell me that Bears ownership needs to change. It’s like saying a mountain needs to move. The McCaskeys aren’t going away. You don’t get to choose who owns your favorite football team. Life is unfair that way. In Chicago, life is cruel that way.

CBS Chicago’s Adam Hoge has little good to say either in his weekly grades:

190 total yards in the biggest game of the season. That just about says it all. The Bears actually got off to a decent start by committing to the run, but then the offensive line happened — again. Roberto Garza’s false start on the first drive was a killer. Still, the Bears managed to get off to a 7-0 lead in the second quarter by using creative formations to get Brandon Marshall open. But then the Packers scored and it was as if the Bears panicked.

Dom Capers deserves credit for having the Bears’ number, but let’s be honest, it’s as easy as stopping Brandon Marshall this season. In fact, it’s mind-boggling that the Packers and 49ers are the only two teams that have refused to play press coverage on Marshall, essentially taking him out of the game and daring others to step up.

This week’s blunders go deep into the week’s preparation and possibly even beyond the coaching staff. The inactive list was so packed that Michael Bush dressed even though he couldn’t play. How does that happen? Kahlil Bell was waived by the Jets last week — are you telling me you couldn’t cut Josh McCown for the weekend just to get a healthy body for the biggest game of the year?

Mike Tice no longer deserves a pass. Yes, the offensive line is horrible, but he’s partially to blame because he vouched for J’Marcus Webb and Gabe Carimi. He has an elite wide receiver, one of the best pass-catching running backs and a more than adequate quarterback. It’s now Week 16 and Tice hasn’t found a way to consistently score points.

Amazingly, Mike McCarthy made the biggest coaching blunder of the game (and maybe the season), yet the Bears couldn’t take advantage of it. The offense didn’t even gain a yard.

Yes, you don’t often see a four-play zero-yard scoring drive, which only happened because of the fumbled kickoff return. Since the Packers won despite that, to call that the biggest coaching blunder maybe of the season seems excessive. Then again, if I had to cover Da Bears, I wouldn’t be in a good mood either.