It wasn’t perfect, but that’s just as well, because perfect can wait until next Sunday.
Perfect then would find the Dallas Cowboys, with all those parole models, driving up Lombardi Avenue to get to Lambeau Field, to have their helmets handed to them.
America’s defendant champions, free on bail to go anywhere except Super Bowl XXXI.
Until the Green Bay Packers have a chance to perform that community service, what occurred here Saturday will suffice. Saturday, the San Francisco 49ers came to pro football’s cathedral and got no mercy.
One dynasty at a time for the Packers, who didn’t even need their customary frozen tundra to frolic 35-14. The surface was more like chilled chocolate custard, and any most valuable quarterback with an ounce of self-preservation between his earholes would merely have fallen on his own fumble, then slid safely to a halt.
Not Brett Favre, not even with a 14-point lead. There he was, chasing a mess he created, pouncing on the loose ball, then attempting to run with the thing to daylight, only to be ambushed by tacklers in his own divot.
“These guys aren’t as crazy as we were 10 years ago,” said Jim McMahon, who’s been there and done that with the Bears. “But we’re getting there.”
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Indeed the Packers are. Their last title is such distant history, it came even before the league championship got its square moniker, Super Bowl. These Green Bay guys aren’t all angels, of course. Favre himself was sent away for getting high on something other than red-zone drills.
But the Packers are throwbacks, and in the toxic dump of pro sports, they’ve come along at the right time, certainly in the right ZIP code. Green Bay is a town that not only lives for its team, but owns it. Fans come to Lambeau to see, not to be seen.
Only three tickets were unused for Saturday’s squall, and they’d better have notes from their doctors at the next board meeting.
“Unbelievable,” said Mark Chmura, the home team’s tight end. “The only worse conditions I ever remember are that Monday night in Chicago a couple years ago. And only three people are no-shows out of almost 61,000. There can’t be a better place to play.”
But it’s one dynasty at a time. San Francisco’s might go down as cleaner and classier than Dallas’, yet still the 49ers splashed down, with mud in their eyes. And it wasn’t that the 49ers couldn’t cope with the weather. It was the climate.
This is Green Bay’s season, and we don’t mean winter.
“The 49ers are a good team, a great team,” said Andre Rison. “And have been for a while. And they wanted us, because we beat them last year in the playoffs, and again during the regular schedule. And they got us. Long way back to San Francisco for them tonight. Long way.”
One by one, the 49ers departed. Steve Young in a red cape, early. Then Bryant Young, on a stretcher. Then Harris Barton, gingerly. It’s not that the 49ers surrendered. After Desmond Howard shoveled them a hole, they dug deep. No, it’s that the 49ers tried and still didn’t belong.
“Maybe now they’ll respect us,” Chmura said. “Haven’t heard much from them except excuses why they lose to us. What are they saying today?”
Can’t hear. Cheeseheads are yelling, “We want Dallas!”
Perfect.