Pardon me while I throw up. What is this, a football game or a class reunion? Hey, dynasties are colliding here.
“We’re just grateful to be thought of in the same category as the San Francisco 49ers,” Green Bay coach Mike Holmgren said. “We take it as a compliment to be mentioned in the same breath with them.”
See what I mean?
“This is a game without rancor,” 49ers President Carmen Policy pronounced, sounding pleased. “Two teams with the professional desire to be the best.”
This thing couldn’t be any more kissy-face if it was a baby shower. Oooh, isn’t your nose tackle the cutest thing? Yes him is, yes him is.
“We have nothing but respect for the 49ers, honestly,” Leroy Butler of the Packers said. “They are a great, great team.”
Coach Steve Mariucci, you’ve coached both quarterbacks. If Brett Favre and Steve Young were tied to a railroad track and you could save only one of them, which one would it be?
“I would be interested in hearing what he had to say to that,” Young said.
Mariucci said he would call a replacement off the bench.
Whoa. Listen, if you want to be a diplomat, make a soft-money contribution. If you want to be a football coach, take a bite out of somebody.
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“People ask me, how do you stop the Green Bay Packers and Brett Favre?” Mariucci said. “I say you send the No. 1 defense in the league against them. That’s what we are going to do.”
That’s what in-breeding does. It makes you blubber. Too many Packers on the 49ers. Too many 49ers on the Packers. Maybe they’ll change uniforms at halftime.
“It is kind of like having a fight with your brother,” Young conceded.
Thank goodness the NFL still has a sense of what is right. Hug all you want to out on the field, but there will be no fraternization in this ballroom.
Appearing first for the final news conference Friday night, the 49ers wanted to hang around an extra half-hour and be members of the audience for the Green Bay session.
“We wanted to remain behind and wave and wish Mike Holmgren good luck,” Policy said, “and then this overconservative NFL security (type) asks us to leave.”
Well, at least somebody is pushing somebody around.
“The difference in this game and others we’ve had, the ones against Dallas,” Policy said, “is we have the desire to win. But it isn’t a holy war. This is civilized. This is not San Francisco against the Evil Empire.”
That’s too bad. When football becomes civilized, civilization will look elsewhere. There is more spite in figure skating than between these players.
“Yeah, I don’t like it when Favre pats a defensive guy after he gets tackled,” 49er Dana Stubblefield said. “Maybe if we put him down hard enough, he won’t be bouncing back up and patting nobody.”
Rancor? Is that rancor?
If one team won’t insult the other, maybe they will at least insult the other team’s fans.
“San Francisco has great fans,” said Holmgren, a San Francisco native.
Not even the 49ers will agree with that. It was a 49er, Randy Cross, who once pronounced them white-wine drinkers, with their mouths too full of quiche to cheer.
It is Kevin Gogan now scolding the 49ers fans for selling their tickets. Nothing of the kind would happen in Green Bay.
“I hear they are getting $800,” Gogan said. “How can you sell tickets to a championship game at any price?”
Actually, they are getting up to $2,000 or $3,000. For a pair. And in my experience, that’s almost enough to get you a booth at the Fog City Diner, including wine and tip.
“What we are doing,” Policy said, “is trying to get the police to enforce the local ordinance against scalping tickets to anyone wearing cheese on his head.”
Ooooh. Smells a little like rancor to me. With just a whiff of cheddar.
I’ll take the Packers by 10.