Mike Holmgren would have preferred a year or two pass between his last date in Lambeau Field and Monday night, when he will take his Seattle Seahawks on a sight-seeing trip. They will play Holmgren’s old team, the Green Bay Packers, in one of those reunion games so common in the free-agent era.
The scheduling formula happened to dictate that the Seahawks make only their second trip ever to Green Bay, the first since 1981, before any of the current participants were involved.
Holmgren respectfully asked that the game not be scheduled for a Monday night. Too bad. Then he suggested maybe it could be scheduled for earlier than November, before the threat of another Ice Bowl. At least there is no snow in the forecast, which of course means nothing this time of year.
The result is that Holmgren has nothing going for him but memories of how tough he made it for any visitor. During last season, the one of the last three when his Packers didn’t go to the Super Bowl, Holmgren got a taste of what it feels like to be a stranger when a fan heckled him about spending more time worrying about his future than he did preparing the Packers.
“I was so ticked I almost went into the stands,” Holmgren said.
So Holmgren knows his welcome home won’t be entirely warm regardless of the weather. In Packerland, you either bleed green and gold or you get butchered, as Illinois residents can attest.
Predictably, Holmgren is setting as comfortable a stage for himself as he can by saying things like: “They have a great football team and we’ve got to build ours up here.”
The truth is Holmgren has nothing to lose except a non-conference road game. Compared with Ray Rhodes, Holmgren has Monday night off. Make no mistake: this is Ray Rhodes’ game, not Mike Holmgren’s.
Rhodes is the one who must prove worthy of following in big footsteps. He’s getting ready, too, denying everything.
“It will never be personal for me. I don’t compare myself to Mike Holmgren or anybody else,” Rhodes said.
He doesn’t have to. Everybody else does it for him. You think Holmgren ever got compared to Vince Lombardi? Ready or not, fair or not, here it comes again.
Rhodes must protect the intimidating home record–47 wins in their last 49 games–that Holmgren started.
Rhodes must answer for a defense that is 25th in the league a year after it was 13th under Holmgren.
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Rhodes must explain why Brett Favre is completing only 53 percent of his passes compared with 62 percent under Holmgren.
Never mind that Rhodes is 4-2, same as Holmgren’s Packers were a year ago. Will he be 5-2 on Tuesday, as Holmgren’s Packers were last season?
Rhodes can barely win this one and Holmgren can hardly lose it. This is still Holmgren’s team, the way the New England Patriots were Bill Parcells’ team and the Bears were Mike Ditka’s team until proven otherwise.
Holmgren might get booed for failing to view Green Bay as the end of the rainbow. But his reputation is secure, locked inside the trophy case. He didn’t exactly build Lambeau Field, but he did an excellent job of rehabbing.
If it weren’t for Holmgren, Favre still might be Cade McNown, young and confident and promising and pretty much clueless.
Not surprisingly, Favre and safety LeRoy Butler and others have mentioned how they enjoy the more easy-going atmosphere under Rhodes. If Holmgren didn’t like control so much, he wouldn’t have pursued a job where he is the one and only boss. And even he admitted it was good to move on because there comes a time when the players “have really heard all your stuff.”
But Favre and Butler want to leave no doubt of their admiration for Holmgren, even in their desire to win without him.
“We lost a lot when he left, I will say that,” Butler said. “But we’re trying to make it up every day. I think Ray has done a good job of filling his shoes.”
Said Favre: “We have a winning attitude around here, and I don’t think it will ever change. All that was developed from Mike Holmgren. A lot of the stuff we do is carried over, but Ray is just a little more easy-going and tends to let you have a little bit more fun.”
They are having more fun in Seattle, too, these days, where 4-2 is better than last year’s 3-3 on the way to a third 8-8 record in four seasons.
The leading passer in the AFC happens to be Jon Kitna, an NFL-Europe refugee who just coincidentally fell into the hands of Holmgren. The Seahawks’ leading receiver, Joey Galloway, is still sitting out in a contract dispute Holmgren still can’t solve. But Holmgren traded for Packer backup Derrick Mayes and turned him into a go-to guy with as many touchdown catches (four) as Antonio Freeman has with the Packers.
A parade will not greet Holmgren Monday, but he couldn’t be blamed if he took his Seahawks to the stadium by way of Holmgren Way, just off Lombardi Avenue.