It took a visit from the lame Arizona Cardinals to give the limp Green Bay Packers their first victory at Lambeau Field this season.
New coach Mike McCarthy’s first home victory came 31-14 at the expense of beleaguered Arizona coach Dennis Green, who said he still expects to report to work Monday. It’s the Cardinals’ week off.
They haven’t led once in games against Oakland and Green Bay since the Bears wrecked their celebration plans in that fateful fourth quarter two Monday nights ago.
Cardinals boss Michael Bidwill has given no indication he will fire Green, who already has dismissed offensive coordinator Keith Rowen. After the Packers ran all over the Cards, with Ahman Green rushing for 106 yards and Vernand Morency 101, defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast may want to keep his head on a swivel.
The Cardinals quickly fell behind 21-0, but Green said it didn’t look to him like his players quit. The Packers didn’t think the Cards quit either.
“That’s a dangerous opponent we played,” McCarthy insisted.
The Packers have won two in a row to get to 3-4 and sense the hint of momentum. Last week they beat the Miami Dolphins, the Bears’ next opponent. The Dolphins and Cardinals have won one game apiece, but a win is a win. The Bears know that from barely squeezing one out against the Cards.
The only game the Cardinals have won came against the San Francisco 49ers, who have won twice. There are a lot of poor teams in the NFL, and the Bears are taking full advantage of the easiest schedule in the league.
The Packers were the Bears’ first victim 26-0, but the NFC North looks considerably better than the NFC West at the moment.
“Maybe this is the start of something new,” quarterback Brett Favre said. “It’s obvious this team is not packing it in. Will we break .500? I have no idea. It is a start of what we can be like here.
“We’re not that good. We can be. Whether it’s this year or next year, I don’t know. Aside from the Chicago game, we had opportunities to win every game.”
Favre felt so good that he tried his first Lambeau Leap after scoring on his first touchdown run since 2001 and first at Lambeau since 1998. It turned out more like a Lambeau Lug, as fans in the southwest corner of the end zone had to drag Favre up by the arms.
“That is the first time,” Favre said. “I hope that’s the last one. I should have found a lower spot. I’m not really savvy in the stands-jumping department, not to mention I was pooped out. There were a lot of negatives.”
The positive is the crowd of 70,809 showed no memory of the team’s 0-3 home start. Until the Cardinals develop similar loyalty, which appears decades away, Green will enjoy no more security than any previous Arizona coach despite his track record. When he was at Minnesota, he beat the Mike Holmgren-coached Super Bowl Packers nine times in 14 meetings.
“There’s no better place to play,” Favre said. “It’s a wonderful atmosphere, always packed. We have a lot of new guys. If they couldn’t feel the atmosphere today, they’re never going to.”
The Cardinals changed three offensive line positions in another attempt to get more space for running back Edgerrin James and more time for rookie quarterback Matt Leinart. James rushed for 84 yards, and his meager 3.5-yard average was better than his season average of 2.7. He still hasn’t hit the 100-yard mark.
“We were kind of out of sync,” Leinart said in an apt description of the franchise’s business plan.
Leinart regrouped and again looked promising and poised, but he never posed a threat. The Packers could have drafted him as a successor to Favre, but they took Aaron Rodgers last season and are happy with rookie linebacker A.J. Hawk, who led the team in tackles again Sunday with eight.
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The Cardinals could have used Hawk because they didn’t appear to make many tackles at all. Green and Morency became the first Green Bay tandem to each gain 100 yards since Gerry Ellis and Eddie Lee Ivery in 1985.
“I thought we played downhill all day,” McCarthy said. “The thing I saw was just a surge capturing the line of scrimmage play after play after play.”
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