New flash:  for a few more hours, the Green Bay Packers will have the honor of having the best record in the NFL, thanks for a 42-34 nail-biter that kicked off the NFL season in every way Roger Goodell could have hoped (and certainly a far better display of solid football than the Saint-Vikings yawner last September).  Having arrived home late to watch the game, I had to turn on the DVR and fast-forward through the commercials.  So, by the time the game ended, my recording had caught up, but my heart palpitations had not.  Watching the stop on the one-yard line with no time remaining might be the first time I literally hit the floor since Antonio Freeman’s miracle catch against the Vikings ten years ago.

Yes, in the words of Yogi Berra, “It was like déjà vu, all over again.”  The defending Super Bowl champs made a habit of desperately protecting narrow leads late in the fourth quarter last year, requiring a bit of extraordinary defensive heroics to pull the game out when the offense decided to become rather ordinary.

Did it surprise me, this seeming continuation of last year’s Cardiac Pack?  Yep.  But at the same time, it doesn’t concern me, either.  In fact, it just might be the key to this team making the return trip to the Super Bowl.

Last week on Cheesehead Radio, I postulated that we would see a different Green Bay team this year.  The return of weapons on the offense, coupled with a strong attempt to fortify that side of the ball in the draft, would lead to a more balanced Packer attack.  The Packers offense, with all its targets for Rodgers to throw to, as well as a two-headed rushing attack, would build early leads and leave it to Clay Matthews and Co. to sit back in nickel/dime situations protecting it.  We could hand the ball off to Grant and Starks and grind out the clock on offense, while Dom Capers would frustrate the heck out of an offense desperately trying to pass its way out of a three-touchdown deficit.

Well, for about a half of football, I was right.  At halftime, the only reason the Saints were within ten points of the Packers was a Darren Sproles punt return for a touchdown, and Green Bay looked to win this game running away.  But the second half plan didn’t work out.  Aaron Rodgers passed for only 100 yards in the second half, 92 of them coming on one drive that ended with John Kuhn’s touchdown plunge.   Starks and Grant combined for 41 yards on eleven carries: a sub-4.0 average that wasn’t enough to preserve the other drives and take time off the clock.

And, before you knew it, two fifteen-point leads were whittled down to a potential game-tying drive by the Saints:  all the way down to the one-yard line based on a rather questionable pass interference call on AJ Hawk, who looked like he had already made the heroic play the Packers needed.  Any Packer fan not on the edge of their seat when Drew Brees quickly handed the ball to Mark Ingram (a rookie trying to play the hero himself) was probably already jumping up and down or passed out on the floor.  The wave of defenders rising over the pile to thwart what should have been an easy plunge into the end zone may not have looked like Tramon Williams’ pass defensed in the Super Bowl, or Sam Shields picking off the Bears in the NFC Championship, but it was the same amazing kind of play that preserved a lead and a win.

It’s a series of heroic defensive plays in the final moments that leave the Packers with the victory, and the other team with the “What If’s”.

So, perhaps I was wrong.  The Packers may not be the balanced team this year that will easily dispatch opponents with its amazing display of offense and solid, stifling defense, allowing the Lambeau faithful to leave the stadium early if they so desire without missing much.  Maybe they will again be the team that can get a lead, and then have to stave off the late rally with defensive heroics.  Maybe this is the same flawed team as last year, the one that had difficulty putting together four solid quarters on either side of the ball but was able to just eak out a win in the final seconds more times than not.

And I say:  awesomesauce.

It’s not an easy task making it back to the Super Bowl, especially if you’re a team in the NFC, where the last team to repeat was the Green Bay Packers thirteen years ago.  But there’s much to be learned from that repeat in the 1996 and 1997 seasons, and perhaps why the Packers didn’t come away with two rings instead of two.

The Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers of 1996 was perhaps one of the most dominant teams in league history, ranking at the top of the league in offense and defense and holding some of the most dominant numbers in any historical rating system devised.  But the 1996 Packers went through their 13-3 season with a monkey on their back, with demons in their closet.  On too many occasions previously, they had brought knives to their playoff gunfights with the Dallas Cowboys.  This year, they were locked and loaded.  But, a Week 12 loss to the Cowboys kept those doubts alive as to whether they had what it took to make it past them in the playoffs.

As it turned out, the Cowboys made an early exit from the playoffs, and the Packers did not have to face them on the way to the Super Bowl.  Despite that, Green Bay silenced the critics (and their own doubts) with the glorious win over the Patriots in Super Bowl.  It was the culmination of a five-year plan under coach Mike Holmgren, who made sure the players remembered every step of the journey along the way.

You might have expected the same results the following year.  The Packers finished with the same record (13-3), were NFC Central champions again, received that first-round bye and cruised through the playoffs and into the Super Bowl.  But there was a different feel to this team.  There were more media appearances, more players with side deals doing radio shows, TV specials, commercials, and other sponsorships.  The team exuded confidence, and fans went into the season expecting to win each game as defending Super Bowl Champions.

Heck, I even declined tickets to go to regular season games, choosing to save up my money for those playoff tickets that “actually meant something”.  It was cocky on my part, and certainly, you can glean that the Packers themselves carried themselves with a different attitude, too.  You just didn’t get the feeling the Packers had that chip on their shoulder like they did the previous year.

But the critical game might have been played on November 23, 1997, when the “Showdown in Titletown” finally brought the Dallas Cowboys to Lambeau Field.  It was a new day, a new era, with the defending champion Packers finally getting to deal some revenge to the team that had thwarted them for so many years.  The game itself had a hometown Super Bowl feel to it…perhaps rivaling the atmosphere that pervaded much of Green Bay this past week.  This was the vindication game, the revenge game, the “prove-it” game against the team the Packers had never been able to beat.

And they did.  It wasn’t just any win, either, but a push-your-face-in-the-mud 45-17 shellacking that you usually only see in Madden.  The Packers and their fans celebrated like they had added another Lombardi Trophy to the case.

But from a purely objective point of view, it shouldn’t have been that huge.  The Cowboys were a shell of their former selves, dropping to 6-6 after the loss.  This was a team the Packers should have beat.  Objectively, the team on the other side of the line of scrimmage was a team struggling to vie for a wild-card bid, not the dominant team they once faced.  But psychologically, this game had an incredible impact.

The 6-6 Cowboys lost their last four games and missed the playoffs.  The 9-3 Packers won their last four remaining games and captured the first seed in the playoffs.  But moreso, the Packers had vanquished their last demon.  They removed the last chip on their shoulder, and were able to take the field knowing they were the masters of the universe, the real Super Bowl Champions with absolutely no qualifiers anymore ("they wouldn't have made the Super Bowl if they would have had to face the Cowboys").  They exuded confidence, and why not?  What else did they have to fear?

Now, this may sound like 20/20 hindsight, and I wasn’t writing a blog in 1997 to link back to, but I always felt that win against the Cowboys hurt them more than helped them for that very reason.  I told my friends that same day that I hoped the Packers didn’t waste a “power-up” on a team they didn’t need to waste it on, especially if there came a day in the playoffs when they would need it.  I also said I would gladly trade another regular-season loss to the Cowboys for another Super Bowl win.  Naturally, and perhaps a precursor of things to come, I was labeled as being negative.  *sigh*

You see, I am a firm believer in the psychology of the game.  I believe coaching and playcalling makes a difference in the final outcome.  I think you can outcoach yourself and outthink yourself.  I believe you can beat yourself.  This runs in the face of many of my colleagues who believe that NFL football comes down simply to talent and execution, that the X’s and O’s take precedence over the motivation of the players and the chess match engaged by coaches.

And maybe they are right.  I could be wrong.  But on January 25, 1998, the confident Packers swaggered back into the Super Bowl as overwhelming favorites to win.  They had no more demons or chips to get in the way of their play on the field, no more fears or insecurities to defeat.

And on that night, they met a hungry team led by a quarterback with a chip on his shoulder the size of Colorado.  In the end, the Packers lost their edge and watched the Broncos walk away with the trophy almost everybody believed would be added to the Packer collection.  This wasn’t the same resilient team that fended off a third-quarter Patriot scare the year before.  This was a team forced to let Terrell Davis score a fourth quarter go-ahead touchdown so they would have enough time to try and mount a comeback.

In just twelve months, the Packers went from losing a regular season game to the Cowboys and having everything to prove in the playoffs, to winning a regular season game against Dallas and no longer having to prove anything.  I’m often left wondering if the Packers had lost to Dallas that day, you know… perhaps entered the playoffs as a #2 seed, and still had doubts about how good they actually were… if they might have actually brought home that trophy instead of the Broncos.

Today’s Packers could fall into the same trap, and perhaps their chip is even more critical than yesterday’s team.  You would think Aaron Rodgers and his pass-catching circus could easily finish #1 overall on offense, but last year they ranked #9.  You would think Dom Capers and his crazy defensive schemes would have put the Packers atop the defensive standings, and while they were close, they still ranked #5 in yards allowed.  The Packers are a great team with great talent on both sides of the ball, but still have that trait having major lulls in the game and making up with it with the Big Play.

It creates great drama, as we saw last year when the Team That Shouldn’t Have narrowly escaped games week after week with a big interception.  It gave this team the confidence and perseverance to overcome adversity, when the offense faltered or the other team suddenly surged back.  It’s what gave this team its identity and the confidence to win.

Sure, there’s a part of me that wants to see Aaron Rodgers build up a 21-point lead by halftime, then watch our running game grind out ten-minute drives and watch Dom Capers toy with desperate teams trying to play catch-up  against  our secondary while Clay Matthews pitches a tent in the backfield.  It’s a sign of a historically dominant team.

But that’s not our Packers.

The Cardiac Pack won a Super Bowl by defending a lead against a rallying team late in the game, more times than not.  If we can learn anything from the past, it is if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Mike McCarthy’s teams thrive when their back is against the wall, ever since he took over as coach in 2006.  Last Thursday night, the Packers defense was backed up as far against the wall as you can figuratively place yourselves, and rose to the occasion.

Will 2011 be a repeat of those kinds of game, week after week?  I think if the Packers want to spend time in Indianapolis in February, they stick with what got them there last year.  I don't want to see them taking that chip off your shoulder and thinking they are really are as good as people say they are.

That chip is what Aaron Rodgers, Mike McCarthy, and the Green Bay Packers thrive on.  I am going to purchase a portable defibrillator and enjoy the ride.