Episodes
Monday Nov 26, 2012
Top 5 Most Hated Packers Opponents: Eric's List
Monday Nov 26, 2012
Monday Nov 26, 2012
What better way to get over a horrible Packers loss than by taking out my frustrations on others! Here are the 5 Packer opponents that I have hated the most in my years watching football (roughly 1994 to the present). I did not feel I could really hate anyone from before I was actually watching live.
With that, he's the list!
Eric’s Number 5: 2003-2004 Philadelphia Eagles
My hatred for this team has much to do with what I call “The Tim Tebow Effect”. The “E” in ESPN may as well have stood for “Eagles” from 2003-2005. Never before has a team that accomplished relatively little completely dominated the conversation surrounding their sport. At the risk of sounding like Rush Limbaugh, it was irritating to hear the sports media constantly talk about how great Donovan McNabb was. Outside of his spectacular 2004 season, McNabb rarely finished in the top five in any major passing category, yet he was treated like he was one of the top two or three quarterbacks in the league. Then, in 2004, they had to go and add Terrell Owens. Once he got to Philadelphia, I think there were actual NFL games that were covered less than your random Eagles practice. It was nauseating.
To compound my frustrations, the Eagles owned the Packers in this period, beating them all three times they squared off. The 2003 regular season gave us a last-second 17-14 heartbreaker at Lambeau. The 2004 regular season gave us a 47-17 beatdown at Lincoln Financial Field that snapped the Packers six-game winning streak. In between, there was 4th & 26. I don’t even want to go into that.
This team was just annoying. The media constantly talked about them like they were the class of the league, while other NFC teams continually beat them to go to the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, the Packers could never be one of them.
And they had this guy.
Eric’s Number 4: 2007-Present New York Giants
You ever have an unassuming friend or colleague you feel is inferior to you in every way, but somehow always ends up with an endless stream of job promotions, beautiful girlfriends, and all-around success? That is the personification of this era’s Giants.
I could go into the Packers’ two home playoff losses to the Giants, but my hatred for this team goes much deeper than just simple spite over two playoff defeats. My hatred of these Giants stems from Big Blue having the same amount of ultimate successes as Green Bay during my years of watching football with nowhere near the resume of the Packers.
Here are some stats for both teams since I started watching football in 1994 up through 2011:
1994-2011 | Packers | Giants |
---|---|---|
League MVP Winners | 4 | 0 |
All-Pro Selections | 49 | 33 |
Pro Bowl Selections | 69 | 42 |
Combined Wins | 200 | 162 |
Playoff Appearances | 13 | 7 |
Division Titles | 8 | 4 |
Playoff Wins | 16 | 10 |
Super Bowl Appearances | 3 | 3 |
Super Bowl Wins | 2 | 2 |
The Packers have been vastly superior in every measurable way, but the Giants have the same number of rings. Now I know how Peyton Manning feels.
Eric’s Number 3: 1993-1997 Dallas Cowboys
This team is probably number one on many Packer fans’ lists. I don’t hate this team because they were cocky. Quite frankly, outside of Michael Irvin and Deion Sanders, this team wasn’t all that cocky. And at least those two were all-time great players who could back it up. They had two bombastic coaches in Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer, but it’s hard to hate them. They are the only two coaches in NFL history to have won both a Super Bowl and an NCAA Division 1 National Championship. I’d probably be bombastic too with those credentials. I don’t even hate Jerry Jones. He can be annoying at times, but it’s hard to hate a guy that has that much passion for the team he owns.
You know why I hate this team? Because losing sucks. And the Packers didn’t just lose to Dallas. They got crushed by them nearly twice a year for four straight years.
In the mid-1990s, Green Bay was exiting its football hibernation of the 70s and 80s and developing into a serious NFL powerhouse. Against NFL opponents not from Dallas, the ‘93-96 Packers were 49-18 including playoffs. They outscored their opponents by nearly 10 points per game. But every year when it felt like the Packers were finally joining the NFL’s elite, they would go to Dallas and get treated like an FCS college football team playing at Oklahoma. The ‘93-96 Packers played at Texas Stadium seven times in the regular season and playoffs. They lost every single time. Their margins of defeat were 22, 10, 11, 26, 10, 11, and 15.
I could have put up with all of the antics of the Dallas Cowboys if we just could have won one of those damn games in Texas. But when it was all said and done, these losses don’t hurt me like the other Packers playoff losses I’ve experienced. For most of that stretch, Dallas simply was better. A lot better. The 1993-95 Packers could have played the Cowboys in Dallas 100 times and I’m not sure they would have won 10. So unlike some of the playoff losses we’ve experienced in the last decade, I can take some solace in the fact that, in these games, the better team always won.
Plus, when those guys finally came up to Lambeau in 1997, we beat the snot out of ‘em.
Eric’s Number 2: 2009-2010 Minnesota Vikings
Brett. Lorenzo. Favre. That is the only reason this team is on this list. Sure Jared Allen gets on my nerves sometimes, and it was frustrating to see the Vikings sign seemingly every Packer free agent. This one is all about Favre.
I don’t need to go into the story of this team. Every sports fan knows it already. After the Packers tried to hide this guy in the AFC East and hope he went away, like an old dog, he found his way back to the NFC North. And damn was it frustrating. While wearing purple, Favre had the best statistical season of his career. He took the 2009 Minnesota Vikings to the division title at the expense of one of the most talented Packer teams in the last 25 years. In two games against Green Bay, Favre completed 41 of 59 passes for 515 yards, seven touchdowns, and zero interceptions. Minnesota won both games rather easily and it won them the division title. In true Vikings fashion, Favre and his teammates singlehandedly ruined what could have been a Super Bowl season for the Packers, and threw it all away anyway.
But when I honestly look at it, my hatred here is about love. I don’t hate Brett Favre. I love Brett Favre. Seeing him play for the team that has been Green Bay’s biggest pain in the ass during my years of watching football broke my heart, and the easiest way to react to that is with mind-numbing rage! Looking back on it, when I erupted in celebration when he threw that interception in the 2009 NFC Championship game, it wasn’t because I was happy Favre failed. It was because I was happy the Minnesota Vikings and their fans failed. Favre is our quarterback. He belongs in our championship highlights, not in some ugly purple uniform throwing touchdowns in the world’s largest Hefty bag. But now that time has passed and Favre’s tenure in Minnesota produced nothing but another Viking NFC Championship game failure, much of that hatred and resentment for this team has melted away. The other teams on this list still get a reaction out of me when I see their highlights, but seeing Favre in purple just makes me sad. I want this era of Packers football to be over. The only way to end it is for Favre and the team to reconcile and bring ol’ number 4 back to Titletown where he belongs.
Eric’s Number 1: 2003-2005 Minnesota Vikings
Never before has a team been so easy to hate. They had Randy Moss. They had stupid Daunte Culpepper “gettin’ his roll on” after every touchdown. They had a stupid loudmouth coach (Mike Tice) that they kept around for reasons I’ll never know. They ran an embarrassingly simple offense with fakes and plays you could see coming from a mile away, yet they would fool our Packers every time. They had slow, frumpy, Jermaine Wiggins jumping over defenders all the time, even though it looked like he got no more than five inches off the ground. This foolish bunch had as much swagger as the 3-time Super Bowl champion Cowboys of the 1990s, except with none of the credentials (27-23 over three years, one playoff appearance). And of course, who could forget the love boat? Chris Hovan, Fred Smoot, The Williams Boys, Onterrio Smith, Kelly Campbell; I could go on for hours! But, the absolute worst thing about these Vikings is they had a very beatable Packers team to play every year.
The Packers and Vikings played six times over these three years in the regular season and each team won three. The games were decided by margins of 5, 3, 3, 3, 3, and 3. The battles for the 2003 and 2004 NFC North division titles are two of my fondest Packer memories and the closeness of these races made my hatred of the Vikings grow to unprecedented proportions. Both seasons, the Packers would begin the season in a huge hole (2003 starts: GB 3-4, MIN 6-0; 2004 starts: GB 1-4, MIN 5-1). This lead to a unique situation that only fueled the fire of my Vikings hated. For nearly two full seasons, I had to root as hard for the Vikings to lose as I did for the Packers to win. Thankfully, both years they came falling back to the Pack, setting the stage for two of the most dramatic season conclusions in Packers history. I don’t have to tell you what happened in 2003. 2004 gave us the NFC North Division Championship Game at the Metrodome on Christmas Eve, when Brett Favre led the Packers to 10 points in the final five minutes to beat the Vikings 34-31. Of course, that was utterly ruined two weeks later when the 8-8 Vikings came into Lambeau Field for the only playoff game between these two teams. The Vikings crushed the Packers with all the class one would expect from a team like theirs and effectively ended the playoff-implicative phase of this rivalry until the Brett Favre signing five years later.
I’m not even sure why I hated these Vikings so much. They certainly weren’t good enough to earn this level of venom. Maybe it’s because I didn’t believe the Packers were good enough in those years to win the Super Bowl, so I made the NFC North Division title the top goal in my head and directed my anxiety and frustration at the team most likely to take it from us. Maybe it’s because the teams were so evenly matched that they were literally in a step-for-step division race for two straight seasons. Maybe it was because these Vikings were young and it looked like they were going to be a thorn in our side for the next decade.
All I know is this: in 2009, I hated Brett Favre and wanted to beat the rest of the Vikings.
In 2004, I hated every single one of them.
Who are your 5 most hated teams that you've ever watched? Let me know by leaving a comment below!
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