Jules
The Colts Fan
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http://www.indystar.com/article/20111209/SPORTS03/112090350/Packers-should-go-unbeaten-season
The following messages are intended for the people of Wisconsin and then the Green Bay Packers.
First, for the people of Wisconsin:
When you Cheeseheads return to Indianapolis for the Super Bowl in a couple of months, we will not run out of beer -- as a few bars did when Badgers and Michigan State Spartans fans drank us dry before the Big Ten title game. (We'll also double-up on cheese curds.)
Second, for the Green Bay Packers:
Go for perfection.
Let me reiterate.
Go. For. Perfection.
That might sound strange coming from somebody who is watching the local team battle to avoid 0-16. But it was just two years ago -- feels like 20 -- that the Indianapolis Colts were standing 14-0 and leading the New York Jets in Game 15 before management and the coach pulled the plug.
Don't do that.
The regret and the anger never go away.
Not in the locker room, not in the city, not anywhere.
The debate already is raging in Wisconsin. The Packers have won 12 games with four to go. Their closest competitor, the San Francisco 49ers, have won 10 with four to go. A Packers victory and 49ers loss, and the last three games could be meaningless in terms of playoff positioning.
This city still has not forgiven Colts management for pulling the plug, and never will. That's part of the reason for the over-the-top level of anger that has attended this year's collapse. No question, if they'd won that year's Super Bowl against the New Orleans Saints, the anger would have been largely muted, but there still would have remained the question of what-might-have-been, especially for the players.
"We wanted to keep winning; that's just the way athletes are wired," injured middle linebacker Gary Brackett said. "Guys were angry about it. I'd say almost a hundred percent of them were. But that's the decision they made."
I recall the post-Jets-game locker room scene vividly. It was as if the Colts had just lost the biggest game of the season, like they'd just been eliminated from the playoffs. They were 14-1! Some players bit their tongues and offered the company line. Some just left without talking to the media, including some of the most media friendly, like Brackett.
Reggie Wayne was one of the few who expressed something close to his honest emotions.
"Who wouldn't (want to chase a perfect season)?" he said that day. "I mean . . . who wouldn't? Doesn't everybody want to be a part of history? Not a season goes by that you don't hear about the '72 Dolphins."
He paused.
"I guess there's a bigger picture. We all wanted to play, but the big dog (coach Jim Caldwell) made a decision and we have to roll with that decision. We came out after the halftime and felt like we were starting to roll and could score some points, but the manager took us off the mound."
Then-team president Bill Polian then fanned the flames of discontent on his radio show the following night, angrily dismissing fans who took issue with the team's conservative approach. He talked about which records were important and which ones were not. And then, as if to rub salt in the wound, one week later in a snowstorm in Buffalo, there was Peyton Manning throwing lots of short passes to Dallas Clark and Wayne in an effort to reach statistical milestones.
Right.
To the players' everlasting credit, they didn't let the disappointment linger. When Polian sought to address the issue with the team a few days after the Jets game, Manning intercepted him and said he would broach the subject with the team. The Colts pulled themselves together and reached the Super Bowl.
Nobody remembers who won the 1971 Super Bowl. But everybody remembers the Miami Dolphins were the perfect team in winning the '72 Super Bowl. Just as the inverse is true; nobody remembers all the 1-15 and 2-14 teams, but everybody remembers the coaches and players who went winless, the '76 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and '08 Detroit Lions.
Management and coaches owe it to their players to give them the opportunity. The Colts owed their players that opportunity, and now, Green Bay's power brokers owe their guys the chance to pursue the ultimate greatness and become the first 19-0 team.
There is always risk in playing top players in meaningless games late in the season. The Patriots lost Wes Welker on a non-contact play in 2009. But consider the Colts, who shut it down the last 51/2 quarters two seasons ago. In the playoffs, Dwight Freeney injured his ankle and played at a diminished capacity in the Super Bowl loss to New Orleans.
"To be honest, guys are more likely to get hurt in practice," Brackett said. "You see it all the time. You're going full bore in a game, it doesn't happen as much."
Go. For. Perfection.
Maybe that's why the Saints won that year's Super Bowl. They fell short of perfection, but at least they went for it with heart and soul.
Karma, anyone?