I'm of the opinion that any one fan who had the opportunity to watch both players play...and in some of our cases...Starr, Favre AND Rodgers play ... (cue the Barbra Streisand cut) are the luckiest people in the woooorrrrr---lllll----dddd. {erm.... sorry....
}
I'm just gonna pipe in here, 'jes because ... probably nothing new in this post, but it ties in with my opening run-on (and over punctuated) sentence above. The question is really "Who built the better team? Wolf/Holmgren or Thompson/McCarthy" in view of the fact that both Wolf and Thompson have both stated they'll never stick a coach with a player they don't want. So...which QB had the better supporting cast?
The passage of time tends to make great teams god-like, I recognize this, but having watched Wolf assemble the team that he ultimately called a "fart in the wind" was something to behold in retrospect. I would have to say that Brett had the better supporting cast in my opinion. I'm not just talking players, I'm talking coaching as well. Not bashing McCarthy -- I love the guy and we share a birthday ... so now that I've laid down all of the qualifiers, here goes.
Most forget that the first three years of Holmgren's run here, he finished with 9-7 regular season records...I attribute that a total and complete rebuild - inside and on the field - of the organization. Wolf's all but immediate acquisition of The Girl with the Curl (as Wolf called Holmgren), and a QB with an NFL arm, set the wheels in motion. With Holmgren came Ray Rhodes as D.C. for the Pack for two years. Pieces were still NOT in place for a championship team...Favre learning how to play QB from scratch (can it really be that he didn't know what "nickel" meant?) and building a defense that had only LeRoy Butler to speak of. In '93 comes Reggie...better but still not there... in '94 add Sean Jones... and, Fritz Shurmur who made a career with Rams and Cardinals, making the 49'ers West Coast offense miserable...again...better but not quite.
'95 saw the efforts of Wolf's talent acquisition plan (and he followed that plan, read The Packer Way) to the "T", come to fruition, as the Pack finished 11-5, finally won the division and took a great big crap in the NFC Championship game's second half.
Enter Santana Dotson (FA-Tampa) and Eugene Robinson (FA-Seattle). Robinson, in my opinion, was the straw that stirred the drink on that defense. As I recall, the defensive backfield was adequate -- but again, not quite there until Robinson showed up to help coach up the young guys in the defensive backfield.
By now you know where I'm going with this. Again, in my opinion only ... Brett had that defense. Brett had Mike Holmgren sitting on him earlier in his career to teach him to play NFL quarterback. I'm not taking one thing away from Brett, not for minute...but...I've never made any bones about the fact that Rodgers is MY kind of QB -- smart and protects the ball (although he's fumbling a lot this year).
Those still enamored with that 2010 defense, only remember the end result (which I'll still take and steadfastly refuse to give back) of that season. They stepped up at the end ... the '96 team dominated throughout the entire season. I still believe that if there were no Fritz and no Eugene Robinson, there'd have been no SB31 trophy, but that is pure speculation.
Today's NFL is more Arena Football than the game I grew up loving ... but, in today's NFL by comparison, the talent level on the Packer squads in the mid-to-late 90's (and yes Jack, 2003) was vastly superior to what Rodgers has in his corner today. The Pack are winning today based on the smart play and arm of Aaron Rodgers -- he is difference maker on today's roster.
In my book
) know how dominant the 1985 Bears defense was. As I’ve posted before, the Packers 1996 D surrendered fewer TDs (but not fewer points) than that Bears D. BTW weeds, when is your book being published?
