CHAMPIONS! The 22nd appearance of the Green Bay Packers on the cover of Sports Illustrated came after the event we fans had waited 29 years for — a Super Bowl victory. Green Bay beat New England 35-21 in Super Bowl XXXI in New Orleans on January 26, 1997.
Pictured on the magazine’s cover is receiver/kick returner Desmond Howard during his kickoff return for a touchdown with the headline: “SPECIAL TEAM... Super Bowl MVP Desmond Howard.” Inside, the two-page photo spread of quarterback Brett Fave heaving a long one features the text: “Return to Glory... after suffering through a week of Patriots blather, the Packers got on with the business of winning their first NFL title in 29 years.”
The “blather” that the previous sentence mentioned was the media’s attention all week on the future of Patriots ’ coach Bill Parcells. “ ‘What really (ticks) me off is that no one gave Coach [Mike] Holmgren his due,’ Green Bay strong safety LeRoy Butler said Sunday night. ‘Everything was Parcells, Parcells, Parcells.’ ”
Much of the Super Bowl coverage article in the issue, interestingly, focuses on Desmond Howard, the game’s MVP. But other tidbits in the text are:
“This is a team that plays together, and for that reason we deserve this,’ said Packers tight end Keith Jackson. ‘Nobody is more important than anybody else, whether you’re Reggie White or Brett Favre or a guy blocking on special teams. We don’t get down on anyone else for making mistakes, and for that reason people don’t worry about messing up. That’s rare. I wish every junior high school and high school team could be around this and sniff this and sense what it’s like to be a champion.’ ”
“The flu-plagued Brett Favre could barely keep down chicken soup this week. He spent last Thursday night in his hotel room shivering under the covers with a 101-degree temperature. ‘I was worried,’ he admitted late Sunday, ‘I’d waited my whole life to play in this game, and now I wasn‘t going to be healthy. But the night before the game, I slept great. I fell asleep at 9:30 with the TV clicker in my hand, and I felt pretty good when I woke up. But I was nervous before kickoff, and I kept dry-heaving all game.’ ”
“The Packers victory party was a raucous affair from which Favre sought temporary refuge in a nearby stairwell. There Favre reflected upon his tumultuous off-season, which included treatment for pain-killer addiction and the death of his best friend in a car accident in which his brother, Scott, was driving. ‘Through everything,’ Brett said, ‘I really believed I’d be here today.’ He laughed and continued, ‘Right here in this stairwell, talking about being world champions. My best friend’s gone forever. Trouble never seems to be far away, and the future won’t always be rosy, but they can’t take this away from me. Thirty years from now, the kids will be getting ready for Super Bowl LXI, and NFL Films will drag out Steve Sabol — he’ll be around 102 then — and he’ll talk about how Brett Favre fought through such adversity. But I know this: We etched our place in history today.’ ”
And what a great ride it all was.
