Monday, January 09, 2012

Giants in Lambeau Again

It’s not an exact match of the 2007 N.F.C. Championship game (in that the winner does not advance to the Super Bowl), but the Giants will again come to Lambeau Field this Sunday to face the No. 1-seeded Green Bay Packers in the N.F.C. Divisional Playoff. The New Yorkers demolished the Falcons, who continue to be a “one-and-done” playoff team, and the Packers had this weekend off as a reward for having the best record in the N.F.C.

Here are a few photos from that N.F.C. Championship of a few years ago. We were there, if you recall, but these are not our photos. It was the third-coldest game in N.F.L. history, a fact that we can verify. Your editor had a bottle of Coke under five layers of clothing next to his body, and it was frozen at the end of the game.

That overtime loss to the Giants that day in January 2008 started a string of dominoes that made it the last game that QB Brett Favre played in a Green Bay uniform, sent him to the N.Y. Jets, and brought the Aaron Rodgers era to the forefront — much to the displeasure of many Packer fans who now won’t admit that they picketed at the team’s practices and the stockholders’ meeting that following summer, chanting “Bring Brett Back!”

This Sunday, it is time to avenge that last Playoff loss to the Giants, and bring back the memories of the day in 1961 when we throttled the New Yorkers in Green Bay by a score of 37-0 for Lombardi’s first N.F.L. title. By the way, the long-range weather forecast for Sunday is calling for temps around 20 degrees (balmy by comparison to the 2008 game) — and snow.