Big two square off in the snow
NFL icons Brady and Rodgers face off in duel in the snow
THEY are expecting snow in Lambeau Field tomorrow when two of the greatest quarterbacks to ever grace the NFL square off in a play-off game for the first time.
Such has been the sustained excellence of Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady during their careers, it is difficult to believe that the pair have never met in the post-season.
Until Brady moved to Tampa Bay Buccaneers from the New England Patriots last year, the only way for it to happen was the Super Bowl. It came closest in 2015 when Green Bay Packers were in control against the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC Championship game only to let victory slip from their grasp.
Tomorrow, the NCF Championship is again on the line, with a place in the Super Bowl at stake,
For all his improvisational genius and the staggering statistics that suggest he is the best of alltime, Rodgers only has a solitary Super Bowl ring compared to Brady’s six. But Stephen O’Brien, who runs the UK & Irish Packers the biggest Green Bay fan club outside of the US, insists: ‘He is still the best quarterback to play the game.’
O’Brien is from Wicklow but a committed ‘cheesehead’, as Packers fans are known. Seven years ago, in an effort to find likeminded individuals on this side of the Atlantic, he took tentative steps in setting up a fan group. It has developed to such an extent that O’Brien, an accountant by profession, calls it a second job. But it is a labour of love.
Along with his brother Daryl, O’Brien presents a bi-weekly podcast to discuss all things Packers and has a growing membership scheme. His endeavour has even impressed the folk over in Lambeau Field, with the Packers producing a couple of documentaries about the fan club. ‘It started off a speculative thing, a way of trying to hook up on social media with other Packers fans,’ O’Brien explains. ‘You can be a bit isolated in Ireland following the NFL. you stay up all night to watch the Packers win the NFC Championship and you wake up the wife and kids with yelps of delight but don’t have fellow Packers fans to share it with.’
America’s most popular sport has exploded here in the past decade. When O’Brien got into the game, he was looking for a team to follow and was understandably drawn to the most storied of all franchises.
‘The Super Bowl is the gateway drug to the NFL, the way to get into the sport. Once you get more interested, you look for a team to follow. And the Packers just fascinated me,’ O’Brien says. The Packers are unique in the multibillion dollar industry in that they have no owner. Or more accurately, they have 361,311 of them, all ordinary people with shares in their team. Those holding stock are limited to 200,000 shares, ensuring that no one individual ever gains control of the club. Shareholders receive no dividend. They don’t get free tickets to Lambeau Field or even one of those foam cheeseheads that the Pack have made famous. All they get is a sheet of paper to say they are part-owners of this sporting entity that has made a small, unremarkable city in Wisconsin home to arguably the most extraordinary story in all of American sport.
In the early years of the NFL, Green Bay were just another team struggling to survive. In 1923, on the brink of bankruptcy, the owners had a brainwave and sold shares to the community, with fans giving a couple of dollars each to keep the team afloat. From that seed blossomed the most successful franchise in the game’s history, who dominated American football in the 1930s and again in the 1960s when the coaching genius of Vince Lombardi revitalised the Packers.
‘The history is a big part of the Packers,’ O’Brien agrees. ‘They are the oldest team in the NFL and have won more championships than anyone else. When I looked into the history of the area, I saw a lot of the early Green Bay sides had loads of Irish names. There were a lot of Irish labourers working the railroads in Wisconsin and they were asked if they wanted to play some football. And the connection continues to this day, Mark Murphy, the current CEO, has Irish ancestry. If you go to their Hall of Fame museum in Green Bay, there’s a lot of Irish names.’
The set-up has created a bond between the team and the community that may be the most powerful in all of professional sport. The identities of the city and the club are inter-linked.
With a population of just over 100,000, Green Bay shouldn’t really have a side in the NFL. It’s said on game-day in Lambeau Field, 80% of the population is inside the stadium. ‘It is as if a team like Manchester United was based in Wicklow town,’ O’Brien suggests. ‘But the team and the identity of the city itself are as one. ‘The NFL did try to move them out before to a larger market. They wanted to move them to Milwaukee. But that would never happen now.’ The team has sold out their season tickets every year since 1960, the year after Lombardi arrived, with the current waiting list is 130,000 names long and with an approximate wait time of 50 years. ‘What happens is that people are willed season tickets from their parents or family members, so it passes from one generation to the next,’ O’Brien says. ‘Or some fans put the name of their baby on the list when they are born, so when they are 50, they might get a season ticket.’ The Packers’ popularity also means that they are the only NFL team yet to play in the London series. With such a long ticket waiting list, they would never give up one of their eight regularseason home games while
“Green Bay’s sides had lots of Irish names”
no franchise wants to pass up a game against them, as a visit of the Packers is worth $9million to the team and its city.
‘It is at a team’s discretion if they want to give up a home game for London and no team want to do that for the Packers, because a home game against them is worth so much,’ O’Brien says. So, fans on this side of the pond will never get a chance to see Rodgers play in the flesh.
But we can still watch from afar. In a world in which team owners such as Jerry Jones of the Cowboys and Robert Kraft of the Patriots are almost as famous as their superstar players, the Green Bay Packers remain a wonderful anomaly – and one that can still contend for NFC titles and Super Bowls, which is arguably the most remarkable aspect of all.
It’s a beautiful story but one that the NFL have ensured will not be replicated elsewhere. Within the league’s bylaws, there’s a rule — known as the Green Bay rule — that says no non-profit community-based or charitable organisation not now a member of the league can hold membership in the NFL.
That was written in the 1960s before the NFL became the corporate and sporting monster it is now. Even back then, they seemed to realise that the Packers were on to a winner. As they might prove again tomorrow evening.