GO PACKERS!

Received this in an email from a friend this morning:

"Every American should jump in line to support the Green Bay Packers! The Packers defeated the Chicago Bears on Sunday afternoon thus earning them the opportunity to go to the Super Bowl. By doing so, they saved the Hard-Working, Taxpaying Americans literally several million dollars of tax money. How you say? Simple... we were told that if the Chicago Bears had won that President Obama (and probably his family) would be attending the Super Bowl to cheer on his hometown team. Since the Bears lost...the President won't be attending. The money saved from not using Air Force 1, the limosines, all the additional security, and let's not forget Michelle Obama's entourage, is literally several million dollars! Therefore we should cheer on the Green Bay Packers at the Super Bowl to show them our gratitude. "

Go Pack, Go!

Hells yeah! Makes me like 'em even more!

I am a HUGE fan of 2 football teams. The Cincinnati Bengals (sigh), and whoever is playing the steelers each week. Go Pack GO!

Boo Packers!!!!

Go Pack Go!

Go Packers! All the way back to Fudge Bay!!! In related news, it'll be fun to see if James Harrison once again says "berkeley obama."

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4174143

Go Packers! I'll be at the game.

People in Wisconsin sound like they call them the Peckers.

It is a little known fact that Vince Lombardi, Bart Starr and Paul Horning were all involved in a gay love triangle back in the Pack's heyday. (mid 60's) The media back then just didn't report on stuff like this.

This is common knowledge with packer fans, but they still deny it. Just ask one!

[rolls eyes at floundering in OP]

Still, as long as the Pack keep Rapistburger and the Steelers away from a 7th trophy, I'll be rooting for them!

Interestingly it's colder in the DFW area today than it was in Green Bay or that town the other team is from.

The high was 20 here.

We are experiencing the coldest weather we've had in 22 years. So much for heading south for the superbowl so that you get better weather.

I'm an Eagles fan...

Go Packers!

Well this monkey is smart enough to surmise that if, according to appleseed, "the Packers suck", then the bears, who lost at home to the Packers, must really, really suck.

Go Anybody-But-The-Pitts!

Everyone who's team has 6 rings raise your hand! Woop Woop!

No one? Hello? Beuler? Oh well, enjoy your suckitude.

pinchvalve wrote: Everyone who's team has 6 rings raise your hand! Woop Woop! No one? Hello? Beuler? Oh well, enjoy your suckitude.

Um, anyone who has 12 NFL titles raise your hand. You're only half way there pinchloaf. In fact the Steelers aren't even in second (Bears)...or third (Giants). It took your team 40 years of playing to get their first title. Get the history right.

Yeah stupid. Everyone knows we're watching the "NFL Title Game" on Sunday. Shaaaaaddduuuup.

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/111995/support-green-bay-annoy-the-rich?mod=bb-budgeting

I was born in New York's Hudson Valley. I've never been to Green Bay; I've never even been to Wisconsin. And I've certainly never worn a slice of cheese on my head -- plastic, foam or otherwise. But on Sunday I'll be cheering for the Green Bay Packers. So should every American with any sense. Why? Simple: They're the only major team left that's not owned by an oligarch. The only one that's not just a business run by some tycoon with his eyes on the bottom line. They're still, effectively, owned by the town of Green Bay, population 102,000. The local stadium fits three-quarters of the entire town, and there's still a waiting list for season tickets as long as your arm. This is what America should still look like. Call the Pack "the People's Team." The "New York" Jets? Don't kid yourself. They're no such thing. They're the "Woody Johnson" Jets. Quit dreaming. Johnson, the owner, isn't cheering for your business. Why are you cheering for his? I have nothing against Woody Johnson personally. I don't even care that he was dinged a few years back by Congress for taking part in a tax dodge. But the simple truth is that he is a billionaire running a business, and there is no reason why you or I should somehow get passionately involved in "cheering" for it. None. Next time you're asking your boss for a raise, do you think Woody's going to turn up and cheer you on? Maybe stand there and chant "De-fense! De-fense"? The way sports fans are such suckers never ceases to amaze me. Look, I like a good game. I really honor dedication, excellence and achievement on the field as in any area of life. So I have great respect for what the players do. But as for the franchises themselves, they are just businesses. Never forget it. Just ask the people of Cleveland. For decades they really believed the Browns were the "Cleveland" Browns. They stood in the cold and the rain and the snow, and cheered and cried and yelled for "their" team. Then in the mid-1990s owner Art Modell got a better offer from Baltimore and it was sayonara, suckers. (A new team was later formed in Cleveland.) The same thing happened to all those fans of the Baltimore Colts ... now in Indianapolis. And how are those Brooklyn Dodgers doing? People in Boston cheer rabidly for "their" Patriots. So much for that. They're the "Bob Kraft" Patriots. When Kraft wanted a better deal on a stadium, he threatened to move too. So it is with almost every other sports franchise. As someone remarked in Boston a couple of years ago, after the Celtics won the NBA championship: "These teams are all businesses. We might just as well hold a parade when Fidelity [Investments] has a good quarter." Amen to that, brother. These are the only businesses where the customers line up to pay for the advertising. Jets hats? Jets jerseys? Really? If Woody Johnson wants you to advertise his brand, shouldn't he be paying you? Maybe McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD - News) should try this, get us all wearing Mickey D's uniforms. Make us pay for them too. "Big Mac! Big Mac!" The Jets owner is famously private. According to a New York Times profile a few years back, he even told family and friends not to talk about him. We don't know too much about him. We know he made his money the old-fashioned way: He inherited it. We know he's a major supporter of the Republican Party. Johnson played an early and active role in bringing us all George W. Bush -- the wonderful gift that keeps on giving. He's a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. Make of it all what you will. As an active Republican, Johnson presumably thinks "government" is "too big" and taxes are too high. But that didn't stop him trying to hustle New York for $600 million toward the cost of a new stadium a few years ago. He's not alone. Long before Goldman Sachs Group Inc.(NYSE: GS - News), these sports oligarchs practically invented "too big to fail." "Hey taxpayers, you'd better help us out ... or else. What of the Packers? This may be the last "team" in the true meaning of the word. The Pack has 112,000 stockholders. No kidding. None is allowed to own more than 200,000 shares -- a tiny stake. That's how they got to keep a major franchise in a town of just 102,000 people. If the Pack is ever sold and moves, the money goes to a foundation. I love the fact that Lambeau Field seats 73,000 and is still sold out every game. To the oligarchs, all this populism in Green Bay probably sounds suspiciously like communism. (I wonder why Wisconsin's late, famous senator, Joe McCarthy, didn't bust them for "un-American activities.") No wonder the NFL won't even allow it anymore. No kidding: No team is allowed to have ownership rules like this. These days, each team is required to have to have a small number of rich owners. Green Bay got grandfathered in. That leaves the Pack alone, the People's Team. So good luck on Sunday, boys. You're playing for all of us.

ST_ZX2 wrote: Well this monkey is smart enough to surmise that if, according to appleseed, "the Packers suck", then the bears, who lost at home to the Packers, must really, really suck.

everyone gets lucky once and a while.

I was just sayin' that it was going to save us some money.

Auto ADD wrote:

ST_ZX2 wrote: Well this monkey is smart enough to surmise that if, according to appleseed, "the Packers suck", then the bears, who lost at home to the Packers, must really, really suck.

everyone gets lucky once and a while.

I'd rather be lucky than good...I mean look no further than the Steelers...lots of luck in thier history.

What I especially admire about the Steelers is their ability to dominate an aspect of football that can’t be taught, coached, or willed. Luck. This is a franchise originally bankrolled by the horse track successes of the late Art Rooney Sr. After buying the team for $2,500 in 1933, Rooney kept it solvent by enjoying a particularly fruitful day at a suburban New York City racetrack in 1936, followed, 24 hours later, by an even more fruitful day at Saratoga. It was there that Rooney put down $8,000 on an 8-1 long shot, which prevailed in a photo finish. Rooney ended up hitting on seven winners in eight races – five of them long shots – leaving the track with a haul estimated somewhere between $200,000 and $358,000. Put it this way: The general manager at Saratoga offered Rooney the use of a Brink’s truck for the trip home. Rooney’s uncanny hunches as a horseplayer did not immediately translate into competitive teams on the football field. During the 1950s and ’60s, Rooney’s Steelers were the laughingstock of the NFL – the clodhoppers who cut Johnny Unitas, passed on the chance to draft Jim Brown, and traded the 1965 first-round selection Chicago identified as Dick Butkus. It was after the 1969 season the Steelers’ began their romance with Lady Luck. They’d finished 1-13, with one of the defeats to the Bears, who also finished 1-13. A Super Bowl week coin flip was arranged for the rights to the No. 1 draft choice, widely anticipated to be Louisiana Tech quarterback Terry Bradshaw. The Bears called heads, the coin turned up tails, and while it’s much too simplistic to point out that the rest is history, the rest, well, is history. Bradshaw was erratic for a few seasons before revealing himself as the Hall of Famer whose clutch play helped lead the Steelers to four Super Bowl wins in six years. (The Bears were so bummed out by the coin-flip fiasco, they traded the rights to the No. 2 overall selection to Green Bay for three veterans past their prime, and their second-round selection to Dallas for two more veterans past their prime.) Bradshaw’s most celebrated pass was off the mark, a desperate throw in the waning moments of a 1972 playoff game that bounced off somebody – either intended target Frenchy Fuqua or Raiders safety Jack Tatum – and into the grasp of the Steelers’ Franco Harris, who turned the near incompletion into a game-winning touchdown renowned in NFL lore as “The Immaculate Reception.” It was anything but immaculate, and if Fuqua made contact with the ball before Tatum did, it wasn’t even a reception per rules (rescinded in 1978) that prohibited an offensive player from catching any pass first touched by a teammate. Obvious question: How is the Immaculate Reception of 1972 relevant to the Super Bowl in 2011? Obvious answer: The Steelers’ stupefying streak of good fortune – almost four decades and counting – was on display in the AFC championship last weekend, when Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez was ruled to have fumbled on a play that might’ve been interpreted as an incomplete pass. The fumble was returned for a touchdown, giving Pittsburgh a seemingly commanding 24-0 lead that proved to be insurmountable after the visitors, trailing 24-10 with eight minutes remaining, failed to convert a first-and-goal opportunity on the Steelers’ 2-yard line. If the Jets appeared out of synch, it was because they were out of synch: Communication from the sideline to the huddle was impeded by a hardware malfunction – faulty headsets – for which the Jets were held accountable. I’m not suggesting espionage was involved, because that kind of untoward behavior (ahem) is not tolerated in the NFL. Besides, the Jets, whose strength coach was reprimanded for organizing a “fence” designed to impede opposing special teams players from running full speed down the sideline, pretty much exhausted their status as espionage victims. A better explanation for the Jets’ communication breakdown is luck. The Steelers still have it, just as they had it against the Seahawks in Super Bowl XL, when Darrell Jackson’s touchdown catch was nullified by a slight, almost indiscernible push-off ruled offensive interference, and Sean Locklear’s equally obscure holding penalty nullified a deep completion, and … Enough. The Seahawks lost to the Steelers fair and square. If the many disputed calls that went Pittsburgh’s way left referee Bill Leavy “with a lot of sleepless nights,” as he admitted a few months ago, Leavy should realize his crew was facing a weird dynamic: officiating a Super Bowl destined to be won by the Steelers. “My dad,” Art Rooney Jr. said in 2002, “used to tell me: ‘I’ve seen a lot of talented guys who can’t hold a job, and smart guys who all they could do is work for someone else, and hard workers who all they were were hard workers. For some reason, a lucky guy does all right in life, and everybody likes him. Don’t rap good luck.’” As for Sunday, I’m convinced the Packers have the better team: A better offense behind a better quarterback, with a better defense, as well. My hunch is Green Bay wins in a second-half shootout – make it 30-24 – but I’d never put a bet on that. Betting against the Steelers means betting against the spirit of their founder. He went to Saratoga one day in 1936, and he left with enough cash to fill a Brink’s truck.

http://seahawknationblog.com/2011/01/steelers-better-to-be-lucky-than-good/

Speaking of America's Team, does it bother anyone else that the Superbowl Champions (say for example, the only 6-time winners the Pittsburgh Steelers) are called the "World Champions"? Did anyone notice any teams from Russia, China, or even Canada or Mexico in the competition? Me neither.