More later on the big win by the Packers last night (27-14) but wanted to give some credence to the awesome Packer fans last night during ESPN’s post game show. This was about 30 minutes after the game, ESPN returns to the post game crew in Lambeau. Stuart Scott, Matt Millen, and Steve Young were reviewing the game when a very loud chant started from the fans who stayed. It wasn’t audible but all of a sudden Steve Young started laughing. Then he interupted Scott and said, the Packer fans are saying, “Jerry Rice fumbled!”. Of course he knew exactly what they were referring to, the 1998 49ers – Packers playoff game when Young threw a game winning TD pass to T.O. as time expired to beat the previous year’s NFC Champs. Then Millen and Stuart Scott laughed. And Scott was like, ‘they are still bitter over a playoff game from over 10 years ago, that’s awesome’. The ESPN cameras panned over to the crowd of about 100 rabid packer fans chanting…
“JERRY RICE FUMBLED”
“JERRY RICE FUMBLED”
“JERRY RICE FUMBLED”
“JERRY RICE FUMBLED”
I was loving that, almost some sort of retribution to that ugly loss which ended the Holmgren era in Green Bay. (And the Max McGee / Jim Irwin era) A few plays before the legendary (lucky) pass to T.O., Steve Young completed a short pass to Jerry Rice in the flat. Craig Newsome (or maybe it was Doug Evans) stuck him in the chest. Right before Rice fell to the ground the ball popped out. The replays clearly showed that it was a fumble. But this was a year before instant replay was brought back, so the Packers were hosed.
Another awesome part of this game was when Gruden spoke of the history of great receivers at Green Bay. He showed some old film of Sterling Sharpe catching a TD pass in one of the coldest games played at Lambeau. He highlighted the fact that Sharpe was sleeveless and everyone else was bundled up. Then Mike Tirico showed a picture of Gruden as he was the Packer’s QB coach at the time. For veteran Packer fans this was very entertaining coverage by ESPN last night.