Packers-Colts: Longing and Belonging and a Fistful of Prop Snow in the Face

If you've been following our all-time playdowns as closely as I am, you're a liar. I'm the freaking author. On the other hand, if you've been following the playdowns semi-closely, you know the Colts' advancing to the semifinals is a point of some contention. People say they shouldn't have beaten the Vikings in the round of 16, the Cowboys in the quarters, or even the Eagles in the first round. Well, they did. They did because while the defense is little more than average the offense is consistently far above average. Put another way, they have not one but several of the most dynamic offensive players in professional football history at a rate of at least one to every position. Tight end, John Mackey and Dallas Clark. Wide receiver, Ray Berry, Marvin Harrison, and Reggie Wayne. Running back, Eric Dickerson, Marshall Faulk, Edgerrin James, and Lenny Moore. Oh, and quarterback, Peyton Manning and Johnny Unitas.

If you're still unconvinced, here's the convincer. According to pro-football-reference.com, the Colts have 13 offensive players among the top 250 players of all time – two in the top 11 (including player No. 1), three in the top 20, four in the top 30. Just doing the math, if there are 32 teams, there should be eight players per team, four on offense and four on defense. Thirteen offensive players from a team means there are more than 200  percent more offensive players from the Colts than from an average team. Throw in five defensive players, and the Colts have 18 of the top 250 players of all time, where the average team has eight – and all that with no Art Donovan, no Bubba Smith, no John Mackey, or no Dallas Clark. That's why the Colts are here.

And if you're unconvinced about the value of Peyton Manning versus his Colts counterpart, Johnny Unitas, consider this: The Colts lost Unitas and nearly won to the Super Bowl with Earl Morrall. The Colts replaced Manning with the closest thing to Morrall the waiver wire had to offer, Kerry Collins, and have nearly won Andrew Luck. Oh, and despite playing most of his career behind Jeff Saturday and an assortment of grain-storage buildings, Peyton Manning is almost never sacked.

The all-time Colts have more than enough line to block for Manning and all that firepower, and just enough defense. So enough about whether they belong. They're there.

Let's compare the Colts to the Packers. The Packers have 14 players in the top 250, eight on defense. (Twelve if you stretch and include Ted Hendricks, Emlen Tunnell, Steve McMichael, and Hardy Nickerson, all of whom spent portions of the back ends of their careers in Green Bay.) So the modern Packers are at a decided disadvantage – and they'd stay at a disadvantage, if we pulled a National Football League and started football time with the merger of the All-American Football Conference.

Unfortunately for the Colts, their time starts with NFL Football Standard Time. The Packers start their football epoch B.C. (Before Cleveland), and by doing that, they up the skill level tremendously. The Packers add the greatest receiver of the prewar era (Don Hutson), three of the best backs (Tony Canadeo, Clarke Hinkle and Blood McNally), and two great linemen (Cal Hubbard and Mike Michalske). Throw those six players in the mix and the Packers have the edge, 19 to 18.

Close game, in other words. Both teams belong, and the game shapes up as an offensive powerhouse versus a strong, well-balanced defense.

Let's play this out.

The Colts get the opening kickoff and go three-and-out. The Packers get the punt and do the same. The Colts take over at their 37 after a decent Lydell Mitchell punt return and Manning goes to work. He hits Wayne, Moore, Berry, Faulk, and Mackey in succession, broken up by a couple of handoffs to Eric Dickerson. The drive takes the Colts to the Packers' 17, where it's third and five.

You know what Peyton Manning throws in these situations like you know your own name. Fade route to Reggie Wayne, touchdown, Colts up seven-zip.

Now it's the Pack's turn. With wide receivers like James Lofton, Sterling Sharpe and Don Hutson working against Bob Boyd and some sugar cookies, Bart Starr doesn't need to be Brett Favre; being Starr is plenty. Starr largely eschews the run in favor of out-routes and screens to Tony Canadeo. The Packers stretch and wedge and ply the ball down to the Colts' eight-yard line. A Gino Marchetti sack pushes the back to the 13. Starr figures if it worked for Manning, why not? He throws his own fade route to Hutson and the game is tied.

Fair enough. The Colts come right back. This time Manning, starting to feel the heat from Reggie White et al., makes better use of draws and screens with Faulk and Mitchell. He wriggles the ball down to the nine and lets Eric Dickerson take over from there. Three straight-and-I-mean-straight runs make it 14-7.

The Packers can't get into a shootout with the Colts, but they're willing to try. Starr continues to exploit the Colts' suspect secondary, in particular on a  57-yard Max McGee route with Hutson playing the part of ol' Max. Jim Taylor bashes it in from the five and we're tied.

Games sometimes veer from flurries of scoring to flurries of ... well, flurries, in the sense of tiny snowflakes being all the announcers have to talk about (except for Kevin Harlan, who never seems to talk about anything). In the case of this game and the Packers, it's Willie Wood, Charles Woodson, and Herb Adderley asserting themselves on the back end of the D and Willie Davis, Henry Jordan and Reggie White asserting themselves on the front. For the Colts, it's using Ted Hendricks as he was meant to be used – as a rogue force playing the whole field.

All of which is a long way of saying that Hendricks blocks a field goal as time expires in the first half, and the Packers and Colts go into halftime tied.

The teams come out in the second half to heavier snow – and if snow isn't Manning's kryptonite it's his triple-decker sauerkraut-and-toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce. After the Packers go nowhere after the second-half kickoff, Manning makes his first mistake. A pass steered in the direction of Ray Berry ends up in Adderley's hands instead. He returns the interception to the Colts' 39 and the Packers are in business.

It's not much of a business, as it turns out. A pass to Sharpe and a couple of Jim Taylor runs move the ball to the 30, where Chester Marcol is called on to not run with a blocked field goal, and he performs his task admirably, putting the Packers ahead 17-14.

At this point the snow takes over, and Eric Dickerson tries to. He bulls the ball downfield into field-goal range, leaving the kicking duties in the hands of long-time bad-weather kicker Adam Viniatieri.

Now is the time when poetic justice should assume power, and the Green Bay Ted Hendricks should block the kick of his former team, forcing the Baltimapolis Ted Hendricks back out on the field to stop the Packers, but that doesn't happen. Fred Carr doesn't even get an island-sized paw on it. Instead, Viniatieri simply pulls it left.

There's not much after that, fans of offense, lovers of the Washington-Baylor Alamo Bowl. Everyone sort of slips and mucks around for 10 minutes, Manning throws a pick to Dave Robinson, and Reggie White supplies the exclamation point with an exuberant belly-whopper of a sack. The gun fires and the Packers escape with a 17-14 win.

What a gyp! What a dirty, rotten gyp of a game! To have a absolute upset-in-the-making, one of the greatest pretend games in the entire history of made-up football games, ruined by the oldest trick in the book – a blast of stage snow in the face.

Okay, but think about it. The game is played in Green Bay in winter. It snows in Green Bay in winter. One of the greatest real games in history, the Ice Bowl, was played in Green Bay and was made great in part by the temperature. See, it gets cold in Green Bay in the winter. The game itself minus the temperature was no greater than a score of other games. Add the temperature and – voila! – instant classic. And a cup of instant coffee to go with it.

Besides, there's nothing that says the Packers wouldn't have won the game on a dry Green Bay field on a placid Green Bay winter's day. The superior Packers lines and a better Green Bay secondary were starting to assert themselves before the snow. Bart Starr didn't have a multitude of weapons to attack the colts with; he just had the right weapons. You don't need four great running backs and seven great wide receivers; two of the former and three of the latter work fine.

Of all the great players in this game, Sterling Sharpe really stands out. The receiver was on his way to a Hall of Fame career before the neck injury. As it stands, his seven-year numbers compare very favorably to Lofton, Steve Largent, Berry, and Bob Hayes. Sharpe pulls down 11 balls in this game for 117 yards. Hutson is fine – five catches for 87 yards and a TD – but no one matches up with Sharpe.

Dickerson has a nice game for the Colts – 97 yards rushing, mostly in the second half – but Manning's numbers fall off a ledge once the snow starts. He finishes 21 of 38 for 225 yards and two scores, but also an interception and three sacks. Manning's had better games, and that's part of the point. Most of Manning's better games have not occurred in big games in bad weather. This game is completely in character for Peyton Manning and the Colts – even if it took a silly vaudeville prop to do it.

So the stage is set for the last game in our all-time playdowns. Sorry, all you non-traditionalists and disavowers of the NFL's prewar past: It's Packers-Bears.

Let the railleries begin.

Bears-Rams: Let's Try A Run, Nagurski

Final Four is trademarked, so I can’t use it in this context. I can’t even think it in this context. In fact, I had to pay $275 just to mention it in my lead. Hey, NCAA: You take PayPal, right?

Okay, $275 poorer I press on. The four remaining teams in our all-time playdown are the Colts, Packers, Bears, and Rams. Disappointed that the Cowboys and 49ers didn’t make it? Tell them to get better players. Disappointed that the Cardinals didn’t make it? Just be thankful that that D-Line of Don Brumm, Chuck Walker, Eric Swann and Leo Sugar made it out of the first round. Baby steps. And no more Kevin Kolb experiments.

If the here-and-now suggests the Colts, Bears and Rams are all-time nothings (I can hear the shouts now: “You’d rather have Dan Orlovsky over Kevin Kolb? And you call yourself an expert?”, to which I reply, using my best expert tone, “Braaaaaaaaaap!!!”) don’t get your Victoria’s Secrets in a wad. It’s the norm for at least one of the four to stink at any given time. There has only been one year when all four teams have been truly bad (1982), no years when are four have been really good, and lots of years when three of the four have been really bad (1953, 1973, and 1974) or really good (2002, 2003, 2010, and most of the '60s). It’s more a matter of how good they are when they’re really good than how bad they are when they’ve been really bad. The Chad Hutchinson years are a mulligan, in other words.

The thing that distinguishes these four teams is in fact just how good they’ve been when they’ve been good. I hesitate like Colin Firth to use the word “dynasty” to apply to professional football. In my opinion there were only three true dynasties in sports: the Canadiens, the Yankees, and the Celtics. Every other proto-dynasty was just an extended period of goodness. In fact, if we were doing this exercise in any other professional sport the fix would be in – not because the fix was actually in in the sense of pretend Mafiosos rigging the pretend results so that all the pretend betting in pretend Las Vegas would tilt their way, but because the top teams were that much better for that much longer over so many more decades. You really think the all-time St. Louis Baseball Cardinals could take down the all-time New York Baseball Yankees? Albert Pujols could be swinging the hammer of Thor and Bob Gibson could be throwing sub-atomic particles at the speed of light and the Yankees would still prevail in five.

The sketchy initial impressions of our four all-time teams are that the Bears and Rams are the “defensive” teams of the foursome and the Packers and Colts are the “offensive” teams. Of course, the initial impressions are wrong, and also of course, the two defensive teams play each other.

The Rams resemble a defensive team the same way that Newt Gingrich resembles the Dalai Lama. They’ll have three Hall of Fame quarterbacks once Kurt Warner makes it in, they’ll have four HOF wide receivers once Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt make it, they have three HOF running backs, and they throw in a couple of HOF linemen just for giggles. They actually have more offensive firepower than any of the four, but they have Deacon Jones, who holds the trademark on the quarterback sack (whoops – there goes another $75. Hey, Deacon: You take PayPal, right?) and Merlin Olsen, arguably the third-greatest athlete (after Lou Brock and Ferdinand the Bull) to while away his toast-'n'-jelly days schlepping flowers.

Actually, the most fascinating thing about the Rams-Bears matchup is how archetypical it is. How many games have been characterized as a clash between a running team that plays tough defense and a wide-open passing team that plays swinging-gate D? Well, this is that game, and on Mt. Olympus. Instead of Aaron Rodgers and Jordy Nelson versus Tim Tebow and Von Miller, this game offers Walter Payton and Dick Butkus against Norm van Brocklin and Deacon Jones. The only way this game could be more souped-up is if they were throwing around lightning bolts instead of The Duke.

As so often happens with games like these, what each team does well lines up with the other team’s weaknesses. The Rams don’t need to run, and pass defense (including a pass rush) is the Bears’ sole weakness. The Rams get after the quarterback like no one else but are lacking ‘50s-style run stuffers in the line – pity, because the Bears come right after their opponents with a battalion of ill-tempered linemen and a fleet of big-boned running backs.

Most of these games go off-script. Rodgers runs a mess of pitch sweeps to Ryan Grant and Tim Tebow dazzles (okay, not really dazzles, but doesn’t suck) with flag pattern after flag pattern to Eric Decker, and the whole sloppy mess causes fantasy-football players everywhere to throw handfuls of nacho-cheese Doritos at their big-screens.

This game doesn't. The Bears run, the Rams pass, the Bears block, the Rams shoot the gaps, the Bears control the line of scrimmage, the Rams go vertical, both teams get really dirty, and one team goes home.

That team is the … well, not so fast. It’s still the pregame show.

The only way we’re going to make any headway here is to send James Brown in search of more Doritos, and while he’s gone, look more closely at the areas of discord – the Rams against the run and the Bears against the pass.

The Rams have had a top-two defense six years (1947, 1966-67, 1970, and 1974-75). The Bears have had a top-two defense nine seasons since 1942 (1942, 1948, 1963, 1965, 1985-86, 1988, 2001, and 2005), which should tell you something right there.

In the six years where the Rams had one of the league’s top defenses, they were (going from earliest to most recent) first, third, second, fourth, first, and second against the run, and second overall every year except 2004.

The Bears were first, second, first, second, first, first, first, first, and second overall and third, second, second, ninth, third, first, 25th, 29th, and fifth against the pass.

The best Rams defenses (where most of the Hall of Famers are) are better against the run than the best Bears defenses are against the pass.

The way to beat the Bears, in other words, is to pass against them. The way to beat the Rams is not necessarily to run against them.

So does any of this matter?

Not much, because the Bears also have the greatest kick returners in history. I absolutely hate – I mean, Black-Eyed Peas levels of hate -- to have a game like this come down to special teams, because that would mean Kevin Harlan is right (“Big games like these ALWAYS come down to special teams!!”), but kick-returning is a huge plus for the Bears.

Gale Sayers didn’t get into the Hall of Fame on the strength of his 4,956 rushing yards alone. He got there on the strength of 4,956 rushing yards plus a kickoff-return yardage average that’s still the best in NFL history, a kickoff-return TD number that’s still top-three, and an all-purpose-yards-per-game number that isn’t tracked as an official statistic but which is large enough to make Mark Cuban want to buy it and move it to Dallas.

The reason Devin Hester is serious Canton material isn’t because he’s a pretty good third receiver. He’s Rust Belt-bound because when you kick the ball to him … you don’t want to kick the ball to him. Ever, under any circumstances. And that’s why he’s HOFesque.

The other reason why kick returns matter is because Deacon Jones, inventor of the quarterback sack (damn – another $75 out of my pocket) doesn’t play on kick returns.

Okay. So the Rams kick off to a split-back tandem of Sayers and Hester, and … hold on. Just think about that for a second. The Rams kick off, and if they kick it long it’s going to The Greatest Kick Returner In Football History, numbers 1 and 1a. Of course they’re going to run the kickoff back a long way. There is not a number out there that would suggest otherwise.

So the Rams kick off and Hester runs it out to the Rams’ 43. A mess of runs and an incomplete pass take it down to the 21, where Kevin Butler kicks a field goal. 3-0 Bears.

The Bears kick off to the Rams and Ollie Matson, no mean returner hisownself, flies it out to the Rams’ 40. Two runs and three passes take the ball down to the Bears’ 37, where the drive bogs down. Max Zendejas comes in to kick a field goal, but Doug Atkins blocks it with his island-size paw. Fortunately there’s no Devin Hester to return the blocked kick, and the Bears go three-and-out.

The Rams are set up nicely at their 39, and a series of quick slants and sideline routes take the ball down to the Bears’ 29. A screen to Marshall Faulk seemed like a good idea at this point, but Dick Butkus strips him clean and Bill George recovers. Faulk stumbles off the field holding his forearm by the hair, like it’s a Cabbage Patch Kid, and another drive goes a-glimmering.

The Bears pound it up the middle for about 17 yards, and that’s about it for the first quarter. The Rams lead in the excitement category 17-3, but excitement only matters in Battle of the Network Stars football, and then only when they hand the ball to Loni Anderson.

The Rams get the ball to start the second quarter, and they go right to work. A draw play to Eric Dickerson gets them their first positive rushing yards, and it’s quickly followed by a swing pass to Ollie Matson that nets 14. At this point Norm van Brocklin gets the bright idea to air it out to Crazylegs Hirsch and … it works. Whaddya know. Hirsch takes it 48 yards for a score, and suddenly it’s 7-3 Rams.

Oh, but then they kick it to Gale Sayers. First down Bears at midfield.

The problem with long kick returns, even for a defense as good as the Rams and an offense as woefully one-dimensional as the Bears, is that it asks the offense to do about 37 percent less to achieve the same result. And doing about 37 percent less is what the Bears’ offense is all about.

In the case of this drive, it means one middling 16-yard pass to Mike Ditka, a couple of nice eight-yard runs by Walter Payton, a little swing pass to Gale Sayers, and ultimately a two-yard plunge by Bronko Nagurski that puts the Bears up 10-7, taking us to halftime.

The halftime stats are nothing to write home about, even if you’re just writing home to ask for money. The Bears rush for just short of 70 yards and pass for 35. The Rams rush for 11 and pass for 139, but the fumble and the interception are, in the immortal words of The Philadelphia Story’s Macaulay Connor, a great levelerer.

The Rams get the ball to start the second half and take off down the field like they’ve been shot out of a gun. Unfortunately, it’s my son’s BB gun, and so they wind up about 20 yards short of the target. Max Zendejas knocks it through from 35 and we’re all tied at 10.

All things considered, the Rams would have been better turning over the ball on downs, because Hester takes the kick inside the Rams’ 40. Perhaps buoyed by this, Luckman does the unthinkable and lobs one between the arms of Deacon Jones in the direction of Lake Michigan. Harlon Hill jumps, Ed Meador jumps, and since Hill jumps better than Meador it’s a touchdown. Butler’s extra point makes it 17-10, and you can sense all the water leaking from Merlin Olsen’s Birthday Party Bouquet.

The Rams do their best to respond. Pinned back deep in their territory for the first time all afternoon, the Rams mix draws, screens, sideline patterns, and one sweet seam route to Torry Holt to move inside the Chicago 20 before the roof caves in, courtesy of Joe Stydahar and Dick Butkus. Two QB sacks plus an incompletion force Zendejas to attempt his third field goal. He knocks it through and the Bears’ lead shrinks to 17-13.

Finally the Rams squib a kickoff, forcing the Bears to start inside their 40. A three-and-out is matched by a five-and-out from the Rams, which is matched by another three-and-one, then a six-and-out, then a five-and-out, and before you know it it’s the Rams’ ball on their 27 with less than three minutes on the clock.

Van Brocklin is masterful. He works over the overworked Bears’ secondary with quick passes to fast receivers. The Rams thrust-and-parry down to the five, but then the angles tighten and the passes don’t get through. Zendejas is called on once again and delivers the field goal that brings the Rams within three.

The Bears get the ball with less than two minutes to play and a simple task to accomplish: Get a first down – just one. With the game on the line, Payton rushes for four and then two, bringing up a key third and four. The Rams are out of timeouts; a first down seals the game.

As has happened so many times in their existence, the Bears’ survival will be determined by their ability to run for four yards when they need it. True to character, they hand the ball to Bronko Nagurski and let a line-full of HOFers attend to their business. Nagurski gains five. Luckman takes a knee and Bears fans go home slightly less ornery than when they came.

It’s not a pretty game – again – but once again, it epitomizes Bears football. Payton runs for 87, Nagurski adds 36, and Luckman throws for 121 with no interceptions. Between them Sayers and Hester return nine kicks for 217 yards.

The Rams’ numbers are more impressive by far. Van Brocklin throws for 286, Hirsch has a long TD, Holt and Bruce each catch four, Dickerson and Faulk combine for 117 yards rushing – but those numbers are ultimately irrelevant. Two empty sorties into Chicago territory are fatal in a game this close.

So, yeah, Kevin Harlan, you called it all right. It did come down to special teams. Play the game tomorrow and it might have a different outcome. But today the Bears move on. The Final Four now numbers three.

Drat. I hope the NCAA takes Visa.

Packers-Niners: Twisting by the (Talent) Pool

Packers-Niners. Just the mention of those teams conjures images of California-cool quarterbacks kneeling down at the end of games. If sometimes you toy with the notion that every game that has ever been won in the National Football League has been won by one of these teams, you wouldn’t be toying alone. And yet why does this game have the feeling of anticlimax?

Could it be that it’s because it’s been done better in real life? The bookend Packers-Niners playoff games – the Packers’ win in the rain in 1996 and the Niners’ down-to-the-wire win two years later – have everything you could want in a football game, including bratwurst and large, inexpensive beers. If they don’t include every player on each all-time team they include a more-than-representative sampling, especially in the Niners’ case.

But enough dealing with reality. Let’s jump back into the unreal world and take a hard look at these two make-believe teams. The Niners have a HOFer everywhere, but not always multiple HOFers. The Packers have multiple HOFers everywhere. Advantage Packers. But in certain key areas the Niners’ HOFers are better than the Packers’ HOFers. Would you rather have Joe Montana, Steve Young and Y.A. Tittle or Bart Starr, Brett Favre, and Aaron Rodgers? Jerry Rice and Terrell Owens or Don Hutson and James Lofton? Ronnie Lott and Jim Johnson or Herb Adderly and Willie Wood (and Charles Woodson)? Advantage Niners.

However, in the lines and at running back, those brutal locales not too dissimilar from eastern Colorado, the Packers dominate. Forrest Gregg, Jim Ringo, Cal Hubbard, and Mike Michalske trump Bob St. Clair et al. Leo Nomellini and the interchangeable pack horses of the Bill Walsh era, Dana Stubblefield and Bryant Young cower in the massive shadows of Willie Davis, Henry Jordan, and Reggie White. Joe Perry and Hugh McIlhenny (and the criminally underappreciated Roger Craig and Rickey Watters) are strictly second-tier guys compared to Hornung, Taylor, Clarke Hinkle, Johnny Blood, Tony Canadeo, and Arnie Herber. And sorry Bill Walsh, but Vince Lombardi, Curley Lambeau, and Mike Holmgren take you down.

But it’s close. It’s very close. When you run the two-deeps on a continuum and cut off the top 15 players, they’re virtually identical. But when you get to players 47 and 48, it’s clear that the Packers have better talent.

So let’s do it that way. Let’s take the two-deep starting lineups of both teams, put them on continuums, and then see how the bottom tiers of both look.

Using a combination of Pro Football Reference’s Weighted Average Value and Elo Rater scores, here are the players scoring more than 100 on a combined index where the lower the score, the better the player:

Niners Packers


Roger Craig Dave Robinson

Bob St. Clair James Lofton

Harris Barton Jerry Kramer

Hugh McIlhenny Charles Woodson

Billy Wilson Donald Driver

Joe Perry Chad Clifton

Gene Washington Fred Carr

Brent Jones Hawg Hanner

Bruce Bosley John Anderson

Abe Woodson Bobby Dillon

Keena Turner Sterling Sharpe

Tommy Hart Lionel Aldridge

Ken Willard Mark Tauscher

Cedrick Hardman Ken Ellis

John Taylor Aaron Kampman

Dana Stubblefield Gale Gillingham

Merton Hanks Paul Coffman

Roland Lakes Mike McCoy

Guy McIntyre Willie Buchanon

Frank Nunley

Ken Norton Jr.

Eric Wright

Dwight Hicks

Forrest Blue

Woody Peoples

Kermit Alexander

Tim McDonald

Monty Stickles

Bruno Banducci

Howard Mudd

Hacksaw Reynolds

These lists don’t lack for good players, but they point up the problem with the Niners: there’s more bottom, and it goes deeper. Ken Ellis, Aaron Kampman and Gale Gillingham (and what is it with Gillingham getting nothing from history? I know the guy just died and we’re all rosy-eyed about his worth as a football player, but he was absolutely the best thing about the Packers after Lombardi left, and was every bit as good As Jerry Kramer, who gets plenty of forearm shivers from the football cognoscenti as-is) are very comparable to Hacksaw Reynolds, Tim McDonald (another head-scratcher as far as history goes), Forrest Blue, and Woody Peoples. But where the Niners offer up Bruno Banducci and Merton Hanks the Packers counter with Buckets Goldenberg and Jug Earpe – different, but better different. In this world, where a replacement-value guy is a five-time All-Pro, the Packers have better players.

Okay, so we’ve beaten that particular dead horse to death. Talent wins most but not all of these games. How does talent fare here?

Pretty well.

It’s a different sort of game, a little like a modern-day Jets-Patriots game minus the chubby guys in hoodies. The Niners want to throw it all over the field and worry about defense when they get there, while the Packers want to pound the ball and play defense and keep Brett Favre staked to the ground, Gulliver-style, on the sideline. (and yes, Aaron Rodgers is in charge of the little hammer.)

The result is much like the recent Jets-Patriots tussles, where the Patriots get the best of the stat sheet but the Jets win. In this case, as the snow swirls around Lambeau and the in-ground turf heaters create a surface of a consistency similar to those things they called “steaks” you used to get at Ponderosa, the Niners take the opening kickoff, run it out to the 47 courtesy of a great Abe Woodson return, march it down to the 24, and miss a field goal. The Packers stumble out to the 32 and punt. The Niners run the punt out to midfield, run and pass it down inside the 15, and throw an interception (Bobby Dillon). The Packers run back the interception to the 21, pound it out to the 24, and punt. The Niners take a penalty on the runback that lands them at their own 33 and fly down the field to the Packer 42, where the drive stalls and the Niners punt it into the end zone. When the quarter ends at this point it’s a mercy-killing.

Perhaps energized by the Packer band’s version of “Ride My Seesaw” at the quarter break, the Packers mount a drive … actually, they get a first down. Overwhelmed by this display of offensive prowess, Abe Woodson fumbles the ensuring punt and the Packers recover at the San Francisco 38. The Packers don’t do much with the field position; a Starr-to-Hutson square-out takes the ball down to the Niners’ 19 before the demi-drive stalls. Chester Marcol doesn’t miss, however, and the Packers take a middlingly late 3-0 lead.

At this point San Francisco has 87 yards, two turnovers and no points. The Packers have 30 yards and three points.

And the beat goes on. The Niners roll up 53 yards on a drive that ends in a field goal blocked by Fred Carr and Ted Hendricks. The Packers go three-and-out. The Niners roll up 31 yards and punt. The Packers go five-and-out. The Niners roll up 40 yards before two penalties and a sack end their drive. The Packers get the ball on their own 32 with 1:53 left in the half.

Finally, some semblance of offense. A 13-yard Tony Canadeo scamper is followed by a Starr-to-Lofton post pattern that takes the ball down to the San Francisco 22. A flare pass to John Blood McNally takes the ball down to the 5, and that’s close enough for Jim Taylor to bash it into the end zone in three tries. Marcol’s extra point makes it 10-0 Packers as the halftime gun fires.

The Niners can’t be expected to stay down forever, and they don’t. After another Green Bay three-and-out to start the second half, Steve Young enters the game in relief of Joe Montana and immediately catches fire. He hits Jerry Rice for 19 yards and Terrell Owens for 23, scrambles for 11 and hits Hugh McIlhenny on a swing pass that goes for 18 yards and a score. Tommy Davis’ extra point (at last! Something through the uprights!) makes it 10-7.

At this point, the lid is officially off and the game is officially not the game of the first half. Starr begins to click hisownself. On a 77-yard drive Starr hits Lofton for 22, Hutson for 31 and Sharpe for 11 and a touchdown. Young answers with a 73-yard drive that culminates in an eight-yard Brent Jones TD strike. On the Packers’ ensuing series, Starr audibles out of a dive play to Jim Taylor and calls an option pass. Cecil Isbell hits Sharpe in stride from 57 yards out, and suddenly it’s halfway through the fourth quarter and 24-14 Green Bay.

The Niners make it interesting. Young alternates Perry runs and passes to Rice and Jones on a 65-yard drive that takes the ball down to the 8 – field-goal range for Tommy Davis. Now it’s 24-17 and a seven-point game.

With six minutes left the Niners kick off to the Packers. The Niners get the ball back with 47 seconds left in the shadow of their own goalposts.

They don’t go gentle into that good-and-cold eastern Wisconsin night. Young’s bomb in the direction of Terrell Owens draws a pass-interference penalty, bringing the ball out to midfield. Two more passes, and the Niners are inside the Packer 30 with 25 seconds left.

With no timeouts left Young rolls right, Reggie White hot on his trail. Young underestimates White’s closing speed one last, fatal time. White closes the gap, flings a huge paw around Young, drives him to the turf and refuses to get off the quarterback until the clock reads triple zeroes. The gun fires, the game ends, and the Packers survive.

“Survive” is the operative word. The Packers are outgained by 85 yards, 462 to 377. Surprisingly, no one runs much, not even the Packers. Jim Taylor gains 71 yards in 15 carries, Canadeo 19 in six, Hinkle 14 in three, and Ahman Green 11 in one. McIlhenny gains 37 yards on six carries, Joe Perry 22 in 12, Craig 21 in three, John Henry Johnson five in three, and Young 24 on two scrambles.

Starr throws for 306 yards and two TDs, but his numbers are eclipsed by the combination of Montana (174 yards, two interceptions) and Young (179 yards, two touchdowns).

The Packers came in feeling like they had to run to win, and they won it by passing. Football is funny that way.

Determining who is best positioned to win a game is a question of talent. Actually winning a game is something else altogether.

Lions and Bears: Get your "Oh, My"'s Elsewhere

The Bears win; you know that. It’s like watching a movie with the Rock. There is a 100 percent probability that when things really get down to the stove bolts the Rock will cold-cock Charlemagne with a short, sweet right, sweep Nefertiti in his arms without dislodging a single sacred hair of that funky Kid ‘n’ Play ‘do of hers, and vine-swing from tree to tree until he reaches the battlestar. It’s inevitable. Moviegoers expect the Rock to save Timmy from the well and toss June Lockhart over his shoulder (okay, and pet Lassie) and they’re going to go all Arab Spring on you if he doesn’t.

So for the Lions to somehow beat the Bears? My God, it would be like Shirley Temple taking down the Rock, flipping his batteries and getting him to play house and have tea parties, like Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story 2. In an alternate universe maybe, where the sun orbits the earth and Herman Cain makes sense, but not here.

Fine, but let’s run the matchup anyway. Quarterback is a nonfactor with these teams. You could stick a lump of pot cheese back there and the result would be about the same. The Bears haven’t had a truly great quarterback since Sid Luckman, and the Lions haven’t had one since Dutch Clark, which means they haven’t had a quarterback since a quarterback was a quarterback and not a running back playing a position called quarterback. (see Tebow, Tim.) The Bears have the greatest running back ever and so do the Lions, only the Bears have Gale Sayers too and the Lions have … well, they have Dutch Clark again, or Doak Walker, who was Dutch Clark 2.1.1.

Both teams also trot out meh-level receivers – Harlon Hill and Bill Hewitt for the Bears, and Herman Moore and Calvin Johnson for the Lions. The Lions have the more productive receivers no doubt, and you can’t even draw the Bears wideouts into the what-if-he-played-today game you can play with a Don Hutson. Too many variables. Too many bad quarterbacks. And Harlon Hill? However, both teams have HOF tight ends -- blocking tight ends, naturally -- of roughly the same vintage.

So far so good on the matchups, so let’s move to the lines. The Lions have three HOFers (assuming Dick Stanfel gets in) and a couple of borderline guys. The Bears have nine.

Nine? Oh.

On the other side of the ball, the Lions have one HOFer in the front seven and a couple of maybes. The Bears have eight to 10, depending on how many guys you want to play both ways.

Cue the ominous Emimem music from the Chrysler ad, but leave the Baptist choir out of it.

It would matter that the Lions have an all-HOF secondary if the Bears threw the ball, but they have four HOF running backs and nine HOF O-linemen, and Harlon Hill as their best deep threat. You really think they’re gonna throw?

And herein lies the problem with the Lions against the Bears. The Lions are strong where it doesn't count against a team built to live by a lake, chew mud and spit snowflakes and pound the ball between the tackles. Lions-Colts would be fascinating. Bears-Lions not so much. Bears-Colts would – (spoiler alert) will – be interesting. It would also make a difference in this game if the Lions could do things that the Bears might have trouble stopping – throwing the ball, for instance. Once out of the hotel bar, Bobby Layne never scared no one as a passer.

In fact, this is one of those football games that makes you wonder why football is the titular American pastime. The only stat worth keeping is how many horsecollar tackles Night Train Lane makes. (Answer: nine.) The only person breaking off yardage in adult-size chunks is Gale Sayers, and most of those come on punt returns. And there are plenty of punt returns.

There are 13 punts all told in this game, seven by the Lions, who never seem to be on the side of the 50-yard line where the touchdowns are.

So you can figure out how it goes. Punt-punt-punt-punt-field goal-punt-punt-punt-touchdown pretty much sums up the first half. The touchdown comes after a 43-yard Sayers punt return took the ball inside the 20, setting up seven brutal plays (including a fourth-and-one conversion) culminating in a four-yard Walter Payton TD. The field goal comes after a 37-yard Sayers return and an eight-yard drive.

Up 10-0, the Bears come out in the second half and do the unthinkable: They throw a pass... and naturally it’s intercepted by Lem Barney, who returns it 19 yards to the Chicago 16. Three plays later Layne throws an end-over-end jump ball in the direction of Calvin Johnson, who comes down with the ball in the back corner of the end zone.

After that it's punt-punt-field goal-interception-fumble-punt-punt-interception-missed field goal-punt-ballgame. Sayers sets up the field goal with another 30-plus-yard scamper off of a punt  (and even the presence of all those great D-backs on special teams does little to take the edge off of Sayers' mad dashes), putting the capper on a day spent lazing in an offense as poorly suited to his skills as the current Bears' desired game is to modern-day Sayers Matt Forte.

Layne's day is mean, nasty, brutish, and not nearly short enough: 13-for-31, 174 yards, a touchdown and two picks. Barry Sanders runs for a subpar (for Barry Sanders) 113 yards on 21 carries, but 174 plus 113 doesn't equal victory.

Luckman's numbers are virtually identical to Layne's save for the highs and lows: 15-for-24 for 187, null and zed. Running back is strictly by committee; Payton runs for 82, Sayers 63, McAfee 51, Grange 44, and Nagurski 39. More rushing yards don't always equal victory, but it's a good start. Especially if you have a D-line full of HOFers backed by the game's definitive linebackers.

So the Bears move on, completely unsurprisingly and without a caveat in the world save for this: If the Bears would ever play a hotshot passing team this all might be different.

Not now, but soon ...

Colts-Cowboys: Battle of the (Cartoon) Network Stars

Maybe the greatest appeal of football to men is this: It’s so linear.

You either have talent or you don’t. Either the talent performs or it doesn’t. If the talent doesn’t perform the team loses. If the team loses the coach gets fired. The switch is on or it’s off. It’s broken or it’s fixed. It’s brats or burgers.

What’s more, the product is standardized. There’s a recipe for throwing and general agreement on how to catch, how to run, and how to tackle. You don’t find a lot of knuckleballers in football. The Greenwich Mean Time of football is the 40-yard dash. You run against the clock, and the clock doesn’t keep a supply of graphite oil inside its belt.

Compare this to baseball, which is a women’s sport if ever there was one. Ichiro is arguably the greatest baseball talent of the modern age – Americans only saw the down side of his career, remember – but he is more idiosyncratic than a stop-motion David Byrne, he makes positive contact with the ball one-eighth of the time, and even if he makes positive contact there’s no guarantee of a positive outcome. And it’s all discussed incessantly by everyone involved. I was watching the season finales on Wednesday, and for all the inherent drama I mostly felt like I had just wandered into the narthex of the local Lutheran church after a Sunday-school teacher’s meeting.

Really, baseball couldn’t be more feminine if it were lavender-scented.

The ultimate lesson here is that in football talent wins more often than not, even in these fanciful made-up games I’ve been documenting over the last several months. Cachet, that certain something behind a good 70 percent of the Yankees’ world championships, doesn’t really come to play in this sandbox.

All of which is a preface to saying this: the Cowboys lose.

Now, the Cowboys have nothing if not cachet. Of all the cartoon characters football fans have created to personify their team, the Cowboys’ character is the most pervasive: The 100 percent Amurrican as wild-west cowboy, rootin’ and tootin’ and shootin’ up the town, daring the law-abiding citizens to make him stop.

Oh, and he’s short. Like five-foot-two short. And his cowboy hat falls down over his ears to such an extent that all you see of him besides his hat is a pair of cowboy boots. It’s Jerry Jones in caricature as L’il Jerry, Amurrican hero, and one way or another L’il Jerry always wins. The Cowboys oeuvre is a topsy-turvy everything’s-bigger-in-Texas act for the new Texas, where they sell more Hyundais than F-150s, and it’s custom-made for all the brawn-over-brain galoots who have secretly rooted for Yosemite Sam to blow up Bugs Bunny just once.

If the Cowboys were a baseball team they’d be the Yankees; it’s been said more than once because it’s true. The Cowboys would hit you over the head with their stadium and pitch Herschel Walker in game one, Peyton Manning would lose a fly ball in the sun, the ‘Boys would bring in Deion Sanders to close, and it’d be all over before Pat Summerall realized they were playing baseball.

However, the Cowboys’ inherent Yankeeness returns to bite them in this stadium of the mind, where the numbers throw fastballs and reality runs the 40. Dallas’ success has been self-perpetuating, often in excess of the talent producing the results. The Cowboys have won 57.6 percent of their games, just a tick behind the Bears, yet their best quarterbacks have been Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach – Hall of Famers more renowned for managing talent than displaying outlandish skills. The ‘Boys running backs are unimpeachable – you gonna argue with TD and Emmitt, despite their iffy skills as pass-catchers? – but the wide receivers aren’t difference-makers and their offensive line toils in well-deserved obscurity. The D-line is stout and the linebackers are solid, but like a lot of good teams there’s work to be done in the defensive backfield. They’re just a team, in other words, like a lot of other teams. They don’t run out Hall of famers two-deep like the Bears or have a HOF-caliber QB as the fourth-stringer, like the 49ers and Rams. They put their pants on one leg at a time, and they set no records doing it.

When you assemble a team with consistent winning as a goal, this is what you get. When you assemble a team with less coherent goals, the best-case scenario is the Colts.

Make no mistake: the Colts have won 53 percent of their games over the last 59 years – nice, but hardly exemplary. However, the Colts have only been good half that time. The other half of the time they have been so bad that it’s a surprise they’ve only moved twice in their existence. The Frank Kush years were so execrable that the Colts could have been forgiven for pulling up stakes in week 12 and resettling in Shreveport or Toledo.

To be intensely bad half of your life and still be on the plus side of the glass must mean periods of sustained brilliance, and the Colts have delivered. The Johnny Unitas and Peyton Manning teams have been among the greatest teams in football history, and if the all-time Colts steal heavily from them, what of it? Do you really want to trot out Steve Emtman in the interest of equal representation?

The bottom line for the Colts is that their quarterbacks are two of the best ever, they have four HOFers at running back – a scary combination of thunder (Eric Dickerson) and lightning (Lenny Moore and Marshall Faulk) and out-of-the-backfield pass-catching ability -- and three at wide receiver, they have one HOF tight end and maybe two, their O-line sports a current HOFer and a couple of gonna-bes, and their defense is predictably strong in the front line and less strong at linebacker and D-back. Plus, they have two HOF coaches already, with perhaps the best coach (Tony Dungy) in the wings.

That’s not much more than the Cowboys, but it is more. And in the inexorable, ultimately linear game of numbers that’s being played here, slightly more wins.

Here’s how. The Cowboys take the opening kickoff and pound the ball down the field, alternating Smith and Dorsett and setting up a 38-yard Rafael Septien field goal. The Colts go three-and-out, with a Peyton Manning sack, but then the Cowboys are bottled up and the Colts get untracked. Three straight Manning completions move the ball into field-goal territory, but three straight incompletions result in an Adam Viniateri miss from 46.

No matter. A Gino Marchetti strip results in a Dorsett fumble, Dwight Freeney recovers and the Colts get a short field to work with -- bad news for the ‘Boys, as Manning finds Mackey down the middle to give the Colts a 7-3 lead.

The ‘Boys keep pounding the ball, and use a rare bomb to Bob Hayes to set up an Emmitt Smith TD as the first quarter ends. The TD hardly dings the Colts’ momentum, though. Manning deftly works the short passing game to set up a patented fade pattern to Reggie Wayne, and the Colts regain the lead 14-10.

The rest of the first half follows a similar pattern. Dallas uses the running game to lengthen its possessions; the Colts use the passing game and a no-huddle offense to speed down the field. Both teams wring a field goal out of their possessions, giving the Colts a 17-13 lead at halftime.

After the Kilgore College Rangerettes high-step at halftime and L’il Jerry dances on the star at midfield comes the game’s biggest break: The Colts get the second-half kickoff.

Bang! Sixteen yards to Ray Berry. Bang! Eleven to Marvin Harrison. Bang! A nine-yard draw play to Edgerrin James. Bang! A 23-yard screen pass to Marshall Faulk. Before the ‘Boys can react, a no-huddle onslaught rocks Dallas onto its heels, and by the time their heads clear Dickerson has galloped into the end zone and the Colts have extended their lead to 24-13.

With the pressure on Dallas to quickly move the ball, the team folds up like a Quizno’s franchise. Ted Hendricks picks off Aikman and returns it to the Dallas 19. A nine-yard pass to Berry makes it 31-13. Roger Staubach relieves Aikman and delivers a 37-yard scoring strike to Michael Irvin, but the Cowboys are unable to turn a Bob Lilly strip of Peyton Manning into points, and Manning makes them pay by firing a 43-yard bullet to John Mackey.

With the outcome in hand, the Colts put the offense on Eric Dickerson’s shoulders, and he burns more than enough clock. A late Dorsett score can’t change the ultimate reality (in a made-up sort of way): 41-27 Colts.

Peyton Manning is masterful, completing 27 of 42 passes for 342 yards and four scores. Aikman and Staubach combine to go 16 for 29 for 274 yards and two scores. Smith and Dorsett combine for 143 rushing yards, but the Colts’ four backs lay down 132 – not exactly what Dallas had in mind.

So while the cartoon embodiment of the Cowboys sheds big pooling tears on his artificial turf, the cartoon embodiment of the Colts moves on to the next challenge.

And that cartoon embodiment of the Colts is … haven’t you heard? It’s Captain America.

Browns-Rams: Pretending To Pretend

This is all fiction; that’s the only disclaimer you’re gonna get.

And because it’s fiction, and because I’m the bloke making it up, I can do what I darn well please – especially because this is a blog that at last count is being read actively by .000001 percent of the planet. So if your team doesn’t come out on top in this particular match, please don’t come crying to me. Realize this is nothing but falsehoods from invented start to faked-over finish, with players who will never elsewhere play together playing together on a pretend field, running plays cobbled together out of whole cloth, scoring points that are even more apropos of nothing than the points that are usually scored in games, and delivering a wholly made-up outcome essentially to you and no one else. Really. It couldn’t be more personal if you just sat down and thought it. So relax and let it happen. It’ll be over in about another 850 words, and you can go back to more tangible pursuits, like playing Angry Birds.

I screed because I’m looking at this particular matchup, the all-time Cleveland Browns versus the all-time Los Angeles Rams. (And they are the Los Angeles Rams, darn it, no matter what anyone in St. Louis says or thinks. In fact, I think L.A. should just claim them under eminent domain, stick them back in the Coliseum, and change the colors back to blue and white. There still may be a clown car full of wackos running for the White House, but at least one thing will be back in balance.) It’s virtually impossible to pick a winner because the talent levels are so close. Up until now there was a disparity in talent somewhere that could be exploited, on a purely academic level, solely for the entertainment of the reading audience, but not between the Rams and the Browns. They could be the same team, if the Browns’ uniforms weren’t so historically ugly. The only time they looked even remotely appropriate for a football team was when Marion Motley’s helmet matched the color of the ball – white. And that was when the AAFC played night games and no one could see anything. So the only time the Browns have dressed like a football team was when they played in the dark, whereas the Rams have always looked somewhat like a football team, even when they were fighting off Georgia Frontiere's urge to dress them like cheerleaders.

The all-time records are close. The Browns have been in existence 11 fewer years and have won 25 fewer games, so they’ve been better more often, not that that means anything. The Dolphins have been betterer oftener and they’re on the sidelines because they lack talent. It may be harder to lose with talent than to win without it, but not here.

The starting lineups similarly approximate each other. The lines are strong, the linebackers less so, the offensive backfields more so, and the defensive backfields – well, both teams hope it never comes to Erich Barnes or Ed Meador saving the day.

Let’s look at those lineups in detail.

Cleveland	Position	L.A.
Willis	DL	Olsen
Ford	DL	Jones
W. Johnson	DL	Jack Youngblood
Sherk	DL	Brooks
Houston	LB	Baughan
Matthews Jr.	LB	Richter
Michaels	LB	Greene
Minnifield	DB	Meador
Scott	DB	Lane
Paul	DB	Irvin
Barnes	DB	Cromwell

Cleveland	Position	L.A.
Graham	QB	Waterfield
Brown	RB	Dickerson
Kelly	RB	Faulk
Lavelli	WR	Hirsch
Speedie	WR	Fears
Newsome	TE	Bruce/Holt
Groza	OL	Mack
McCormack	OL	Harrah
Hickerson	OL	Matheson
Schafrath	OL	Slater
Thomas	OL	Saul

You look at that and think, "Oooh, the Rams' D-line is going to roll like an M-1 tank over the Browns' line" – until you look at the Browns' line, comprised as it is of three HOFers (rightly or wrongly, not my decision to make – particularly because of the fact that they are HOFers is just that, and all my stuff is just neurons acting up), an oughta-be and a will-be. And then you look at the Rams' O-line and think, "Well, that's not going to get 'er done" (I suppose you really do talk like that), and then you look across and see that they're blocking Jerry Sherk, and you realize there's more than enough there. And every "Whoa – Jim Brown!" is met with a "Man – Marshall Faulk!", until you throw up your hands at the futility of the pregame and decide to play the damn game.

(By the way, this is one huge advantage a made-up-in-the-head game has over a non-made-up game. If Howie Long runs out of things to say about a Bengals-Chiefs game five minutes into a 20-minute segment he has to keep talking – not a huge sacrifice for Howie I know, but oh, the humanity.)

And the game turns out to be a laugher.

The deal is this: Speed kills. The Rams' wideouts are some of the fastest of their respective eras. That goes double for Marshall Faulk and third-down types like Ollie Matson. Outside of Lavelli, the same cannot be said  of the Browns. Their running backs are run-you-over types, and the linemen are road-graders – and the Rams go around them like they're orange-crowned brown pylons.

It's like watching the Packers in their first game this year, against the Saints. The Packers were running an American Basketball Association fast-break offense, and the Saints, no slouches in the speed game themselves, simply couldn't keep up.

The game starts with Ollie Matson running the kickoff deep into Cleveland territory. Three plays later Bob Waterfield bombs one to Elroy Hirsch and it's 7-0.

The Browns move the ball to midfield but are forced to punt. Don Cockcroft pins the Rams down at their five ...  and this time it takes four plays for the Rams to score. A short Dickerson run is followed by a bomb to Fears, who takes it inside the Cleveland 10. A fade pattern to Isaac Bruce goes for six, and the Browns are down by 14 with scarcely six minutes gone in the first quarter.

Cleveland gamely sticks to the running game and pushes it down the field enough for Cockcroft to bang through a 36-yard field goal, but then Matson cracks off another long return, Waterfield hits Torry Holt in stride, and caps it by connecting with Marshall Faulk on a 29-yard screen pass that's good for a third TD.

It's 21-3, and you don't need to know any more other than Norm van Brocklin plays most of the second half and drills Turkey Joe Jones in the solar plexus with a two-yard bullet, just because.

Oh, and the final. 38-17 Rams.

The numbers are staggering. L.A. rolls up 483 yards of offense to Cleveland's 297. Waterfield and van Brocklin combine for 370 yards passing and four scores, two to Hirsch. The running game generates 113 from a combination of Dickerson, Steven Jackson and Lawrence McCutcheon. The Browns run for 161, 113 of it from Jim Brown, but it's largely meaningless. The Rams are faster, and every bit as good. What looks equal is actually quite unequal.

Could the outcome have been different? Of course not. Sorry; I meant to say, "What a foolish question." There are only a billion ways it could have been different, and about 425 million of them have the Browns winning.

If you feel differently, let me suggest that you get the remaining 6.775 billion people on the planet to read this and weigh in with their opinions – and even then I'm not changing anything.

After all, it's just pretend.