Green Bay Packers: Top 10 teams since 1992: No. 3 -1997 Packers

Nearing the end of my countdown of the top ten Green Bay Packers teams since 1992, at number three I have the 1997 Packers.

The 1997 Green Bay Packers entered the year looking to repeat as Super Bowl champions and they certainly had the look of a team that could. Essentially the entire group of key players that won the Super Bowl the previous year had returned.

The Packers had a few hiccups, but mostly stormed through the regular season and finished with an identical 13-3 record from the 1996 season. They made quick work of Tampa Bay in the Divisional round before traveling to San Francisco to knock off the 49ers and return to the Super Bowl.

The Green Bay Packers were heavily favored as they matched up against the Denver Broncos. Since that day there have been admissions of arrogance and not taking the Broncos as seriously as they should have. What resulted, was one of the worst losses in team history.

Green Bay was beaten 31-24 in what would be the final Super Bowl appearance of Brett Favre’s career. Following the game, Ron Wolf famously told his team they were nothing but a fart in the wind.

Holmgren would return the following season, but Super Bowl XXXII really represented the end of the Favre/Holmgren era. Whispers began to surface that Holmgren was on his way out, which would become a distraction in the 1998 season. The defense began to age, and the Packers were re-tooling around their MVP quarterback.

Key players

Brett Favre: Favre won the third of his three MVP awards in this season. He was on top of the football world and had the Packers won the Super Bowl that year, he likely would have been named MVP of the game.

While legacy talks are often silly, this is one that would have catapulted Favre into a different stratosphere in terms of his standing with the all-time greats. Despite that, Favre was terrific again with Holmgren by his side. He threw 35 touchdowns and 16 interceptions and guided the team back to the Super Bowl. It was probably the “worst” of his three MVP seasons, but he was terrific in every sense of the word.

Dorsey Levens: Favre won the MVP award, but the team was at it’s best when Dorsey Levens was running the ball. He grew from a running mate with Edgar Bennett, into a star. Levens ran for more than 1,435 yards and added another 370 receiving. He was one of the best dual-threat backs in all of football. Truly ahead of his time.

Antonio Freeman: Freeman became a big target for Favre during his 1996 campaign and that only grew in 1997. Many thought once Robert Brooks returned Freeman would take a backseat, but it was quite the opposite. Freeman was Favre’s go-to guy and that’s something that would remain the case for the entirety of Freeman’s career in Green Bay.

Leroy Butler: The entire game plan from the Denver Broncos’ Mike Shanahan was based around Leroy Butler. Not Reggie White. Not Eugene Robinson. But Butler. This season Butler really took hold as the team’s best defensive player and he allowed Fritz Shurmer to do so many different things because of his unique skill set.

Gabe Wilkins – Reggie White led the team in sacks with 11, but Wilkins was a pleasant surprise through the course of the season. He finished the year with 5.5 sacks and his biggest highlight was returning an interception 77 yards for a touchdown against Tampa Bay.

His injury early in Super Bowl XXXII is one of the forgotten parts of the game but had a lasting impact. The Packers only had four defensive linemen active. Wilkins was already slightly hobbled, and aggravated the injury leaving the team with three guys for the rest of the game. The Packers thought Wilkins was going to be a star for them in the future, but he was unable to build off his big 1997 season.

Highlights

Finally, the Green Bay Packers got to play Dallas at Lambeau Field. It was something they had been wishing for since 1995. While it was only a regular season game, you could tell it meant a little more to them than your average game in November.

The Packers were dominant that day as they won 45-17 against a team that had haunted them for the better part of a decade. It sparked what would be a 5 game winning streak to close out a 13-3 season.

Winning a conference championship on the road is always tough, but the Packers were able to do just that against a team they had the upper hand on for the better part of three seasons. The 49ers fought all season to avoid playing a playoff game at Lambeau Field and they won that right but they were still out-classed by the Packers, losing 23-10.

Lowlights

A week two loss in Philadelphia where the offense struggled was especially ugly as Ryan Longwell missed a chip shot field goal that could have salvaged the day. However, their biggest lowlight of the regular season came later on in Indianapolis where they lost to a Colts team that would end up picking first overall in April’s draft.

Then getting run over by Terrell Davis in the Super Bowl was one of the most embarrassing losses in the history of the franchise. The Packers were the better team, but there is no worse feeling than getting whipped up front the way they did on that day in San Diego.

Why didn’t they win a championship?

This might feel disrespectful to that Broncos team, but the Green Bay Packers were the better team in Super Bowl XXXII. Holmgren essentially abandoned Dorsey Levens in the second half of the game when he was averaging better than 6 yards-per-carry. And there have been whispers that Holmgren said at halftime that he wanted to get Favre his Super Bowl MVP award.

Whether or not that’s true we will never know. None the less, the Packers have admitted to Holmgren warning them of being too arrogant heading into that Super Bowl. Ultimately that’s what got them. They were unable to stop Terrell Davis, and Pat Bowlen got to give John Elway a Lombardi Trophy.