Green Bay Packers defeat Philadelphia Eagles in Wild Card Weekend (Part 1)
Luckily for quarterback Aaron Rodgers, he doesn’t have the ghost of Brett Favre’s Green Bay Packers days, looming over his shoulder.
He may be the next Favre even though his celebrations are a bit more subdued. If Favre had been there, he would have carried Tramon Williams off the field on his shoulder after he intercepted Michael Vick’s comeback victory touchdown pass. But not Rodgers.
He simply threw his hands in the air after the Packers defeated the Eagles 21-16 in the National Football Conference (NFC) Wild Card Round of the play-offs. Rodgers had three touchdown passes in the game and James Starks, who hasn’t had much playing time being
a rookie, rushed for 123 yards. Rodgers said, "I never felt like there was a monkey on my back. I'm just so proud of these guys."
He watched anxiously from the sideline as the Eagles nearly won the game with 33 seconds left but Williams intercepted Vick’s touchdown pass intended for Riley Cooper. Rodgers stated, "We fought hard today. Big interception by Tramon who's had a great season
for us."
The Packers just made it into the play-offs, barely clinching the sixth seed but now they’re heading down to Atlanta to try and get another victory over the Atlanta Falcons. Rodgers had waited three long years before becoming the starter for Green Bay and
finally got his chance when Favre departed in a chaotic manner in 2008. Rodgers articulated, "Defence played great. They've been carrying us a lot this season. We had three touchdowns tonight, it was enough to win."
However, Rodger’s last play-off loss wasn’t his fault. Their defeat at the hands of the Arizona Cardinals last year was due to a different brand of Packers. However, with ten new starters and an iron-hard defence, they are a serious force. Charles Woodson,
Clay Matthews and the rest of the Packers’ defence did a great job in containing Vick. He threw for only 292 yards which is better than last week but still not enough to win. He was limited to only 33 rushing yards in his first play-off start, since the 2005
NFC Championship game, which he and the Falcons lost to the Eagles at the same field. Vick said about his last pass and stated, "I feel like I got greedy and took a shot at the end zone. I didn't throw the ball I wanted and got picked. It's not the way I wanted
to go out, but I went down swinging. I have to learn from it."
Vick’s comeback season has been astonishing. He was one of NFL’s biggest stars when he was with the Falcons. But then everything went down the drain when Vick was arrested, tried and charged with funding and participating in an illegal interstate dog fighting
ring. He was then incarcerated for 18 months in a federal prison and picked up by the Eagles upon his release. Vick played as a backup to Donovan McNabb in 2009 and was supposed to be a backup to Kevin Kolb in 2010. But Kolb suffered a concussion in the first
game of the regular season and Vick became the starter. Even when Kolb came back, he played as a backup to Vick.
The remaining game will be discussed in the next article. Take a look!
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