Giants-Packers : Some Humorous Sidelights

Over 5,000 people weighed in on the Yahoo message boards during and after the game . Many of the messages were of the ” Your team sucks!” or ” We’ll beat the shit out of your team!” variety but here and there were some interesting responses. The fans of both teams were merely hopeful about their teams chances at the beginning of the game .Then , as the game progressed , the Giant fans became cockier and cockier as the Packer fans became resigned to defeat.I went through some of the messages and gleaned the following impressions :

1. Fans are unforgiving and their memories are short.  Aaron Rodgers had a stellar, record-setting season and led the Packers to a 15-1 record in the regular season . All this after he led the Packers to a Super Bowl victory last year. No matter. After the loss to the Giants , some fans turned on him with a vengeance.Some were Brett Favre loyalists who said that the Packers would never have lost if good ole Brett had been the QB. Can’t pay too much attention to these rubes , half of whom spelt their heroe’s name F-a-r-v-e . They also spelt the current QB’s name as Rogers and made references to Mr. Rogers neighborhood.The response that really stunned me was the one from a Packer fan who wrote :” The Packers have to be the dumbest football team in the world. How do you bench Matt Flynn after he threw six TD passes in the team’s last outing ? Flynn should have started . Had Flynn started , the Packers would have won , period.” Another said ” Let Rogers ( sic) 

go this summer. Start Flynn next season .” This is so breathtakingly ignorant that I’m speechless.

2. Not everybody enjoyed the State Farm commercials.You know ,the ones that mimic Aaron Rodgers cinching an imaginary championship belt around his waist ? Discount double check ?? Personally , I liked them . I thought they were fun and that Aaron Rodgers came across as a sporting ,low key guy who was willing to poke fun at himself.Many fans didn’t see it that way and there were plenty of cracks about ” Discount Double Choke”. One fan even wrote:  ” Broncos fan here. Seeing my team go down like that was real tough to deal with but knowing that there will not be any more stupid Discount Double Check commercials … Priceless!Great game , New York !”  Hmm, all I can  say is that  the Giants better win the Super Bowl or else I’ll be reading about Eli and how stupid his Toyota commercials are.

3. The Green Bay Packers are not as well liked as I thought. I was surprised at how many people rejoiced in the Packers defeat. These were not Giant fans but just supporters of other teams who seemed to have been rubbed the wrong way by all the ink that the Packers and Rodgers got during the regular season . Some of them lumped Rodgers and Drew Brees together as they gloated that both were out of the playoffs . I don’t understand their point of view. Rodgers and Brees both had outstanding seasons and the Packers came close to a perfect 16-0 record. Why shouldn’t they have been in the spotlight?

The Packer fans at the game also came in for criticism. First because there were scattered boos as the stunned Packers went off the field at half time , down 10-20 and second, when the stands began clearing before the end of the game . Here too I think the comments were a little harsh , it was only a few fans who behaved like that . As to comments that the Packers fans are arrogant , I really don’t think so. I think they’re no different from fans around the league and , if anything , better than most others.

While some of  the anti-Packer comments were hurtful , others were quite funny.For instance ,read these:

Giants are going to whip these cheeseheads into grilled cheese sandwiches …

Cheeseheads are turning into Cheez Wiz.

The only way the Packers will make it to the Super Bowl is if they have tickets.

4. The announcers and the zebras came in for their share of criticism, Aikman unfairly so. I didn’t agree with the guy who wrote “Aikman’s had too many knocks to the noggin”. On the other hand, the criticism of the refereeing was understandable since there were at least two flagrantly bad calls. My favorite comment occurred after Giants LB Michael Boley sacked Rodgers and pretended to wrap an imaginary belt around his own waist. One new York fan immediately responded ” Taunting ! Mimicking Rodgers TD dance  !! That should be a flag !!

Next week should be more fun as evidenced by this comment from a 49er fan ” The only good Giant is a San Francisco Giant.”

Yes, it should be great.