Reunion with Favre evokes memories of Lambeau letdown
December 19
Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Art Thiel
"BESIDES THE OLD-SLIPPERS familiarity of another reunion between Mike Holmgren and Brett Favre, the quarterback's return as a New York Jet on Sunday prompts recollection of the pair's last meeting, a game that franchise historians might someday mark as the start of the Fall of the House of Seahawk.
Amid an unforecasted January snowstorm in Green Bay, Favre and the Packers spotted the Seahawks a 14-0 lead before coming back for a 42-20 playoff win that enthralled a football nation with another Lambeau legacy game featuring one of the NFL's greats.
Lost in the snow and sentiment were the Seahawks, who concluded, in the words this week of linebacker Lofa Tatupu, an 11-7 season "devastated, humiliated and embarrassed."
Since that game, you may have heard, things haven't gone well.
Two weeks after the game, Holmgren announced he was quitting after the 2008 season. Two weeks after that, assistant head coach Jim Mora was announced as his successor. Five assistant coaches eventually departed. The offseason continued with surgeries or injuries to several key players. The regular season began with more injuries and big defeats. Few draftees or new veterans had a big impact.
The Seahawks were upon the most gruesome one-year slide in their history, and it began with Favre doing wizardry usually found only at Hogwarts School.
"It just added to the Lambeau mystique," said quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who spent three years as Favre's understudy. "The names are there, like Nitschke, Hornung and Hutson, and then he makes those plays in the cold weather."
Perhaps it also was football's karmic forces coming back upon the Seahawks, who nine years earlier had seduced Holmgren from Green Bay with wads of Microsoft cash. But Holmgren was quick to deny any connection between the season-ender and the 2008 travails.
"To put too much (emphasis) on one game, I think you make a mistake," Holmgren said Wednesday. "You have to be careful that you don't see one game and go, 'Oh,' and go home and start firing guys, and getting rid of players. You better be sure that you understand what happened in that game. Then, if you think that has long-term effects, now go in and fix some things.
"I don't think after that game everyone said, 'Gee whiz, we can't stop anybody from running the ball.' "
Well, why not? The only NFC team to have made the playoffs five consecutive seasons was outrushed in that game 235 yards to 28. Since then, things have improved only marginally.
Part of that astounding discrepancy in Green Bay was due to the fact that in slippery field conditions, offense always has the advantage. Then and now, another part of the problem was injuries, which at this late hour now includes the entirety of the offensive line that opened the 2008 season.
Holmgren disclosed Wednesday that he knew nothing on game day in January of the shoulder injury that rendered helpless star defensive end Patrick Kerney. Des
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