Thankful, Not Entitled, to Root for the Packers

[Da-news-now]

As a lot of Packers fans do, I check social media after hard-fought wins and after tough losses. For the most part, I read a lot of posts that are interesting and thought provoking, but there are some “posts” and “tweets” that have me wondering if any of these fans remember what a real “losing streak” actually is?

I’m not referring to the current two game slide the Packers are on after away losses at Denver and Carolina, respectively. I am referring to seasons like 1988, a 4-12 season under the late Lindy Infante. I am referring to the lone losing season in 2008, Rodgers’ rookie season, in which the Packers went 6-10.


27 Aug 1988: Head coach Lindy Infante of the Green Bay Packers in action during a preseason game against the New York Jets at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Mandatory Credit: Jonathan Daniel /Allsport


Sure, when your General Manager assembles talent like the current roster in Green Bay, you expect your team to win more games than they lose. But, let’s remember something in the meantime… as Packers fans, we are not entitled to our team winning every year.

Every year, it seems the bar is set higher and higher for this franchise. When you have an elite MVP quarterback (and possibly one of the greatest of all-time) under center, that’s what happens, I get it. I find nothing wrong with high expectations, nothing at all.

But, just because we are fans and we give our time and our money to this franchise, we are not privileged to our team winning every Sunday. I have many friends who are fans of teams that have not made the playoffs consistently for fifteen or twenty years. Our Packers make the playoffs seemingly every season, even if it doesn’t end in a Super Bowl victory.

I don’t know about you, but I love knowing that my team has the opportunity to win more games than they lose every year. However, I don’t deserve them to win every game — no matter how many sweatshirts I order from the Packers Pro Shop. Just as the young players who come in to this winning franchise every Spring aren’t entitled and privileged to winning by putting on their helmets, we have to understand that as fans, we are not either.

Packers’ players are human. Packers’ coaches are human. The front office personnel, yep, you guessed it, they are human as well. We hold our beloved franchise in such high regard that when mistakes are made, the sky falls. A loss on the road to an undefeated team is the end of all ends.

We are lucky to be fans of such a great organization that takes pride in winning and takes pride in being involved in their surrounding community. So why does it feel like a 6-2 Packers team is currently 2-6 and contemplating who to take with their top 5 pick in next years NFL Draft?

We are all guilty of this “entitlement factory” of winning. We love this team so much and this organization, unlike so many others, allows its fan base to get closer to the players than many other organizations do. But, do this when you sit down on Sunday afternoon to watch our Packers take on their division rival Detroit Lions: Whether it’s in the most beautiful setting in football today of Lambeau Field, or in your living room or local watering hole, try to remember that win or lose, the goal is winning.



The goal is and always will be winning with the Green Bay Packers. It will not happen one hundred percent of the time, obviously. But, is a .750 winning percentage really that bad? Things could always be worse. If you don’t believe me, watch about twenty-five other teams play this Sunday instead and you’ll be thankful for two game skids.

Sit back and enjoy the ride, fans. Go Pack Go!

Continue reading...

 

[Pugger]

With all of our success since the early 1990s we have become a spoiled bunch and expect our guys to win every week. When things go south message boards can get really depressing and negative. I waited 24 hours before I posted after the last 2 loses.

 

[Mark87]

With all of our success since the early 1990s we have become a spoiled bunch and expect our guys to win every week. When things go south message boards can get really depressing and negative. I waited 24 hours before I posted after the last 2 loses.

It's always been like that Pugger.... you really can't expect people to go against human nature. Some boards get way too which leads to really ugly posts later.

A large majority of our fan base doesn't remember life before Favre so they really can't grasp 4 and 8 win seasons etc.

 

[Pugger]

It's always been like that Pugger.... you really can't expect people to go against human nature. Some boards get way too which leads to really ugly posts later.

A large majority of our fan base doesn't remember life before Favre so they really can't grasp 4 and 8 win seasons etc.

I remember the 1970s and 80s all too well. sick(

 

[Half Empty]

With all of our success since the early 1990s we have become a spoiled bunch and expect our guys to win every week. When things go south message boards can get really depressing and negative. I waited 24 hours before I posted after the last 2 loses.

I continue to harp on this point in every forum. If you start the season with a reasonable expectation of a championship, then that's the goal, and anything less is failure/disappointment. If you start the day with a definite expectation of winning a particular game, same thing. With rare exceptions, since the early '90s Packer fans have expected both, and have been subjected to heartbreaking individual losses for which there was no good reason and 20-some seasons that ended short of the Lombardi (and, the only two that did were followed by crushingly poor results).

That's one of the reasons (maybe the only one) that the period between Lombardi and Holmgren didn't bother me all that much. I never started the season expecting them to top the league, and I rarely expected a win in any particular game. Every win was an unexpected pleasure, and there those upsets that 'made the whole season'.

As a pre-Lombardi fan, I've obviously got a lot of miles on me, so if you want to really get my hackles up, keep talking about social media.

 

[Dubz41]

I remember the 1970s and 80s all too well. sick(

Losses = higher pick. It was exciting. Barty Smith, Alphonso Carreker , Rich Campbell and Tony Mandarich.

 

[Frozen Tundra]

With all of our success since the early 1990s we have become a spoiled bunch and expect our guys to win every week. When things go south message boards can get really depressing and negative. I waited 24 hours before I posted after the last 2 loses.

I don't think most fans are spoiled at all, and I don't know anybody who expects them to win every week. What I expect is for them to at least play as well as they are capable of playing. If they do that and still lose, I can live with that, and feel proud of my team the next day.

When they play like complete crap - as though they have no idea what they're supposed to be doing, and don't particularly seem to care - I'm ashamed of them, embarrassed by them, and lose respect for them. And that's the way I feel tonight, and as a matter of fact for the entire last two weeks.

 

[ChampionshipBelt]

I remember the 80's and how awful that was. Had a solid QB in Dickey and some good WR's in Lofton and Epps. O-line was bad and defense was not very good.

Sure we are spoiled a little bit but there is a difference between knowing you are bad and not expecting to win and then having solid talent (HOF QB as well) and not winning when expected. We were 6-0 and have lost 3 in a row. It's not just the 3 losses, it's the way we lost. Completely embarrassed 3 weeks in a row. And this was coming off a buy? Makes absolutely no sense. This is why I think fans are a little perturbed right now.

I also loved Eddie Lee Ivory. (love that name)

 

[Half Empty]

I also have another recurring theme, and it's that virtually everything on a sports forum has to be tempered by relativity, subjectivity, and semantics. In this case, no disrespect intended, I think you're way off base if you don't think that a large portion of the fan-base is spoiled, at least in the sense that they feel entitled to a win on any given week. Many of them will proudly tell you so. Especially since the emergence of ARod, many DO think they ought to win every week. However, part of that is tied to your caveat that they need to play like they're capable of playing. Many forums are full of posters who clearly state that, if this team does play up to its capability, it WILL win.

Since he slipped in there while I was typing, I also want to second the thoughts of ChampionshipBelt.

 

[GBkrzygrl]

More than anything I am very disappointed when I hear fans booing in the stadium. Yes even when the team is playing like crap, you don't boo. IMO it's disrespectful to the other fans. We consider ourselves to be the best fans on the planet. The team is playing badly and the fans were behaving badly. Sorry don't mean to hijack the thread. Off my now.