When the legendary stadium is empty – which is never the case on home Sundays in the fall – the people of Green Bay imagine they can hear the voices.
Lambeau Field’s history whispers to them, from Curly Lambeau to Vince Lombardi to Paul Hornung to Bart Starr.
If they listen really close these days, they might hear the remnants of another historical call.
We’re going to get the ball, and we’re going to score!
The now infamous words uttered by Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck during the coin toss of a playoff overtime last January went on to haunt the Seahawks all summer. Hasselbeck and his teammates eventually did get the ball, but an ill-advised throw – and poorly-run pass pattern – led to the game-winning interception return by Al Harris.
“It was just one of those things where I knew the other players really well, and it wasn’t like they were just some strangers,” Hasselbeck, a former Packer, said of his coin-toss comment. “If I see those guys this year during the preseason, and we win the coin toss, I’ll probably say something different. Hopefully, I’ll say nothing.”
Hasselbeck and most of the offensive starters can only expect to see a series or two of action tonight when the Seahawks and Packers square off again at Lambeau Field. There’s no talk of revenge, no thoughts of wiping out the pain of last season’s playoff loss.
“It’s a new year. We’ve got specific things we’ve got to work on in this preseason game to get ready for (the regular season opener at) New Orleans,” center Robbie Tobeck said. “It’ll be fun going back there; it’s always fun playing at Lambeau Field. We want to show not only the Packers, but the whole NFL, that we’re one of the teams to be reckoned with.”
Last year’s playoff game will go down in the annals, and not just because it was a rare postseason appearance from the Seahawks.
The game started as a defensive battle, with the two teams trading a field goal over the first 23 minutes. The Seahawks took a 6-3 lead on Josh Brown’s 35-yard field goal midway through the second quarter before Green Bay scored the first touchdown of the game on a Brett Favre-to-Bubba Franks pass.
Green Bay’s Ryan Longwell added a field goal in the closing minute of the first half for a 13-6 lead through two quarters.
The second half saw an incredible flurry of long drives that culminated in 1-yard touchdown runs. Shaun Alexander scored the first two of three TDs as the Seahawks went ahead 20-13 at the end of three quarters. Green Bay’s Ahman Green returned the favor with a pair of 1-yard runs, including the go-ahead touchdown with just 2:44 remaining.
Seattle took the kickoff, drove 67 yards in seven plays, and scored on Alexander’s third touchdown of the game, tying the score at 27 with 51 seconds to play in regulation.
Green Bay failed to convert on its final possession, and soon captains from both teams were lining up at midfield for the overtime coin toss.
Just before he went out on the field, Hasselbeck got a pep talk from fiery Seahawks defensive lineman John Randle. The longtime veteran urged Hasselbeck not only to be confident, but also to show confidence.
The speech got Hasselbeck so fired up that he shouted the now-famous words after Seattle won the coin toss. Little did he know that the game official’s microphone, just a few feet away, was turned on.
“I’ve seen so many teams get intimidated by Lambeau Field, and I wanted to show that we weren’t going to be like that,” Hasselbeck said last week. “And I think it brought the team together.”
The Seahawks got the ball and punted after three plays. Green Bay did the same. Then, on the fifth play of Seattle’s next drive, Hasselbeck dropped back and threw into the left flat. Receiver Alex Bannister ran his pattern too deep, and Green Bay’s Harris stepped in front of the errant pass for an interception.
Harris’s 52-yard return sealed the win for Green Bay, sending the Packers into the next round of the playoffs.
“We battled, and I was proud of the football team and how they played,” Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren said last week. “It was a heck of a game that could have gone either way. They made the good play, and we made the bad one, and that was it.
“Those are very difficult games to lose. But if we hadn’t battled them, I would have felt a lot worse.”
For some Seahawks, the sting is still there.
“I’m tired of hearing about Green Bay, about that last play,” said Bannister, who ran two yards too deep on a curl pattern. “That’s over with. You can’t dwell on the past. You can’t change anything by talking about it.
“You can’t do anything but build on what we’ve got this year and make sure that the mistakes that happened last year don’t happen again.”
That all begins tonight in, of all places, Green Bay.
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