1) The 7-9 Seahawks become the first team in NFL history to make the playoffs with a losing record. Not only that, but they knocked out the defending Super Bowl Champions in the first round.
2) Mark Sanchez tied the record for most career road playoff wins by a quarterback. You read that right. If Sanchez and the Jets win in Pittsburgh on Sunday, the 24 year-old will will have the most career road playoff victories in only the second year of his career.
3) Brady, Manning, and Brees (27 combined playoff wins) are all sitting at home, while Rodgers, Cutler, and Sanchez (7 combined playoff wins) are still playing.
4) More creative uses of the word "foot" than you ever expected. The sport in question is football, after all.
5) Last and most important, the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers will meet for only the second time in playoff history. The best rivalry in sports and they've met 182 times up until this point.
Who would have thought that in 2011, we'd see the most important game of the most important rivalry in the NFL. Sure, the 1941 meeting was just as meaningful at the surface. That game served the same purpose that the NFC Championship will. But let's not forget two crucial points. First, there were ten NFL teams in 1941. It was hardly as much of an accomplishment to make it to the NFL Championship in 1941 than it is to make it to the Super Bowl in 2011. Second, the NFL in 1941 was robbed of plenty of potential talent. Black players, despite playing in the late 1920s and early 1930s were basically refused by owners in the 1940s, who agreed under the table to bar them from competition. The US was also just entering World War II and shipping over potential NFL players to Europe and the Pacific. Not to mention, professional football wasn't a lucrative job back then. Many former college football players were better off finding work elsewhere than continuing their football career.
So this is clearly the biggest game of the storied rivalry, but how did a Green Bay-Chicago playoff game of this magnitude not happen sooner? Let's break down the different phases of the NFL playoffs beginning in 1933.
If two teams finished with the same record atop the division, then they played each other to see who would go to the NFL title game. This is exactly what happened in 1941. The Bears and Packers both finished with a 10-1 record and battled for the opportunity to take on the 8-3 New York Giants in the title game. The Bears won 33-14 and went on defeat the Giants 37-9 for the title.
It's amazing to think that such an improbable scenario led to the only playoff meeting of these two teams.
1967-1969 - The NFL splits into four divisions -- two in each conference. The two division winners in the same conference face each other. The two winners of these match ups play each other in the Super Bowl. The Bears and Packers are in the same division, and a tie atop the division was broken through a series of tie-brokers, not a game. This era would mark the only time in NFL playoff history when it was impossible for the Bears and Packers to meet in the playoffs.
1970-1978 - The AFL and NFL merge, leading to an expanded playoff format. The NFL is now composed of three divisions in each conference. The playoffs are composed of eight teams, the three division winners, and a wild card from each conference. The Bears and Packers never make the playoffs in the same year during this era.
1979-1989 - The NFL expands to a ten team playoff format. Still three division winners, but an extra wild card from each conference is added. The two wild card teams take part in what is basically a play-in game. The winner faces the number 1 seed, while the 2 and 3 seeds face each other. The Bears and Packers do not make the playoffs in the same year during this era either.
1990-2001 - The NFL expands to a 12 team playoff format. Still three division winners, but now three wild cards from each conference. The Bears and Packers now qualify for four of the potential six playoff spots, the best odds they'd ever had to meet in the playoffs up to this point, and best odds they've had since.
Not surprisingly they would both make the playoffs in the 1994-95 season, and the 2001-02 season. In 1994, both teams earned a wild card berth, Packers were the four seed and the Bears the six seed. They both won their opening round game and both lost their second round game, squashing a potential NFC Championship match-up.
In 2001, the Bears won the NFC Central and earned the two seed, while the Packers earned the four seed as the top wild card team. The Packers won their opening round game before falling to the number one seeded Rams in the divisional round. The Bears would lose to the Eagles, also in the divisional round, again preventing a possible Bears-Packers NFC Championship game.
2002-Present - The NFL realigns to four divisions per conference, with each division winner making the playoffs, as well as two wild card teams from each conference. Viola! The playoff format that we know today. This is the first year in this era that the Bears and Packers have made the playoffs the same year, and the 60 year anniversary of their first playoff match-up.
So that's how we got here. I'm not even going to attempt an explanation of what's about to ensue, keys to the game, who has an advantage where, or who is going to win. I don't know any of that and won't pretend to. I just have three thoughts.
Here we are in 2011 and each quarterback's public perception is beginning to take shape. Rodgers is the media darling for various reasons. He was commended for the way he's handled the Favre saga. He's played extremely well, to the point where Green Bay fans don't miss Favre even a little bit -- something I would have thought to be impossible three years ago.
Rodgers is also playing out of his mind. Every quarterback has their defining "I'm Here" moment. Rodgers has already played his way into the elite level of quarterbacks, he just needed the stage to show it to the world. What better way than to outshine Brady, Manning, and Brees in the playoffs (check) and lead his team to a Super Bowl victory (gulp). The stars seem to be aligning for Green Bay, and in two years or less, Aaron Rodgers will be regarded as the top quarterback in the NFL.
Then there's Jay Cutler. Rick Reilly wrote a not so flattering piece about him last week. There's nothing new here. Denver fans could have told you this five years ago, and Bears fans two years ago. It actually helped Reilly more than it hurt Cutler. No one under the age of 50 even knew Rick Reilly was still writing -- except for the people who noticed Reilly's miniature head on the ESPN.com front page while they were checking for Bill Simmons' column.
The point I'm trying to make is that Cutler's perceived douchiness could be just the element that this rivalry needs. Everybody loves Rodgers! He's the People's Champ. Just look at the way he shines his imaginary title belt after every touchdown.
Who likes Cutler? No one. Not even Bears fans. If NFL fans outside of Denver and Chicago were indifferent towards Cutler before, they sure won't be now that Cutler has the chance to win a Super Bowl. Look at the demeanor of the beloved Super Bowl winning quarterbacks Brady, Manning, and Brees. All are perceived as class acts, hard workers, great teammates, and leaders. In other words, their public perceptions are flawless. If he isn't included already, Rodgers fits the criteria for this club.
Cutler is the spoiled brat with bad body language. He'll curse out a referee or call out a teammate before he places the blame on himself, and his greatest contribution as a leader this year has been high-fiving his teammates after a successful PAT.
This rivalry has potential, even if they do like each other. Let us fans pretend.
2) Let me be the 11,765,093th person to comment on how improbable it is for the Bears and Packers to be in the NFC Championship game. The Packers have suffered a career-ending injury at seemingly every position this year -- including two Aaron Rodgers' concussions. I'm beginning to think Rodgers is just that good. It doesn't matter who you put out there with him -- he'll find a way to win.
Here's an underrated subplot of this year's Packers. I think most Packers fans assume that if this is what they're doing with a bunch of back-ups, imagine what next year will be like when everyone is healthy! This is the NFL and it usually doesn't work that way. I'm just going to pull up a seat and watch the slow burn of disappointment come next year.
The Bears have provided the blueprint for a roller coaster season. Very few people had high hopes for them at the start of the season. Then they pulled off three straight wins, two of them against the Packers and Cowboys, who were considered the two best teams in the NFC at the time. We started to believe, and then the Giants game brought us back to the team we were expecting to see this year. Add in losses to the Seahawks and Redskins and the season looked to be imploding before our eyes. Then a five game winning streak, including a win against the Eagles, the hottest team in the NFL at the time. It was that game that I think people started to believe (again).
The Bears are still underdogs as they've been all season. I like that. I like that the Packers have already been crowned Super Bowl champions. Nevermind that they have to play in Chicago against the only team (besides the possible Super Bowl foe New York Jets) who have shown the ability to stop their offense. A team has never and will never ride the wave of luck all the way to the Conference Championship game. These teams are more even than anyone is willing to acknowledge.
3) That being said, I'm admitting that this game makes me nervous. It's the most nervous I've ever been before a sporting event in my life. It's only Monday. You probably won't get a Packers or Bears fan to admit it, but the nervousness is resting somewhere in the back of their brain and will come out a little bit more each day. It's not that each fan base doesn't think they will win -- they just know there's always the possibility they won't.
I'm normally a proponent of "The bigger the game, the worse the loss," theory. For instance, some would say after losing the Super Bowl, "Well, at least we made it to the Super Bowl." Not me. Losing the Super Bowl is the worst kind of loss because you got so close. But not in this case. Losing to the Packers, knowing they could win the Super Bowl would hurt ten times more than losing the Super Bowl for the second time in five years. The thought will cross every Green Bay and Chicago fan between now and Sunday. Millions of people will be too ashamed to leave their house come 5:30 Sunday evening.
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