AllGreenBayPackers.Com

For a younger generation of Green Bay Packers fans, Wayne Larrivee is the only man they know as the voice of Packers.

For everyone else, Jim Irwin is the play-by-play broadcaster who, from 1969 to 1998, helped place the Packers Radio Network among the best in the NFL.

And after a year-long battle with kidney cancer, the Hall of Fame announcer died Sunday at the age of 77.

His voice extended throughout Wisconsin, as Irwin was also the play-by-play for University of Wisconsin football and Milwaukee Bucks basketball.  But it was the voice he provided for Packers games that will be forever remembered for generations of Packers fans, both in good times and bad.

Irwin became the Packers play-by-play man after six years as a color commentator. From 1975 to ’98, Irwin became the voice that Packers fans routinely chose over television broadcasts. Teamed with personalties such as Lionel Aldridge, Max McGee and Larry McCarren, Irwin was the man that called so many memorable moments in Wisconsin history before retiring in 1998.

He was inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame in 2003.

Here is his Super Bowl XXXI call of Brett Favre’s first touchdown pass to Andre Rison:  Read more... (287 words + 1 image, estimated 1:09 mins reading time)

Get AddToAny

Post-Victory. What a Christmas gift!

If there is one thing I have learned growing up in Wisconsin, it’s that when someone offers you a free ticket to a Green Bay Packers game you must say yes or face terrible consequences.

Even on Christmas Day.

First a little background: I work two jobs, both in retail. Obviously the arrival of Christmas was a big relief to me as it’s the sign that the craziness that began the day after Thanksgiving was finally coming to an end.  With both employers being closed, I was looking forward to the day off and quiet time with family and watching Packers vs. Bears on TV before going back in at 5:30 am on the 26^th.

Then the phone rang at about 9 am.

You don’t expect too many phone calls Christmas Day aside from relatives outside the area calling to say “Merry Christmas.” This one, however, was a very different (and honestly a much better) phone call.

It was cousin, ironically from Illinois but a Packers season ticket holder. He had a spare ticket to the game Sunday night and asked if I wanted to go along, no charge at all.  If ever there was a stupid question, this is it.  Read more... (1640 words + 1 image, estimated 6:34 mins reading time)

Get AddToAny

Former Packers CB Al Harris has retired from the NFL after 14 seasons. (Photo: Jim Biever)

Former Green Bay Packers cornerback Al Harris, who spent seven seasons with the Packers from 2003-09, has retired after 14 NFL seasons.

Harris announced the decision over the St. Louis Rams’ Twitter page on Wednesday. Another knee injury factored heavily into his decision.

Harris tore his right ACL while making a tackle back in Week 10 and has surgery scheduled on the knee for Jan. 13. The Rams placed him on season-ending injured reserve on Nov. 14.

“That’s just God’s way of telling me it’s time to turn the page. I had an awesome time,” Harris said through Twitter. “I thank God for Spags [Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo] giving me the opportunity to come out and I hope I left a positive impression on everybody.”

Harris said that he’d like to stay involved in football through coaching in the future.

In his seven years with the Packers, Harris made 102 regular season starts and intercepted 14 passes.  Read more... (660 words + 1 image, estimated 2:38 mins reading time)

Get AddToAny

Is this really happening?

The Packers lost to the Chiefs on Sunday in a complete trainwreck of a football game. Receivers dropped passes, the pass rush never entered Kyle Orton’s zip code and more Packers limped off the field with injuries.

It was a horrible way to end an amazing run. Just horrible.

There’s probably going to be some people that say it’s good for the Packers to lose a game. They’ll say that the ultimate goal is the Super Bowl and losing will build character and force the Packers to correct mistakes… or something like that.

Ignore those people. Tell them to go away.

Losing sucks. No team ever says, “Hey, lets lose this game today to build some character and increase our chances of going to the Super Bowl.” That’s not how it works.

If this Packers team goes 18-1 and repeats as Super Bowl champions, it’s going to be amazing. I’m going to be just as happy as I was for the other Super Bowl titles the Packers have won in my lifetime.

But there’s always going to be a small part of my green and gold brain that reminds me the Packers could have been 19-0 — undefeated — but they lost to the Kansas City Chiefs.  Read more... (524 words + 1 image, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)

Get AddToAny

It hit me yesterday in the south end zone of Lambeau Field.

Some family members were up here for an early Christmas gathering and in the midst of this run the Green Bay Packers are on, we decided to take them up to Lambeau to see the Hall of Fame and tour the stadium.  After all, as a new NFL owner I had to show them my lovely new toys.

For the record, these family members are Broncos fans and their team is in the middle of a historical run of their own with an unconventional quarterback.  Still, they understand the history of the NFL and respect the Packers’ place in it so they were totally on board with a trip to the just-starting-to-become Frozen Tundra.

The Hall of Fame was fantastic as always.  My Broncomaniac family members got a real kick out of the replica of Lombardi’s office and stood in awe at the four (soon to be five!) Lombardi Trophies.

The stadium tour however, was an experience I will never forget.  Not for my family, but rather for myself.  Read more... (805 words + 1 image, estimated 3:13 mins reading time)

Get AddToAny

What Should I do?

If the Green Bay Packers keep winning, and the upcoming schedule suggests they might, coach Mike McCarthy is going to have some important decisions to make in the coming weeks about his team’s quest to achieve what only two other teams have done since the merger: An undefeated regular season.

We’ve seen a handful of teams reach the point the Packers are currently at. Most recently, the 2009 New Orleans Saints started 13-0 while the Indianapolis Colts began that same season with 14 straight wins. The New England Patriots went undefeated during the 2007 regular season, and both the 2005 Colts and 1998 Broncos started 13-0. We’ll focus on those five teams.

Each coach approached their undefeated starts differently. So many factors go into a coach’s decision to play their starters, rest them or a combination of both that it’s impossible to nail down a way that is guaranteed to succeed. But by studying what went right and wrong for each coach and his choices, we can hopefully paint a picture for McCarthy to use.

Saints 2009  Read more... (1672 words + 1 image, estimated 6:41 mins reading time)

Get AddToAny

Throughout the 50-year history of the Packers-Vikings rivalry, there have been some special moments, but probably few that lived up to recent events of November 1st, 2009. An aging Viking leader returned with a new band of men, looking to plunder the very homeland he once ruled.

The word Viking is Scandinavian for “raider” or “pirate,” an appropriate description of our former hero gone astray. Like the Vikings of the eighth and ninth centuries, Brett The Grey and his band of marauders embarked on a 2009 invadsion to claim a foreign land for their own — in this case, Lambeau Field.

Residents of Minnesota and Wisconsin certainly have a deep-rooted interest such events. Packers fans and Vikings fans have always had a special dislike for each other. As bordering states, there is a natural competitiveness between people of the two states. When close-to-Wisconsin Minneapolis-St. Paul suddenly became host to a professional football team in 1961, many fans, including those in Western Wisconsin, had a difficult choice to make.

As fans made their choices, resentment built and friends became enemies. The Green Bay loyalists sneered at the Vikings converts and the new Vikings fans became jealous of the Packers as their dominance of the 1960s became a sore point.  Read more... (2243 words + 1 image, estimated 8:58 mins reading time)

Get AddToAny