PRO FOOTBALL / BILL PLASCHKE : Amid Cold, Packer Fever Warms Heart

To understand the impact of their playoff-clinching victory over the Raiders on Sunday, the Green Bay Packers needed only to look at honorary captain Fuzzy Thurston.

After participating in the coin toss in the middle of Lambeau Field, the former Packer great was given the use of a private, heated luxury box.

But he became so excited, he walked outside and watched the second half from the stands.

In zero-degree temperatures. Amid 20-m.p.h. winds. Sitting next to men with the skins of animals on their heads and ice on their beards.

“This was a Green Bay Packer kind of day,” Thurston said. “It’s been so long . . . I wanted to be part of it.”

It was the kind of day that was only complete after the Packers, 28-0 winners, scored their final two touchdowns in the south end zone.

Into that same end zone, on a similarly frozen field, Bart Starr scored one of the NFL’s most famous touchdowns in the Ice Bowl here 26 years ago.

In only three of the seasons since have the Packers qualified for the playoffs, with Sunday marking the first time they have advanced in 10 years.

“For those of us who have spent a long time battling that mystique, this is wonderful,” tackle Ken Ruettgers said.

It was also cold, and slippery, and painfully numbing. For the Packers, it was better than wonderful, it was perfect.

“This is how Packer football should be--a big game, real cold, the field is a parking lot with grass,” nose tackle John Jurkovic said. “It is special in this town, with this team, to make the playoffs in a game played on the frozen tundra .”

Even better is that the victory was driven by the one element loved most by the 54,482 fans here, many of whom appropriately wore bright orange hats and vests left over from hunting season.

It was driven by defense. In getting the team’s first shutout against a team other than Tampa Bay in 19 years, the Packer defense stalked the Raiders from one heated sideline bench to the other.

One minute it was led by Reggie White, playing up to his $17-million expectations, getting 2 1/2 sacks while discarding two and three blockers as if they were wet mittens.

The next minute it was led by Jurkovic, who also had 2 1/2 sacks, including one on which he rode Jeff Hostetler’s back for three yards.

“I felt like I was riding Man o’ War to the finish line,” he said. “You know, we’ve become a tough club.”

It was also led by Leroy Butler, their standout safety who scored on a 25-yard touchdown return of a lateral by White, who had recovered a fumble.

“We were surrounded by so much talk out there--people talking about making the playoffs, people talking about making the big plays--that the talk kept us warm,” Butler said.

In holding the Raiders to 182 total yards, their second lowest total of the season, the Packers didn’t give up a rushing touchdown for the seventh consecutive game.

How tough were they?

Tougher than those four bare-chested fans.

Tougher than those cheerleaders who bravely performed their routines despite wearing hiking boots, mittens up to their elbows, and ski caps down to their eyes.

Tougher than those two guys playing football in the parking lot afterward without gloves.

“I don’t see how any of the receivers out there caught passes, and they were wearing gloves,” Packer cornerback Terrell Buckley said. “After a while, my fingers got frozen and I started wondering, ‘What would I do if a pass came to me?’ ”

One did. He dropped it.

But that is the only thing the Packer defense did wrong on a day on which they were only outshined by Packer quarterback Brett Favre, and only because Favre covered his face in lubricant to keep his skin from chafing.

“I used Vaseline in places I never thought of before,” Favre said.

Favre was not as erratic as usual, completing half of his passes (14 for 28) and not throwing an interception for only the fourth time in 15 games.

But it will be the defense that will give this team a chance to win a playoff game. It is a defense that, in the finest Packer tradition, messed up early and then learned from it.

In 11 games since the Packers’ 1-3 start, their defense has given up two rushing touchdowns and 12 others--or 1.27 touchdowns per game.

It is a defense no longer afraid to blitz or allow its secondary to cover receivers man to man. It is a defense for which players such as Bryce Paup can have 11 sacks simply because offensive lineman are busy teaming up on Reggie White, who has finally adjusted to his new home.

It is a defense that will make a man like Fuzzy Thurston stand outside in the cold.

“As a former player here, we never get tired of hearing people say, ‘Thank you,”’ he said. “But we do get tired of being the only ones to hear it.”