Texas-Size Streak Haunting Packers

Tradition, redemption, dynasty. Take your pick. All three figure in today’s NFC championship game.

On one side are the Dallas Cowboys, a team whose roster contains players with 52 Super Bowl rings among them and aiming for its third NFL title in four seasons.

On the other are the Green Bay Packers, a team so steeped in tradition that the Super Bowl winner receives a trophy named after Vince Lombardi, who coached them to five NFL championships between 1961 and 1967.

The last time these teams met for a championship, it was the storied “Ice Bowl” at Lambeau Field, the game that put the Packers in Super Bowl II and made famous the redundant phrase “frozen tundra.”

They meet this time in a matchup few predicted. Green Bay upset the 49ers in San Francisco last week, 27-17, bringing a new face to the title game for the first time in four years.

The Packers who come to this game are hardly the Lombardi Packers--their roster has a total of two Super Bowl rings on it and only five players who have ever been this far in the playoffs.

Beyond Brett Favre, the NFL’s hottest quarterback, and Reggie White, one of its all-time great defensive linemen, this is a team of virtual unknowns, hardly stars of the caliber of Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin or Deion Sanders of Dallas, a team seeking its third Lombardi Trophy in four years.

In this unpredictable year, that’s just another “So What.”

“We’re not just glad to be here,” says Mike Holmgren, the Green Bay coach who has what his players don’t--two rings from the 1988-89 49ers, for whom he was offensive coordinator.

“The win against San Francisco was the biggest win we’ve had here and the players were euphoric for about an hour,” Holmgren said. “All of a sudden on the airplane, they realized we still have some unfinished business.”

They will try to finish it at a site and against a team that has plagued them.

In both 1993 and ‘94, the Packers lost regular-season and playoff games to the Cowboys in Texas Stadium. Last Oct. 8, a trip to Dallas again ended in Green Bay defeat, 34-24.

Dallas 5, Green Bay 0. Combined score: Dallas 174, Green Bay 95, with the Cowboys averaging 35 points and 422 average yards a game.

“Each time we went down there we didn’t feel we belonged in that building with them,” Favre said. “Now we do.”

“I was very bitter,” safety LeRoy Butler said of the Oct. 8 loss. “I remember having a lemon in my mouth and saying that’s something that can’t ever happen again. I get so tired of the same team beating us.

“I was just saying, ‘God, I want another chance. God, I want another chance.’ Then Mike told us we’re going to get another chance at these guys and it’s going to be for all the marbles.”

The line all week from Green Bay: “This is a different team.”

Indeed it is.

It is without two major stars from years past, Sterling Sharpe and Bryce Paup. Sharpe, good for 100 receptions a year, was forced into retirement by a neck injury and Paup left as a free agent for Buffalo, where he led the league with 17 1/2 sacks and was voted the NFL’s defensive player of the year.

So, Robert Brooks moved from split end to flanker and caught 102 passes; Edgar Bennett did more running, becoming Green Bay’s first 1,000-yard rusher since 1978.

Wayne Simmons, a first-round draft pick in 1993, moved into Paup’s spot after being injured for most of his first two seasons and played steadily if not as spectacularly as Paup, whose forte is rushing the passer.

And, Favre earned the league’s MVP award by tossing the ball to everyone instead of just Sharpe--38 touchdown passes, third all-time behind Dan Marino’s 48 TDs in 1984 and 44 in 1986.

All this was good enough to give them their first NFC Central title since 1972. As expected, they beat Atlanta, winning 37-20 at Lambeau Field.

Then they went to San Francisco and shocked the defending champions 49ers, jumping off to a 21-0 lead and cruising home. Favre was 15 of 17 for 222 yards in the first half and defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur’s schemes completely befuddled the 49ers.

But the Cowboys are another matter, as the Packers know well.

For while the Niners’ running game didn’t scare the Packers, allowing them to drop six and seven men back in coverage, the Cowboys have Smith, the game’s most productive running back.

“I don’t think they can do the same thing to us as they did to San Francisco, not as long as Emmitt’s in the game,” says Barry Switzer, who himself is seeking to eclipse the shadow of two-time Super Bowl winner Jimmy Johnson despite a 28-8 regular-season record in two seasons.

Dallas got here with a 30-11 win over Philadelphia, atoning in part for one of Switzer’s more egregious gaffes--a decision to go for a first down on his own 29 with two minutes left in Philadelphia. That led to a 20-17 victory by the Eagles. Switzer’s coaching, criticized all season, remains in question.

For Green Bay to win, most feel Favre must continue his hot streak--on one play against San Francisco, he slipped to the turf, got up and completed a 28-yard pass to Keith Jackson.

And Holmgren, Shurmur and the rest of the Green Bay staff must outcoach Switzer and his staff.

And who knows whether experience will win out over the desire of so many good players, led by White, who have never been this far?

The two Packers with Super Bowl rings are backup quarterback Jim McMahon (Bears ‘85) and wide receiver Mark Ingram (Giants ‘90). Linebacker Fred Strickland (Rams ‘89) and Jackson and guard Harry Galbreath (Dolphins ‘92) are the only other Packers who have even been this far.

By contrast, Charles Haley, the Dallas defensive end who may return Sunday for pass-rushing duties after a back operation, has four Super Bowl rings by himself. Two came with San Francisco and two with the Cowboys in 1992-93.

If the Packers are a different team, so is Dallas. Over the last two years, they’ve lost a half-a-dozen key players from the deepest team in football to free agency and gained just one, Sanders,

He will play cornerback, return punts and catch an occasional pass or run an occasional reverse, as he did for a touchdown last Sunday against Philadelphia.

And the Cowboys are not cocky. Or so they say.

“We will not guarantee a win,” said Irvin, playing off Johnson’s guarantee of victory before the San Francisco title game two seasons ago. “I repeat. We guarantee nothing. No guarantees.”

It’s a wise statement.

In one of the NFL’s strangest seasons, form matters little.