Packers Are Wondering What’s Left

Bones were broken, footballs slipped away, and the Green Bay Packers all but crashed around here in a staggering wave of injuries and Buccaneer blitzes.

You could see it in their eyes late Monday night, you could analyze each shrug and soft reply after Tampa Bay’s body-crunching, reputation-mangling 24-22 victory before before 65,497 at Raymond James Stadium:

The Packers, usually the gold standard for NFC football, are fading away.

And though they’ll fight it, they know the crash is coming.

“I’m shaking my head right now,” said Packer quarterback Brett Favre, just about the only offensive standout left undamaged, although after the beating he took from the Buccaneers, that is a relative measurement.

“It’s just . . . unbelievable. To go through the injuries we’ve gone through, I think that’s the word for it. We don’t know who’s going to line up for us next week.”

Already limping into the late season and having already have lost the NFC Central title to the Minnesota Vikings, Green Bay (8-5) lost receiver Bill Schroeder (broken collarbone), center Frank Winters (broken leg) and many others to less serious--but equally disabling--injuries against Tampa Bay.

Who’s left to play?

“I feel bad for those guys,” Favre said. “It’s a sad thing. But we’ve just got to move on and see what we can do with the rest of this season.”

This is a season in which the Packers have already started four different tailbacks--and at different times lost three of them to a broken bone.

This is a season Favre tried to save Monday night, but had to do it without either Antonio Freeman (broken jaw) or Robert Brooks (aggravated hamstring) or Schroeder; and without knowing, at the end, even exactly which receivers were in the game.

“It’s a difficult thing to see--but we have the best player in the game, I think, and he single-handedly almost brought us back,” said Packer General Manager Ron Wolf.

Said Favre: “We were losing everybody out there.”.

After Winters went out early in the first quarter, Tampa Bay defensive tackle Warren Sapp tore up the Packer line, causing Favre to dance feverishly for every pass attempt--and helping to generate six Favre fumbles, only one short of the NFL record.

“They’re good at that--swiping the ball,” Favre said. “I don’t know what I could’ve done. I’m getting ready to throw and they’re reaching in and hitting the ball.”

Favre, scanning the field for familiar faces, was sacked eight times by the Buccaneers (6-7), who only recovered one of his fumbles.

In the last frantic moments, the Packer receiver corps was down to that unfamiliar group of Roell Preston, Tyrone Davis, Derrick Mayes and Jeff Thomason. With confusion all around, Favre was sacked on the game’s last play.

“We’re throwing a 60-yard Hail Mary with two tight ends trying to run down there,” Favre said. “I mean, that’s pretty bad. I didn’t even know who was in there at the end.”

Meanwhile, the Green Bay defensive line also was in tatters, which opened the way for Buccaneer tailback Warrick Dunn to help drain the clock with a handful of critical gains.

Those late clock-killers, added to the two jolting touchdown passes by Trent Dilfer in the first half, were just about all Tampa Bay needed amid the Green Bay fumble-fest.

At halftime, the Packers had more fumbles, seven, than points, and Tampa led, 14-6.

Jacquez Green caught Dilfer’s first touchdown pass, a 64-yard play late in the first quarter; Bert Emanuel turned a short pass into a 62-yard touchdown early in the second. Both receivers were running slant patterns.

“That’s usually how we do it--slant passes and quick scores,” said Green Bay Coach Mike Holmgren. “Things sort of got turned around.”

After Favre, who was 29 for 41 for 262 yards, closed what had been a 17-6 fourth-quarter Buccaneer lead to 17-15 on two scoring drives, a Mayes fumble--Green Bay’s eighth of the game--was recovered by Tampa Bay at near midfield.

Dilfer, who was 9 for 22 for 181 yards, finished the drive with a six-yard touchdown run with 6:01 left, giving Tampa a 24-15 lead that, given Green Bay’s depleted lineup, was safe enough.

It was Tampa Bay’s first victory over the Packers since 1995. “We were beginning to think we were never going to win [against the Packers],” Buccaneer Coach Tony Dungy said.

Tampa Bay lifted itself into a less-than-stirring battle with New Orleans and Arizona for the third and final wild-card spot, but because it trails on all tiebreakers, probably must win out to secure a playoff berth.

Green Bay, meanwhile, is still a likely wild-card team, but is left wondering just who’ll be in the lineup when January comes. And the Packers, NFC champions the last two seasons, are using cautious phrases about getting to the playoffs.

“We’ll compete--oh, we’ll compete,” Holmgren said. “We’re thinking about getting into the playoffs first, then we’ll see who’s left to play if we get there.”