Packer Fans Found Ways to Tune In

For fans of the Green Bay Packers, it will be remembered as the fairy tale of two cities, an incredible story that required a victory by the Packers in Green Bay and a minor miracle in Tempe, Ariz., to deliver one of the most improbable playoff berths in the team’s 83-year history.

In front of a Lambeau Field crowd of 70,299, the Packers took care of their end Sunday, defeating the visiting Denver Broncos, 31-3, to finish their regular season with a 10-6 record.

But that alone was not enough to send Green Bay into the playoffs.

The Packers needed an unlikely loss by the Minnesota Vikings at Arizona to win the NFC North title and the division’s only playoff berth.

Amazingly, the Vikings blew a late 11-point lead and lost to the 4-12 Cardinals, 18-17, on a fourth-down touchdown pass from Josh McCown to Nathan Poole as time expired.

Contrary to some television and radio reports, and a report in The Times on Monday, fans at Lambeau Field did not have access to the Viking-Cardinal game on a stadium video screen. At the request of Packer Coach Mike Sherman, Lambeau Field staff kept the Viking-Cardinal game off the stadium’s two video boards, forcing fans in attendance to use their own ingenuity to keep tabs on developments from Arizona.

“The coaches didn’t want [the Viking-Cardinal game] to be a distraction for our players,” Packer director of public relations Jeff Blumb said Monday. “They wanted the players focused on our game.”

Instead, fans inside the stadium were left to their own devices, some of them equipped with Internet access.

“Some people kept track of the other game on the Internet, using cell phones or other wireless [devices],” Blumb said. “Others brought radios or portable televisions.”

Television monitors inside the Lambeau Field press box and luxury suites carried the live feed from Arizona.

Many fans took in the final moments of the Cardinal victory by turning their backs to the field and catching glimpses of the action on the screens in the luxury suites.

“Some of the people in the suites were trying to turn the TVs around so that the people in the stands outside could see it,” Packer director of corporate security Jerry Parins said. “Somebody on every row, it seemed, had a cell phone and people were listening and whatever. It was like a domino effect. People had to be aware of it and they were just passing it on. It was like a frenzy.”

The Packers and Broncos had reached the final two-minute warning when McCown scrambled out of the pocket on fourth and 24 and connected with Poole on a desperation 28-yard scoring pass.

Referees reviewed the play before determining that Poole, who landed with one foot in the end zone, had been forced out of bounds by a Viking defender and that the play was a touchdown.

Parins said he has worked for the Packers “since the Lombardi era,” first as a policeman and later as a security official. “I’ve never seen [Lambeau] go as crazy as this one,” he said.

“This was just one happy occasion, because I think a lot of people thought we were out of it.”