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Chicago
Bears quarterback Kyle Orton (18) gets up as Green Bay
Packers' Justin Harrell (91), Aaron Kampman (74) and Charles
Woodson (21) celebrate an incomplete pass during the second
half of an NFL football game on Sunday in
Green Bay
.
The Packers won 37-3.
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NEW ORLEANS - There was a time when
the Louisiana Superdome was about as close as the Green Bay Packers
could get to having a home away from home.
A certain quarterback who grew up
about an hour away in the small southern Mississippi town of Kiln
had a lot to do with that.
When the Packers (5-5) visit the
Saints (5-5) on Monday night, there will be no massive contingent of
fans in green No. 4 jerseys driving in from places like Hattiesburg,
Miss., where current New York Jets quarterback Brett Favre went to
college and still lives, or from the Mississippi coast, where he
grew up.
The Packers' new quarterback is in
some ways the anti-Favre. Aaron Rodgers played his college ball on
the West Coast at Cal-Berkeley and remains relatively unproven in
his first season as an NFL starter.
He's still trying to win over fans in
Green Bay, never mind generating a following in road games the way
his charismatic predecessor has. Still, Rodgers has the most
important ally he could have in head coach Mike McCarthy, who
happens to be quite familiar with New Orleans.
McCarthy's stature as an NFL
assistant rose while he was the Saints' offensive coordinator
earlier this decade, getting more out of former New Orleans
quarterback Aaron Brooks than anyone else could.
McCarthy said he's been impressed
with how Rodgers accepted the unenviable challenge of taking over
for an immensely popular and certain Hall of Fame quarterback.
"I don't think anybody can
prepare for that type of situation that he was put through,"
McCarthy said. "The strains on his confidence and the way he
handled it, it's really a credit to him."
Through 10 games, Rodgers was eighth
in the NFL in yards passing with 2,351 and tied for seventh with 15
touchdown passes. His completion percentage of 64.5 percent ranked
12th. And he's done enough to keep the Packers in playoff
contention. If he continues to improve and gets the Packers into the
postseason, he'll have a little more in common with Favre.
Rodgers said he hasn't worried about
selling himself to fans in Green Bay, saying he didn't want to waste
energy worrying about things that were out of his control.
"I felt like I needed my
teammates in the locker room to believe in me and that the fans —
99.9 percent of them — were very supportive from Day 1 when I was
named the starter," Rodgers said. "I knew that they would
get behind the Green Bay Packers and I'm one of the Packers, so I
knew they would get behind me and this team."
So far, the Packers have been as
inconsistent as the Saints. However, Green Bay has the benefit of
playing in the NFC North, where no team was better than .500
entering this weekend.
If the Packers finish strong, they
may look back to their Week 11 victory over Chicago as a turning
point. Rodgers completed 23 of 30 passes for 227 yards with two
touchdowns in the 37-3 win.
"Now we're in a position where
we have a six-game season and we control our own destiny,"
Rodgers said.
The Saints have no such luxury in the
NFC South, where they sit in last place. New Orleans, which won last
week in Kansas City, has yet to win two games in a row. If that
trend doesn't end soon, it will spell doom for the Saints' dwindling
playoff hopes.
The Saints were expected to be
better, but have been ravaged by season-ending injuries, including
to both starting cornerbacks (Mike McKenzie and Tracy Porter) and
starting defensive end Charles Grant. Possible four-game suspensions
loom for running back Deuce McAllister and defensive end Will Smith,
whose use of over-the counter diet pills resulted in positive tests
for a diuretic that is banned by the NFL because it's seen as a
possible masking agent for steroids.
If the players' appeals fail, Monday
night could be McAllister's last game in the Superdome this season.
Given that he's already had both knees reconstructed and plays a
limited role in head coach Sean Payton's offense, there's even a
chance that the Saints' all-time leading rusher will be making his
very last home appearance in a New Orleans uniform.
Meanwhile, Reggie Bush has missed
three games after having arthroscopic surgery to repair a meniscus
tear in his left knee. He's practiced intermittently and was
questionable for the game.
Still, the Saints have the top
passing offense in the league, with Drew Brees (3,251 yards passing)
on pace to break Dan Marino's 1984 record of 5,084 yards passing in
a single season. Three of the Saints' losses have been close, with
the difference being missed field goals or New Orleans' mystifying
inability to convert crucial but relatively routine short-yardage
runs on potential winning drives.
"I feel like really three out of
those five losses were really close and could have gone either
way," said Brees, who'll be challenged by a Green Bay squad
that has seven defensive touchdowns this season.
"I'm not going to sit here and
say coulda, shoulda, woulda. We have played very well at times, but
we haven't closed out the game for whatever reason. ... We have to
now establish ourselves and pull away from the pack. We need to
rattle off a few."
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