Gary Seymour, sports@wolfrivermedia.com
While most employees of National Football League teams are headlong into their offseason pursuits, the three players in the running for the league’s most valuable player award are all, not coincidentally, still working.
New England quarterback Tom Brady is given an outside shot to win the MVP, while Atlanta QB Matt Ryan is the current favorite and Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers is somewhere in between.
Ryan and Rodgers as MVP hopefuls gives an added luster to Sunday’s NFC championship game in Atlanta, and the anticipated fireworks from two great offenses will be justly billed to the hilt.
Of course, the MVP vote is of little consequence next to the import of Sunday’s game. The Packers, a struggling 4-6 team on Nov. 20, are one game away from the Super Bowl.
After his recent performance in Dallas, though, there should be a special place in quarterback history reserved for Rodgers. Of all those whom he eventually will be joining in Canton, Ohio, none has ever flung the prolate spheroid to greater dramatic effect.
Rodgers added to his surpassing legacy in the Packers’ 34-31 win over Dallas when he hit tight end Jared Cook with a perfectly fired 36-yard screamer on the sideline with 3 seconds left in the fourth quarter of a tie game. The catch made by Cook was equally brilliant, setting up a game-winning field goal and forging the play as one of the all-time biggest in Packers playoff history.
The completed long bomb has become part and parcel of Rodgers’ illustrious repertoire. He has hit on three “Hail Mary” touchdown passes of 41 yards or longer over the past 13 months, those gems on top of assorted other clutch long completions.
Among that lot were the 48-yarder to Randall Cobb in the final minute of the 2013 regular season that gave the Packers a win over Chicago and the NFC North championship, and the 60-yard hookup to Jordy Nelson in a last-second win this season over the Bears.
Nelson, the Packers’ most accomplished receiver and a favorite target of Rodgers, was on the sideline Sunday, making the victory even more impressive. In Nelson’s absence, players such as Cook, Ty Montgomery, Cobb and Davante Adams were admirable filling the big-play void.
Speaking of timely efforts, enough can’t be said about Packers kicker Mason Crosby, whose 51-yard field goal as time ran out sealed the win over the five-point favorite Cowboys.
That kick was Crosby’s NFL-record 23rd straight postseason field goal, and made him the first kicker to ever hit two from 50 yards out in a playoff game.
Placekicking may be the most measurable gauge in how football players’ skill levels have improved over the years. In their first Super Bowl championship season, Packers kicker Don
Chandler made 12 of 28 field goal attempts, including 2 for 8 from 40 yards or farther. Crosby has made 26 of 30 this season counting his two money boots last week.
But even a kicker on automatic pilot can be undone in the heat of the postseason. Ask any Vikings fan.
Last year Minnesota’s Blair Walsh (34 for 38 before the attempt) missed a 27-yard field goal in the final seconds that would have given the Vikings a wild card win over Seattle. In the 1998 season, Vikes kicker Gary Anderson made all 35 of his field goal attempts – until he missed a 38-yarder in the final 2 minutes of the fourth quarter in the NFC championship game eventually won in overtime by Atlanta.
Crosby, who a minute and a half earlier hit a 56-yarder to give the Packers a 31-28 lead, had to make the game-winner twice. He made the first try just after the officials whistled time out for Dallas, then calmly banged it through a second time to nail it shut.
Afterward an elated, exhausted Packers coach Mike McCarthy noted, “We’re an excellent football team, and we’re two steps away from achieving greatness.”
True, although what’s happened over the past two months is already pretty great.