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The Green Bay Packers have been there, done that. Yet, as head coach Mike McCarthy keeps telling anyone who will listen this week, what his resilient teams of 2013 and '14 pulled off the last Sunday of those seasons won't have any bearing on what his maligned team of 2015 does this Sunday. "We're not really looking at the past," McCarthy reiterated Wednesday. "We get to walk through a great past each and every day when we come through the doors" at Lambeau Field.
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Green Bay's iconic venue will be the site Sunday night of football's version of a prizefight. To be won when the Packers host the rival Minnesota Vikings in the prime-time final game of the NFL's regular season is the NFC North title. The Packers have procured four straight division titles. The last two also were decided the final day of the regular season with the dramatic last-minute win on the road against the Chicago Bears two years ago and a gutsy home victory against the Detroit Lions last year.
"You know, that's how you want it," Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers said. "That's why we play the game - it's for big games like this. It's a playoff mindset, and we've got to make sure we're ready to play." Despite starting the season 6-0, the Packers haven't been firmly in control of the NFC North because their play has been far from satisfactory since coming off the bye week Halloween weekend. They have lost more games (five) than they have won (four), thus leaving them in the 10-5 stalemate with the Vikings atop the division.
Both teams have playoff berths, but Sunday's victor also will secure a home game for the opening round the weekend of Jan. 9-10. After what happened in the past week, the advantage would seem to be with the Vikings, no matter they must come to Lambeau, where they last won in 2009, and were manhandled by Green Bay in a 30-13 defeat at Minneapolis on Nov. 22. Shortly after Rodgers and the Packers were smacked 38-8 at the Arizona Cardinals, the Vikings pounded the visiting New York Giants 49-17 on Sunday night.
Still, without getting hung up on the past, Rodgers uttered, "I'm confident," more than once Wednesday when talking about the team and its prospects to rebound in time to repeat as division champion. "They're coming off a convincing win," Rodgers said about the Vikings. "Obviously, we're coming off being on the other side of that. We need to bounce back." Green Bay can join the Vikings from 1973-78 and the Bears from 1984-88 as the only teams to win at least five straight NFC North titles. Forget about bringing up history to McCarthy, however. "We're focused on beating the Vikings," he said. "This is the 2015 Green Bay Packers. This is our opportunity to win a division championship."
SERIES HISTORY: 109th regular-season meeting. Packers lead series, 58-48-2. After prevailing 30-13 at Minnesota on Nov. 22, the Packers will try to complete their fourth season sweep of the rival Vikings in the last six years. Green Bay is 10-1-1 in the teams' last 12 meetings, going back to 2010, including a 5-0-1 record at Lambeau Field. The Packers' recent dominance included a 24-10 victory at home in the wild-card round of the playoffs during the 2012 season.
