Packers Take Care of Viking Business

Cheesehead alert: The Pack is back, a victory away from clinching the NFC Central Division in Tampa Bay on Sunday and another San Francisco bellyflop away from settling the dispute for home-field advantage throughout the playoffs with tiebreakers.

And if Green Bay gets the ice box edge in Lambeau Field, where it has won 25 consecutive football games, the citizens of Wisconsin can probably count on a winter reprieve with a Super Bowl trip to San Diego.

This much is known after the Packers’ hex-smashing 27-11 victory over the Vikings in the Metrodome before 64,001: “No Room for Crybabies” is Minnesota Coach Dennis Green’s book; “No Room For Teams Lacking Playoff Toughness” will be his Viking epitaph.

Green, winless in four playoff games in his six years in Minnesota, is in charge of a football team that blew an 8-2 start, has lost three in a row with a trip next week to San Francisco, and in the season’s most meaningful game to date, failed to make a scrappy appearance.

The Vikings (8-5) remain a contender in pursuit of a wild card berth, but the team’s recent poor play will do nothing to help its demand for a new stadium and might have management looking for a new coach.

“You can’t win very many games off 11 points,” said Green, who has been rumored as a logical replacement for beleaguered Oakland Coach Joe Bugel. “We seem to have lost our offensive rhythm.”

No such problem in Green Bay (10-3), where the Packers are rounding into post-season form and the Cheeseheads have turned out in force to buy 400,000 shares of stock to keep Titletown competitive. Touted as the best team in football going into the season, the Packers stumbled, even lost to Indianapolis, but in the past two weeks have looked invincible while equaling last year’s record after 13 games.

“I would say right now after this game that this team is as good as last year’s,” said Ron Wolf, Green Bay’s general manager. “We’ve achieved one thing--we’ve gotten in the playoffs--and now we have to win the division. We just have to keep winning and everything will be taken care of.

“But for me personally, this is a magnificent feeling winning in this place after five straight losses. This was really big, because that is a very good football team and we had some people step up big for us.”

And that was the difference between the Packers and Vikings, Green Bay’s playmakers producing and Minnesota’s stars falling flat.

Viking quarterback Brad Johnson not only threw the ball poorly, completing 15 of 30 for 117 yards with an interception before being pulled in favor of Randall Cunningham, but twice while pulling the ball back to throw, he simply dropped it.

“I did not play very well and I have no excuses,” Johnson said. “We never got our running game going and we didn’t use Cris Carter in our passing attack. This was my worst game as a professional.”

Carter, the Vikings’ most stirring offensive threat, caught six passes for 52 yards, but played no role in seriously challenging the Packer defense. Running back Robert Smith, like Carter, offered no more than a cameo appearance, running 16 times for 54 yards.

Green Bay’s list of heroes included the usual suspects, such as running back Dorsey Levens, who on the heels of last week’s record-breaking 190 rushing yards, gained 108 in 31 carries, including two touchdowns.

“In the games that we have lost up here in the past, we were really careless on offense and I wanted to come in here and play the game a little differently,” Green Bay Coach Mike Holmgren said. “This is another step on what we want to try and accomplish this season. And you know what, I just wanted to win here before I retire.”

Quarterback Brett Favre, limited to two touchdown passes and throwing nine interceptions in five losing trips here, completed 15 of 29 passes for 196 yards, including an 18-yard touchdown pass play to Robert Brooks. Favre also got a boost from wide receiver Antonio Freeman, who completed the Packers’ offensive domination with six catches for 85 yards.

Reggie White keyed Green Bay’s defensive effectiveness with 2 1/2 sacks, and cornerback Doug Evans’ interception early in the third quarter not only sabotaged a potential Minnesota comeback, but set up the Packers’ second touchdown.

The Packers’ first touchdown drive allowed Favre, the NFL’s MVP the past two seasons, to campaign for more fancy hardware. Favre opened the 11-play, 86-yard drive in the second quarter with a 25-yard dart to Brooks, and then after two incomplete passes, he showed the athletic ability that separates him from most quarterbacks.

Rolling right, Favre cut up the field, outrunning defensive tackle Jason Fisk and putting a Barry Sanders-like move on linebacker Jeff Brady to pick up a first down with a 12-yard gain.

After he had advanced the Packers to the Minnesota 18-yard line, the nation caught a glimpse of the Favre that drives Holmgren, the perfectionist, so crazy. Favre, ducked a sack attempt and took that as a cue to gamble, lofting a pass to the end zone, where Minnesota cornerback Corey Fuller promptly dropped the ball.

“That’s the name of the game,” Brooks said. “You’ve got to make plays and he [Fuller] didn’t make the play.”

Maybe another quarterback plays it safe on the next play or audibles to a running play to regain his composure, but Favre went right back to the end zone with a fastball, which was caught by Brooks as he got smacked by two Minnesota defenders.

“Robert’s a tough guy and fortunately we got him a new helmet this week, so he could withstand some of those things a little bit better than in the past,” Holmgren said. “Just tremendous concentration on his part; a big, big play.”

Favre’s 193rd touchdown pass in his 100th NFL start broke a 3-3 tie, and while they didn’t know it at the time, the Vikings’ chances for an NFC Central Division title were gone.

The Packers? They were just warming up for what looks like a trip to San Diego in late January.

* NFL REWIND: C10