Filed under: Packers, NFC North, Super Bowl
DALLAS -- The Green Bay Packers weren't intimidated by the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV. Not by Pittsburgh's top-rated defense. Nor by the Steelers' two championships during the previous five seasons.In an audacious move that would have given such paranoid coaching legends as the late George Allen heart attacks, Green Bay's Mike McCarthy had his players measured for their Super Bowl rings the night before the game.
"I talk a lot to our team about having real confidence," McCarthy said. "I felt it was the right time to do it. I thought it would be special. You just have to trust your preparation. We had an impressive game plan on both sides of the ball. As the players got into (the game plan), you could see they had the confidence and you could see excitement. We felt we were the better team than Pittsburgh, no disrespect to them."
So on the day that they were going to fly back to Titletown with the Lombardi Trophy for the first time in 14 years, the Packers, naturally, weren't intimidated by the history that shows that the last NFC champion to repeat was their own in 1997. Only two of the ensuing 13 conference winners even recorded a playoff victory the following season.
"Success is the hardest part of this business, handling success," McCarthy said. "That's the next challenge. I don't look at it as pressure. I don't feel stressed. Our history and tradition is an asset ... something that we're proud to be a part of ... something our players feed off of, that we celebrate.
"(Trying to repeat) is going to be exciting. I knew (in training camp that) we had an excellent opportunity to win the Super Bowl and you look at our returning roster, next year it's going to be the same type of situation."
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