Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Two 8-8 squads a year apart but quite different from one another. The former (Starr's final season) a passing juggernaut that alone almost carried them to the playoffs with absolutely no D and the latter (now under Gregg) more balanced with a significantly better D and better run-game as well without the passing game dropping off too much. It would seem that Forrest's squad would be an easy 'yes' when going by stats (both offense and defense ranked well; at least points-wise), but could it be a case of..."oh, NOW they start winning now that they're basically out of it"? Not only did Pack start bad in '84 (1-7) before rallying but also the following year (3-6). At least '83 Pack, as ridiculously inconsistent and unbalanced as they were, were well enough in the thick of things the entire campaign (beating Washington MNF nice feather in cap) until getting 'eliminated' by Ditka's Bears in finale, finally costing Starr his job. Thoughts?

I thought the '84 team was quite a bit better, mostly because they had some of the balance that the '83 group completely lacked. During the season's first half, Green Bay lost a lot of close games to good teams (Chicago, Denver, Seattle). If they'd been 4-4 or even 3-5 at the midway point instead of 1-7, they might have taken the Giants' wildcard spot.

The '84 Packers was a case of too little too late. Even if they win one of those early games, they still probably lose tiebreakers to all those 9-7 NFC East teams.

The '83 team was in it all year- they didn't turn it on too late. They kept it up from week 1 to week 16.

Damn shame what happened at the end, because I think a GB/DAL playoff rematch would have been much more fun AND they would have given a better showing at RFK than the utterly boring one-dimensional Dickerson or Bust LA Rams.

CSKreager wrote:The '84 Packers was a case of too little too late. Even if they win one of those early games, they still probably lose tiebreakers to all those 9-7 NFC East teams.

The '83 team was in it all year- they didn't turn it on too late. They kept it up from week 1 to week 16.

Damn shame what happened at the end, because I think a GB/DAL playoff rematch would have been much more fun AND they would have given a better showing at RFK than the utterly boring one-dimensional Dickerson or Bust LA Rams.

Agreed! No reason to think Pack don't get past now-'asleep' Dallas. After the following weekend, many at the Monday morning water cooler perhaps talking about how close it was to a GB@Det NFCC (a 12-4 and three 9-7s in 'final four')!