It’s Packers vs. Steelers in Super Bowl XLV

 The Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Bears 21-14 Sunday in the 182nd meeting  between the two oldest franchises in the NFC Championship game. Green Bay built  a 14-0 first-half lead and held on to become the first NFC number-six seed to reach  the Super Bowl. Green Bay will play the Pittsburgh Steelers February 6 in Dallas, Texas.

The Pittsburgh Steelers punched their third Super Bowl ticket in the last six years, beating the New York Jets 24-19 in the AFC title game. It’s the second year in a row that the New York Jets lost the AFC Championship. The Steelers started the game on fire with a power running game and built a 24-0 first-half lead, holding the Jets to one yard in the first half.

The Packers have won more NFL Championships (12), including three Super Bowls, than any other franchise, while the Steelers have won six Super Bowls, more than any other team. NFC teams have won 23 Super Bowls; AFC teams have won 21.  Green Bay is the early three-point favorite.

Jay Cutler, the Bear starting quarterback, injured his knee Sunday and could not finish the game, for which he is being treated unfairly by some NFL players and Chicago fans. The Bears-Packers rivalry and the chance to go to the Super Bowl are so big that some people have lost sight of reality. If you’re hurt and you can’t go on because your knee is injured and is killing you, you just can’t play.

More Fitz…

This is the 90th season of the NFL with 32 franchises and 31 Republican owners prospering in a socialist system, considering that the 2010 season was played without a salary cap for all 32 franchises. 

All the NFL head coaches hired since the end of the 2010 regular season, other than Jim Harbargh from Stanford University by San Francisco, should in my view have an asterisk. The teams that made quick hires need caretakers with the costly labor fight ahead. 

Here’s my thinking: NFL teams did not operate business-as-usual. The salary cap of $111 million in 2009 for all 32 franchises was not respected by most teams.

The Arizona Cardinals were not the only team to not spend up to the salary cap this past season. They were number one at $28 million under the salary cap. The owners keep that money, which is supposed to go to players when the collective bargaining agreement is respected. That does not happen. 

Had the Cardinals offered quarterback Kurt Warner another $ 5-7 million, he likely would have played in 2010. How hard are you trying to win when you bank $28 million?

All NFL head coaches hired since the end of the NFL regular season had no leverage at all. Even the credibility of the Rooney Rule, which was put in place years ago to force NFL owners to make certain that a minority/person of color coach is interviewed, took a hit with the way Dallas treated it and the way Miami just turned their back on it. 

Never before this year, in 90 years of the NFL, did a team qualify for the playoffs with a losing record. Seattle did with a 7-9 record thanks to teams like Arizona, which had been in the playoffs the two previous seasons. The NFC West was the first Division in league history to have all four teams with losing records. If business is usual and the salary cap is adhered to and respected, that does not happen. 

Even with the Super Bowl coming, the NFL braces for what could be an expensive and debilitating player lockout starting March 4. Even though the 2010 season was full of record television rating numbers, the owners could make a debilitating decision. 

With national unemployment at nearly 11 percent, the owners need to keep it real. Americans need the NFL now more than ever. Squabbling over billions is not a good thing with this economy.

Larry Fitzgerald can be heard weekday mornings on KMOJ Radio 89.9 FM at 8:25 am, and on WDGY-AM 740 Monday-Friday at 12:17 pm and 4:17 pm; he also commentates on sports 7-8 pm on Almanac (TPT channel 2). Larry welcomes reader responses to info@larry-fitzgerald.com, or visit www.Larry-Fitzgerald.com.