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The 1998 Season
1998 was the final season for future Hall of Famer Reggie White |
A third straight trip to the Super Bowl, an entirely realistic goal at the outset, eluded the Packers in 1998, their 80th season. Historic accomplishment, however, did not. Overcoming multiple injury problems along the way, including the loss of Pro Bowl running back Dorsey Levens for nine games and center Frank Winters for the stretch run and postseason, each with a broken leg, they advanced to the playoffs for the sixth year in a row, a team record, while posting a seventh consecutive winning season.
They also set another team record by stretching their Lambeau Field winning streak to 25 games -- the second-longest in NFL history -- before falling to the Minnesota Vikings the night of October 5. They went on to close out the regular season with an 11-5 mark, thus equaling another team standard by posting a double-digit victory total for the fourth consecutive year (following an 11-5 record in 1995 and 13-3 marks in both 1996 and 1997). The latter was only the second such parlay in the organization's annals, the first having come 67 years earlier, recorded by team founder Curly Lambeau's triple NFL champions of 1929-32 (12-0-1 in 1929, 10-3-1 in 1930, 12-2 in 1931 and 10-3-1 in 1932).
In the wake of these considerable achievements, the Packers' season came to a dramatic and painful end in an NFC Wild Card playoff game at San Francisco on January 3, 1999, when they saw a 27-23 lead abruptly dissolve into a 30-27 49ers victory by way of a 25-yard Steve Young touchdown pass to wideout Terrell Owens, who fell across the goal line with only three seconds remaining.
Only five days later, the team's head coach of seven years, Mike Holmgren, resigns to become executive vice president of football operations/general manager/head coach of the Seattle Seahawks.
Moving with his trademark decisiveness and swiftness, Wolf tabs former Philadelphia Eagles head coach (and one-time Green Bay defensive coordinator) Ray Rhodes -- the only candidate he had given serious consideration to -- as the 12th head coach in Packers history on January 11, 1999. The new Packers field general promises fans that Green Bay will be well-conditioned and more aggressive under his watch.
Rhodes subsequently is able to retain Sherman Lewis, the team's highly-successful offensive coordinator under the previous coaching regime, while adding Emmitt Thomas, possessor of an excellent league-wide coaching reputation, as his defensive coordinator.
Relive the Packer quest to get back to the Super Bowl our special 1998 Season in Review. You'll find game by game recaps, box scores, audio clips, video clips and more...
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