 |
www.packers.com | |||
 |
||||
|
return to site | |||
posted 04/12/01
 |
| Mike Sherman |
Complete Schedule | Download PDF | Printable Schedule | Handheld/Wireless
Two dates on Monday Night Football, a return to Thanksgiving Day play, a home opener for the fifth straight year and three of their final four games at home in December, highlight the Green Bay Packers' 2001 regular-season schedule, announced this afternoon by the National Football League. Additionally, the Packers, who ride the wave of a four-game winning streak which concluded Mike Sherman's first season as head coach in 2000, will face both of the previous year's Super Bowl participants, the Baltimore Ravens and New York Giants - only the seventh time in team history that has occurred and the first since 1994.
Appearing on Monday Night Football for the ninth consecutive season, Green Bay will meet the Washington Redskins, September 24 at Lambeau Field, and the Jacksonville Jaguars, Dec. 3 at ALLTEL Stadium, in front of the ABC-TV cameras. The Packers hold a 16-18-1 mark all-time on MNF.
Already possessing a rich Thanksgiving Day tradition, the Packers return to one of the NFL's two annual holiday games for the first time since a 1994 appearance at Dallas, traveling to Detroit for a November 22 divisional matchup with the Lions. Previously, the Packers and Lions squared off on Thanksgiving for 13 consecutive years (1951-63) before the long-standing Turkey Day series was ended at the suggestion of then-Green Bay head coach Vince Lombardi.
More recently, the Green and Gold were the Lions' Thanksgiving Day date twice in the 1980s, in 1984 and '86, the 1986 game a dramatic, 44-40 victory which saw Walter Stanley's electrifying, 83-yard punt return touchdown with 41 seconds remaining provide the winning margin. Overall, the Packers stand 10-17-2 on Thanksgiving Day, dating back to their first such game, a non-league contest vs. the Stambaugh Miners in 1920.
Possessor of the best December/January record in the NFL since 1995 - 20-5 (.800) - the Packers this year play five times in the calendar's final month, including three of their final four games at home, where they have gone a near-perfect 11-1 over that same stretch (not counting four additional postseason victories).
"In spite of the fact that we are going to play some extremely challenging opponents, not only within our division but also against the highly-competitive NFC East and AFC Central divisions - including last year's two Super Bowl participants - I'm excited to open and close the regular season at Lambeau Field," said GM/Head Coach Mike Sherman in assessing the Packers' 2001 slate. "There is no doubt this is a very challenging schedule, but I believe our players and coaches will respond to the challenges those teams present."
Green Bay, which has opened its season at home every year but one (1996) since 1985, will do so again in 2001, facing Detroit and its new head coach, Marty Mornhinweg, a Packers assistant during the 1995-96 seasons, on September 9 at Lambeau Field. It will mark the 11th time in 83 seasons of play that the Packers have begun their season against Detroit - the eighth time in Green Bay, the most recent of which was 1998 (a 38-19 victory for the home team).
The Packers then make their first visit to the New York area in three years, facing the NFC champion Giants on September 16. Green Bay defeated the Giants, 37-3 in 1998, in its last trip to the Meadowlands.
Renewing a long-time rivalry, the Green and Gold return home on September 24 for their Monday night matchup with Washington, which kicks off at 8 p.m. Currently the longest interrupted series in the National Football League, the Packers and Redskins have not met at all since the 1988 season - a 20-17 Washington victory in Milwaukee - and haven't played in Green Bay since the '86 campaign. The series originated in 1932, the first year of the current Redskins franchise, which began as the Boston Braves before becoming the Redskins the following season and moving to the nation's capital in 1937.
Being on the Monday night stage, the Redskins meeting likely will conjure up vivid memories of Green Bay's lone win in the series since 1968, a 48-47 thriller on Oct. 17, 1983, which remains the highest-scoring game in Monday Night Football history as well as in the Packers' annals. In that contest, Jan Stenerud's 20-yard field goal with 54 seconds left decided the issue in favor of the Green and Gold, though Washington's Mark Moseley missed a 39-yard FG try as time expired. In all, the game featured 11 touchdowns, 11 extra points and six field goals.
A tough road stretch, which will see Green Bay play three of its next four contests away from home, two at divisional rivals, and includes a Lambeau Field meeting with the Super Bowl champions, follows, starting with successive games at Carolina and at Tampa Bay on September 30 and October 7. The Buccaneers contest kicks off at 3:15 p.m. CDT as the second game of a Fox Sports doubleheader.
The Green and Gold's excursion to Carolina will be their fourth visit to Charlotte's Ericsson Stadium in the past five years. It also will be mark the sixth-ever meeting of the teams in the Panthers' seven-year existence, Green Bay having played host to the 1996 NFC Championship Game - a 30-13 Packers victory - as well as a 1999 regular-season contest.
Returning home on October 14 to face Baltimore for only the second time since the Ravens franchise was launched in 1996 - Green Bay won 28-10 in 1998 at Lambeau Field - the 2001 meeting, which comes on CBS-TV, will mark only the second time since 1990 that the Packers have met the reigning Super Bowl champion at home the next year, the other being a matchup with Super Bowl XXIV winner San Francisco in '90. On four other occasions in the '90s, Green Bay played the previous season's title holder on the road (in 1993, '94 and '96 at Dallas and in 1999 at Denver).
Having twice defeated division champion Minnesota in 2000, on October 21 the Packers will begin their quest for a sweep of their neighbors to the west in consecutive seasons for the first time since the 1987-88 campaigns with a trip to the HHH Metrodome in Minneapolis - the site of one of Green Bay's finest moments last year, a 33-28 triumph over the Vikings on the strength of Ahman Green's career-best 161 yards rushing.
Starting at 3:15 p.m. as the second half of a Fox doubleheader, the Minnesota game will be the first of just two contests on artificial turf for the Packers in '01. The tightly-contested Packers-Vikings series, which is tied at 39 victories apiece with one tie, during the past two seasons has had two games decided in the final minute or overtime and just a 4.5-point average margin of victory.
Green Bay then takes a week off, receiving its annual open date on October 28 in the NFL's 16-game, 17-week schedule, before returning to action on Sunday, November 4, in a home rematch with Tampa Bay at 12 noon on Fox.
With league-wide realignment slated to take place beginning in 2002 when the expansion Houston Texans take the field, this will be the Packers' final season in the NFC Central as it presently is constructed. Likely to play in a renamed NFC North division along with Chicago, Detroit and Minnesota starting in '02, in all probability this year will mark the final season in which the Packers and Tampa Bay square off on a regular basis, an annual twice-a-year affair - with the exception of the 1982 and '87 strike seasons - since the then-second-year Buccaneers first joined the division in 1977.
Green Bay, which leads the all-time series 27-16-1 (not including a 1997 playoff victory), has won 16 of its 22 regular-season meetings with the Bucs since 1990. Additionally, Tampa Bay will be attempting to snap an 11-year road losing streak in the series, the last win by the Buccaneers in Wisconsin having come in 1989.
Another extended unbeaten streak - seven consecutive victories by Green Bay at Soldier Field (1994-2000), the longest road winning streak in the 80-year history of the series - will be at stake on November 11 when the Packers travel to Chicago for a noon game on Fox.
The Atlanta Falcons then pay their first regular-season visit to Green Bay since 1981 on November 18. They, however, have made one Lambeau Field appearance in the interim, a 37-20 triumph by the Packers in a 1995 NFC Wild Card Playoff contest. Additionally, the Falcons twice have played in Milwaukee over the past 19 seasons, with Green Bay claiming a 23-21 victory in 1989 and a 21-17 decision in its last-ever appearance at Milwaukee County Stadium on December 18, 1994.
Per custom, the second and fifth regular-season contests, vs. Washington on September 24 and Atlanta on November 18, have been designated as 'Gold' package games for the team's one-time Milwaukee ticket holders.
A short, four-day week follows before Green Bay travels to Detroit on Thanksgiving Day, November 22, for a nationally-televised contest with the Lions on Fox starting at 11:30 a.m. CST. The Packers then enjoy 11 days off before their next scheduled game, Monday night, December 3, at Jacksonville.
The meeting with the Jaguars, who entered the NFL in 1995, will mark just the second time that the teams have played, both having come in Jacksonville. The first, which was in the Jags' inaugural season, also was a prime-time affair, a 24-14 Green Bay victory in a Sunday night ESPN game.
An impressive 11-1 at home in December/January since 1995, the Packers close the season with three of their final four games in Lambeau Field, starting on December 9 with Chicago. The Bears, a December opponent at Soldier Field the last three years, have won each of the past two seasons in their Green Bay appearances.
The following week, Green Bay makes its first-ever visit to Tennessee's Adelphia Coliseum in Nashville since the Titans (formerly the Oilers) moved there from Houston in 1997. Also the second half of a Fox doubleheader, the Titans matchup is slated for a 3:15 p.m. start.
The first of two home games to close the season is with Cleveland on December 23, a 12 noon start on CBS-TV. The Browns, remarkably, will be making their first appearance in Green Bay since January 2, 1966, when the Packers outlasted them, 23-12, in the 1965 NFL Championship Game as Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke paced a Green Bay defense which limited Cleveland's vaunted Jim Brown to a mere 50 yards rushing in the final contest of his nine-year playing career. The Browns did play in Milwaukee in 1967 and 1983.
Finishing out the regular season at home for the third consecutive year, the Packers entertain the "indoor"-based Minnesota Vikings on December 30. Though a divisional foe, the Vikings come to Green Bay in December for only the second time in the past eight seasons. Their lone other venture to Lambeau Field that late in the season since 1994 came in the season finale of the Packers' '96 Super Bowl year, a 38-10 Green Bay romp.
The 2001 campaign will mark the first of two straight seasons in which the Packers will play through ongoing construction work which is part of the $295 Lambeau Field redevelopment project, begun earlier this year and scheduled for completion in time for the 2003 season.
This season also will constitute the Packers' final year in two divisional venues as they presently exist. The Lions will be on their farewell cruise at the Pontiac (Mich.) Silverdome before moving to Ford Field in downtown Detroit for the 2002 season. Long-time nemesis Chicago, meanwhile, will play at Soldier Field this season before moving all of its home games out of town for one year (2002) while its stadium undergoes massive renovations, scheduled for completion by 2003.