The weirder and wilder the better.
It’s the offseason. OTAs are still a few weeks away, and training camp is even farther. Packers-centric conversations are going to wander.
Ours certainly have. In the APC Slack chat, we recently had a discussion about the most random notable Packers moments we’ve seen in person. We’ve published our moments below. What random Packers stuff have you been lucky enough to see with your own eyes?
Tex Western- My most recent Packers game was last December, when I saw a person who does not exist intercept a pass during Green Bay’s drubbing of the New Orleans Saints. (You can’t convince me that a person named Zayne Anderson actually played snaps for the team.) But the actual most interesting thing I have seen at Lambeau Field was in an early-season game in 2002 against the Carolina Panthers. Green Bay won the game 17-14, getting a late go-ahead touchdown pass from Brett Favre to Donald Driver before Shayne Graham shanked a 24-yard field goal that would have sent the game to overtime.
But the most fascinating part of this low-scoring game was the Packers’ first touchdown, which came courtesy of Bubba Franks’ golden left arm. Yes, the Packers tight end lofted a 31-yard touchdown pass to a wide-open Driver late in the first half to give the Packers a lead going into the break. There was a huge delay for a replay review, however, with the officials initially throwing a flag on the play and ruling Brett Favre’s toss to Franks in the left flat as a forward pass. But the replays made it clear that Favre’s throw traveled a few yards backwards, and the booth review got the call right.
As far as I can tell, this is the only touchdown pass by a tight end in Packers franchise history and it’s one of a very small number by any non-QB since the turn of the century – Ahman Green and Tony Fisher each had one in 2004, while Tim Masthay had a memorable throw to Tom Crabtree in 2012. (And here’s a fun fact to bring it full circle: Fisher’s touchdown pass went to – guess who – Bubba Franks!)
Jon Meerdink – I haven’t seen anything particularly historic in person, but I’ve seen two cool Donald Driver moments. In 2012, I saw him score what would be the final touchdown of his career in an otherwise nondescript win over the Jaguars. I was also there to see him run through about half of the 49ers’ defense in 2010.
As a uniform enthusiast, I was already tickled to see the Packers wear their blue circle alternates for the first time (which might be historically inaccurate?), but Driver’s catch and run was an incredible portion of icing on an already satisfying cake. Seeing the play unfold in person, it wasn’t immediately clear from where I was sitting that he was going to score. Every broken tackle seemed like its own little moment, and it wasn’t until he shed a defender around the 10-yard line that I realized “holy crap, he’s going to score.”
I also remember the play for the extremely common experience of being told to sit down by a fan from an older generation. I started to get to my feet after Driver broke his second tackle, only to have a little old lady yank on the jersey I was wearing and yell “Sit down until it’s done!” Not wanting to shove off a woman who weighed maybe 90 pounds, including her admittedly fashionable Packers Starter jacket (straight from the early 90s, I’d guess), I obliged, then had to laugh when Driver finally scored and she let go of my shirt, saying “Now you can stand.” Never change, Packers fans.
Sammwich – I was at the Clay Matthews “roughing the passer” game against the Vikings in 2018. As Kirk Cousins was in the process of making a pass, Clay got to him and brought him down. The pass was intercepted by Jaire Alexander which would’ve sealed the win for the Packers, but as we all know, it was called back due to no pillow being laid down while the tackle on the QB was being made. This was also the Mason Crosby/Daniel Carlson missed kickapalooza, which ended in a tie. Bonus! It was also the hottest game on record at Lambeau Field (at the time, at least) and the stadium ran out of water bottles by halftime. The boos around the stadium have never sounded more sickly.
Rcon14 – Being from western Wisconsin, I actually have not been to that many Packer games, so it’s kind of goofy that I got to see a statistical anomaly in the flesh. In 2006, the struggling Packers, then 2-4, played a horrendous Arizona Cardinals team. Ahman Green and Vernand Morency combined to run all over them, becoming just the third Packers running back duo to both break 100 yards in a single game, with Green going for 106 and Morency going for 101 as the Packers comfortably handled them 31-14. One other weird quirk of this game is that this was apparently the first game where still-then-beloved quarterback Brett Favre did a Lambeau Leap.
Paul Noonan – In retrospect, the 2008 season finale against the Detroit Lions was a fun statistical day at the office because the Packers pulled off the rare feat of having two 100-yard rushers in the same game. Ryan Grant had a fairly conventional 106 yards on 19 carries, while journeyman DeShawn Wynn joined Grant, matching his 106 yards exactly, thanks in large part to a 73-yard touchdown on the Packers’ second offensive series. It was Wynn’s only 100-yard effort of his four-year career, in which he ran for a cumulative 332 yards.
But the matching 106-yard games are not why this one was memorable to me. When you’re actually in Lambeau, it can be tricky to track individual yardage totals, and so while it’s neat, it was less neat in the moment. What was very neat in the moment was Mason Crosby’s 69-yard fair catch kick attempt to end the first half. In 1976, Ray Wersching of the San Diego Chargers made a 45-yard fair catch kick. Wersching’s kick was the last successful fair catch kick until 2024 when Cameron Dicker, also of the Chargers, though now in Los Angeles, finally knocked one through from 57. In the interim, the league went 0-9, but Crosby’s may have been the best attempt of that 0-9 streak.
Had this game been played earlier in the season or indoors, Crosby likely would have had the extra three yards that he needed and made some history, but instead the dead-center kick fell just barely short. I love the bizarre nature of the fair catch kick and always get unreasonably excited when a team has to punt from deep within its own territory at the end of a half, and I definitely annoyed everyone around me predicting, and then explaining what was about to happen. Fair catch kicks rule, and I’m glad I got to see one. I suspect I am the most happy person in history at having seen a missed fair catch kick.
Dusty Evely – I was a Packers fan from birth, but never had a chance to see them play live. In 2005, I was working in a bookstore in Kentucky, wearing a Packers button as part of my flair (as one does), and a customer came up to me. He was a Bengals season ticket holder and couldn’t make the game on 10/30/2005, so he offered me two tickets. I said yes immediately and called my youngest brother. Together we drove a couple hours up to Cincinnati to watch the 1-5 Packers take on the 5-2 Bengals. We sat in end zone seats among loud, sweaty Bengals fans, an inordinate number of whom were bald with goatees. Despite throwing 5 INTs, the Packers were down 21-14 on the Bengals 28 28-yard line with 28 seconds remaining. Brett Favre dropped back to pass, and the ball was taken out of his hands. Not by a pass rusher, but by a random fan. (You don’t see it on the video, but that fan was absolutely laid out by security. Perfect form tackle. His hat went flying off his head.)
Not a particularly pretty game, but it was certainly a memorable one.