In Green Bay, Success Won’t Breed Vanity

Welcome back to Titletown and all of that.

“Isn’t this the Vince Lombardi Trophy?” asked Green Bay receiver Antonio Freeman. “It’s going home.”

So it is. Now Green Bay has three world championship trophies, two more than Chicago, this one a lot more recent. Suddenly it is not just the Bears having to catch Green Bay, but all of football.

“You still see those guys who won the first two Super Bowls,” said Freeman. “And they kept telling us, ‘You got to bring that thing back home.’ Well, we’re bringing it home.”

There is plenty of room for all of that proud hardware, even in the smallest town in football. The smallest town can have the biggest dream.

“Now I’m greedy,” said quarterback Brett Favre. “I want more. I want to come back and win another.”

Maybe it won’t take 29 years. Maybe the next one will be more exciting. Maybe the next one will have an opponent who can cover a pass, can tackle a kick returner, won’t throw passes around like door prizes.

Maybe the other team’s coach won’t be preoccupied with his next job before he finishes this one.

“I thought we had a chance there for a moment,” said New England coach Bill Parcells. “You know, you never know when this opportunity is going to come again.”

So long, Big Tuna.

Said Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe: “I told Bill, ‘It’s been a great experience playing for you.’ I told him I love playing for him.”

They did the expected, the Packers did, while the Patriots did their part as well, offering just enough of an obstruction to be full of regret, hanging around just long enough to keep this Super Bowl from being lousy but merely inevitable.

The truth was the Packers were clearly better, clearly better coached, clearly more talented and clearly happiest when the Patriots were kicking them the ball.

“There is an old saying that the cream rises to the top,” said Desmond Howard, astonishingly the Most Valuable Player in the game. This is like losing a race to spare parts, but it was Howard’s 99-yard kickoff return that finally discouraged New England.

“That was disheartening,” Bledsoe said. “It was a six-point ballgame, and all of a sudden he breaks that play and the wind is out of our sails.”

Reggie White sacked Bledsoe three times and Favre threw a pair of touchdown passes and ran for a TD.

“God sent me here,” White said. “Some of you guys thought I was crazy four years ago, but now I’m getting a ring. How crazy do you think I am now?”

Green Bay seems ready to handle this, not to turn into one of those preening, self-important menageries, almost a requirement in this age of athletic ego.

Coach Mike Holmgren seems too decent to let this team get out of hand, and the community in which they all live is itself not exactly beyond pretention but too insignificant to be taken seriously.

“I look at the faces of my players and I’m humbled,” Holmgren said. “There is a great, great sense of accomplishment for this team.

“It’s tough to compare this team to the ones in Lombardi’s day, but I know we believe in some of the same things. Commitment. Discipline. Great work ethic. Those are the things I try to instill in my team. High-character people working very hard for a common goal.”