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 Posted in News on November 11th, 2011 at 6:35 PM


By Tom Silverstein / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- There is no substantive way to measure it, but if the Green Bay Packers aren’t having one of the quietest 8-0 seasons in the modern media age, they’re darn close to it.

As the only undefeated team left in the NFL and home to a quarterback playing with unprecedented statistical excellence, you would expect the Packers to be living behind boarded-up windows to stave off a tsunami of attention.

But on Thursday afternoon, it was the regular local media crew, plus or minus a few, and just one representative from a national magazine. No bloggers, no NFL columnists, no national television or cable reporters, just the locals collecting their material before the Packers’ "Monday Night Football" game against the Minnesota Vikings.

 

Ask any player in the locker room and he’ll tell you 8-0 hasn’t affected his life one bit.

"It hasn’t been any different," said tight end Jermichael Finley, an emerging star. "I don’t think we’re getting the love we should but at the same time I don’t think anyone in this building cares. We’re just focusing on being the No. 1 in rings."

To be fair, there have been representatives from national outlets at some of the Packers’ games this season and quarterback Aaron Rodgers was on the cover of Sports Illustrated with his receiving corps last week.

But it isn’t as if reporters are crawling over each other to get the story on Rodgers, the first quarterback in NFL history to post a 110-plus passer rating in the first eight games of a season. Rodgers is performing so well that his league-leading passer rating of 129.1 is 28.5 points higher than the second guy on the list, New Orleans’ Drew Brees.

When Brees got off to this kind of start in 2009, reporters flocked to New Orleans to cover the resurgence of the Saints. But that also doubled as a post-Hurricane Katrina storyline.

The Packers are defending Super Bowl champions, but they don’t live in that realm anywhere but on the field. There, opponents are charged and determined to add a green and gold pelt to their wall

But away from the field, they live in peace and tranquility far away and well-insulated from media hubs.

"We like it that way," receiver Greg Jennings said. "We like kind of being under the radar. We’re a small city, small-town team. We just go to work with our lunch pails every week.

"We’re not trying to be seen on every TV show and sports show out there because we’re 8-0. "

According to public relations director Jason Wahlers, who left the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to join the Packers in August, there has been nothing unmanageable about the attention the team has received.

He was on the public relations staff of the 2002 Super Bowl-winning Buccaneers team, which featured a football rock star in head coach Jon Gruden, controversial defensive tackle Warren Sapp and quote-a-minute receiver Keyshawn Johnson. And it was all heightened by the fact the Buccaneers had never been to a Super Bowl.

According to Wahlers, no more media have requested credentials for the Packers-Vikings game than other Lambeau Field Monday night games. It’s not a marquee matchup because the Vikings are 2-6, but it does feature the third start of Vikings rookie quarterback Christian Ponder.

As for the first eight weeks of the season, Wahlers said: "We’ve seen a steady and consistent number of national media requests this season. I’ve been told it’s comparable to last season."

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