Packers have tradition edge; Falcons hope to boost r sum

Associated Press

atlanta

Bart Starr. Lambeau Field. Ray Nitschke. Titletown USA. Reggie White. Heck, they even named the Super Bowl trophy after Green Bay’s most famous coach.

Yep, the Packers are just oozing with tradition.

The Atlanta Falcons? Not so much.

“We’re fairly new on the block,” said Roddy White, the Falcons’ Pro Bowl receiver. “We’re still trying to prove ourselves. You’ve got to go out there and win playoff games. That’s what this league is all about.”

The Falcons (13-3) are the top seed in the NFC playoffs heading into tonight’s divisional game against Green Bay (11-6). Atlanta merely needs to win two more games — both at the Georgia Dome, where the team is 20-4 over the last three seasons — to reach the Super Bowl for only the second time in franchise history.

Up first, Atlanta will have to get by a franchise with a much more impressive resume over the long haul.

The Packers have won a record 12 NFL titles, three more than any other franchise, a bounty that includes three Super Bowls victories. Compare that with the Falcons, who have managed just four division titles in 45 years and lost their lone Super Bowl appearance in 1999.

In fact, Atlanta had never put together back-to-back winning seasons until its current run of three in a row.

When it comes to star power, Green Bay is about as good as it gets. The franchise boasts 21 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and surely has at least one more on the way with Brett Favre, who actually began his career with the Falcons but was traded away in one of the game’s great personnel blunders.

The Packers’ list of greats includes coach Vince Lombardi, whose influence on the game was so profound the NFL put his name on its championship trophy shortly after his death in 1970.

No one has considered naming a trophy after anyone from the Falcons. Heck, the team has yet to send even one player to Canton; the best it can do is Eric Dickerson and Tommy McDonald, two Hall of Famers who played briefly for Atlanta late in their careers.

And when it comes to coaches, the team with the odd-looking bird logo can’t come close to Lombardi or Curly Lambeau, who guided the Packers to their first six NFL titles in the 1930s and ’40s.

“We all know exactly what sits in front of us,” Packers WR Donald Driver said. “We want that trophy. It’s named after us. We need to get it back home, where it belongs.”