25 Years Ago...

Logic answer because of the heat but honestly, I really don't know for sure

It was because Infante thought that the Pack's green jerseys would blend in with the green wrap around the field, making it hard for the Majik to see his receivers. There were complaints and he went back to the proper green.

Alex, Useless trivia for $200

I believe the category was "Attention Whores" for $400

Just watched the whole video.  Good stuff chickenboy!!    There were a lot of things I remember about that season.  I remember listening the the comeback against the Rams on the radio.  Living in the 'burbs of Chicago at the time, it came in very static-y.  Was disappointed they lost but the comeback was thrilling.  Also remember listening to the game against the Niners in the kitchen during dinner.  What a great win.  And I made my first ever trip to Lambeau to see the game against the Chiefs.  I still have a VCR tape of the game against the Bears with the TD toss to Sharpe.  Truly a great season!!

Says the soon to be renamed 'ThreadKiller-KaBong'...

I don't remember how the schedules were done back then, but any idea why teh Packers played the Cowboys twice that season??

http://www.packers.com/news-an...d3-a589-a903e272cca0

 

Mark from Fairfax, VA

Vic, a few days ago while surfing YouTube for Packers videos, I came upon highlights of the 1989 Packers season when they were QB’d by Don Majkowski, went 10-6 but didn't make the playoffs. In one of their home games against the New Orleans Saints played at Lambeau Field, the Packers wore their white road jerseys. Might you know why that was done? And why did Green Bay play Dallas, an NFC East team, in that regular season twice? I’ve posed these questions on a couple of Packers sites but no one has answered.

Your question intrigued me, so team historian Cliff Christl and I put our heads together and did a little research. Turns out the Packers wore their white jerseys at Lambeau for each of the first two games in ’89, against the Buccaneers and Saints, and haven’t since. Cliff found a Press-Gazette article in which head coach Lindy Infante said it was planned in advance to beat the potential early-season heat by keeping the Packers out of their dark green jerseys. There was also talk of Tampa Bay QB Vinny Testaverde’s color-blindness, and his difficulty distinguishing reddish colors against green grass. The Bucs had switched before the ’89 season from wearing their orange jerseys at home to wearing white, but they were forced to wear the orange at Lambeau. The following week, the Saints wore their supposedly heat-absorbing black.

As it happened, the game-time temps were only 66 and 71 degrees, respectively, for those two games. Testaverde had a solid day, going 22-of-27 for 205 yards with one TD and no interceptions in beating the Packers, 23-21. The black-clad Saints may indeed have worn down, though, as the Packers rallied from a 21-0 deficit for a 35-34 victory, one of the biggest comebacks in team history.

As for playing Dallas twice in one regular season, that was actually part of the NFL’s scheduling formula back then. With a 28-team league, two divisions in each conference had five teams, and one division in each had four. If a team finished in fifth place, it played the other fifth-place team in its own conference twice and the two fifth-place teams in the other conference once each. In 1988, Dallas and Green Bay were the two worst teams in the league (remember, in the ’89 draft, the Cowboys took Troy Aikman No. 1 overall, and the Packers selected Tony Mandarich at No. 2). So in ’89, the Packers played the Cowboys twice as well as Miami and Kansas City (fifth in the AFC East and West, respectively) once each. Dallas also played Miami and Kansas City that year, and those AFC fifth-place teams played each other twice.

Nice research GBF. I actually thought about googling it to see if my recollection was correct...evidently not! Makes me wonder how I had the green jersey/green wrap thing in my head. Interesting tidbit about Testeverde...

If I remember correctly, there were always 2 NFC teams out-of-division that played a home-and-home every year before expansion. I will let GBF research it for me. 

Thanks GBF!!

One thing we can always count on chickenboy being rong. 

Research took about 2 seconds. googled packers play cowboys twice? puzzle solved.

Thanks, c-boy! That was a nice read.

After the horrid 1970s, we had a few teases in the 80s. The playoffs in the strike season was probably the highlight, and the Lynn Dickey provided plenty of excitement like the win over the Redskins on MNF.

Unfortunately, our defenses in that era were mostly worth a point-a-minute, despite having some actual talent in a few positions. Just never enough at one time , I guess.

The Forrest Gregg era through the middle into the late 80s brought us back the bottom of the barrel, but the 1989 team began to provide some real excitement again. I remember it well; the running 'joke' being that the Packers didn't start playing until the second half, the "replay game" and resultant anguish from the Bears ("the asterisk" ), whoopin' the 49ers, and the Cowboys. Twice! Strange that we played them 2 times that year, but that was the last time we thumped 'em for awhile. Being 8-6 with 2 weeks ago and thinking we had an actual shot at the playoffs if only..., after all the suffering, only to lose a tiebreaker.

To the  Vikings!

That 1989 season is easily forgotten after the Pack began an incredible run of mostly winning starting in '92. At the time, '89 was special as it was the greatest number of wins a Packer team had since I began watching them in 1978.  Majkowski was incredibly fun to watch, and I believe he was 2nd in the MVP voting that year.  

 

It was all forgotten in 1990 as Majkowski began the year as a holdout, came back, suffered a season ending rotator cuff injury, and the team collapsed to a 6-10 record without Majik.

 

I think the only guy that I remember making it from the '89 team to the '96 Super Bowl winning juggernaut was kicker Chris Jacke.

 

 

**** 1989

I'd rather focus on the 20 or so years of outstanding football since then than reminisce about one year that doesn't mean anything now

People do realize that the Packers have won 2 Superbowls and won what, a dozen division championships since then yet people want to talk about 1989?  Why?

Save it for Cleveland

Because 1989 was a good hair year.

The first Pack/Dalass game in 89 was my first and only time I made it to Green Bay to watch a game. It started out with Dalass running the opening kickoff back 90 some yards or something like that. They scored two or three plays later. We figured we were in for a long day but Dalass missed the extra point or maybe it was blocked? and it was all Pack after that ending in a 31-13? win. I remember Tampa Bay pounded the Bares that day also and the crowd went nuts every time they announced an updated score to that game.  **** 1989 ? Maybe, but what a blast that day was after the previous several years of hoping for the best but expecting the worst.

Look at the 1989 Season this way:

 

Think of it as a "feeling".   Sit back, close your eyes, and remember the feeling you had as a kid when the winter was soooooo long...and you got a baseball glove for Christmas....you couldn't wait for the snow to melt and you could actually see some green grass patches.  Then, on the first day of a sunny 50 degree March, the snow mostly melted...you went outside and played catch on the mushy green grass and you felt a rebirth of your spirit.

 

Then, a week later, a March Snowstorm comes in and blows that feeling to Kingdom Come.  You are depressed for a while, but then as the spring warm weather continues...the snow is finally all gone again.   The first lawn mowing of the year brings back the wonderful scent of fresh grass and you know that summer is here!.

 

That's what 1989 meant to me.   It's all about the journey and rebirth.  I was a kid when the Packers won championships...it was expected that they would always win.  Then, failure, a glimmer of hope in 1972 but Devine wouldn't listen to Starr's game strategy against the Redskins..then 17 years of not much.

Enjoy the run, boys.  We are living in a special era of Packer football.

 

 

 

Hank, is the narrative too melodramatic for you?  If so, I"ll get you a tissue (for tears, that is, not the  same reason they are on your night table). 

.

Sorry for the bandwidth usage.

Happy Holidays!

I thought 1989 was a super fun year of Packer football.  Beating the mighty 49'ers in SF.  The game against the Bears.  The whole Majik part.

 

The two downsides for me were getting thrashed by the Chiefs 21-3 at home and the Monday nighter between the Bengals and the Vikings.  That game was on Christmas Day and I remember during the game they frequently showed Majik and other Packers watching as well as some Steelers.  Whoever won that game was in the playoffs and whoever lost would be out.  Nice drama and on Christmas Day.

 

But, I thought it was still a wonderful year.

And 1990-2007.

 

2008 was a little humid.