2010-2011 Green Bay Packers: Folk Heroes
Sunday, January 23, 2011 at 9:10PM Jesse Zakshesky Yay!
Woo-Hoo!
Boy howdy!
The Packers are going to the Superbowl! This is exciting news for me not only because of my favorite sports franchise making yet another attempt at glory, but because two men, who have become Wisconsin folk heroes, have a chance to shine on the grandest stage in American sports.
Everybody who follows this team is already familiar with Aaron Rodgers, Clay Matthews, and Charles Woodson for obvious reasons. They are remarkably great at each of their respective positions and because of that, (and because girls find them attractive, let's be honest) they find their likenesses on many jerseys across the State of Wisconsin and are paid quite a bit of money. However, the two aforementioned men, Kuhn and Raji, are two examples of the backbone of this organization. They do a lot of the dirty work that doesn't show up on ESPN, and tend to only be recognized by people like me, who spend hours on the internet reading about obscure tidbits of "knowledge" that nobody really needs to to be aware of. Because of that, seeing them being thrust into a position to make a name for themselves, and gaining the notoriety of the loyal fanbase that supports them has quite simply been a joy to witness.
A week ago, I watched the Divisional Playoff Game at Buffalo Wild Wings, and whenever John Kuhn even touched the ball, the hundreds of Packer fans in attendance, the majority of whom enjoying WAY too many Leinenkugel's at that point, in unison would chant his last name. Seeing this beast of a human being rumble and hurdle his way into the endzone never gets old.
Quite simply the best jersey ever created.
During that same game, B.J. Raji made his first appearance as fullback. After the running back scored, who coincidently enough was John Kuhn, history was made. Raji, and his 335 pound frame began to dance. Fast forward to today, on a pivotal play in a game that really shouldn't have been as close as it was, B.J. Raji again found himself in a play making position. After catching the ball, probably by instinct considering it may or may not have looked like a porkchop, Raji ran 18 yards into the endzone and again began to dance, a dance that with every passing moment is becoming known simply as "The Raji."
Look, we all have our favorite players for different reasons, but let's just take a moment to appreciate John Kuhn and B.J. Raji for all the hard, dirty work they do behind the scenes.
- John Kuhn, a converted fullback, earns the majority of his paycheck by blocking very large, very angry men. All day.
- B.J. Raji plays nosetackle in a 3-4 defense. His job, literally, is to be fat, be strong, and eat up A LOT of space so people like Clay Matthews can wreak havok on opposing players.
I want to see Raji dance one more time, on that giant screen in Arlington, Texas, on February 6th, 2011.
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Reader Comments (2)
I'm diggin the wrap-up sentence at the end of every post. Funny stuff, and great literary technique.
Side note: Any time I read anything, by anyone, I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from pointing out every little grammatical error. Thankfully, your posts are relatively free of such errors, which is nice (if only I could say the same for the UWW school paper). That said, the word "which" can never refer to a person; it can only refer to a thing or an animal. So really, you should say, "the hundreds of Packers fans in attendance, the majority of *whom* have had WAY too much Leinenkugels to drink...." Also, as long as we're talking about this sentence, since the name of the brewery to which you're referring is a possessive, there should really be an apostrophe--as in, "Leinenkugel's." And, if I really wanted to be a douchebag, I'd nitpick your parenthetical punctuation, or the fact that the word "that" requires a referent.
I realize that I'm looking at a blog post, and I'm a totally pretentious asshole for even bringing up grammar, but...I just can't help myself.
i don't know how i feel about the article about the packers, but i can say that i absolutely adored david's remark. do you think you could teach me about that stuff sometime? i apparently use "which" in the wrong context and i'm sure there are other grammatical facts you could teach me so i can better present myself in the future.
let me know?