Pack boost playoff hopes despite ugly, penalty-filled victory

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- In the minutes before a game that would set back the sport of professional football 50 years, runner Ray Rice, trying to stay warm on a cold night, took a small ammonia capsule, normally utilized to wake unconscious people, put it under his nose and began inhaling the fumes. He sniffed. And sniffed. Then sniffed some more. All while bouncing up and down near a blowing heater and bundled in a heavy coat.

After this poorly played monstrosity of a contest, won by Green Bay 27-14, you didn't need an ammonia capsule, you needed a stiff drink.

The final whistle is the only thing that mercifully stopped the bevy of pass-interference penalties. (Getty Images)

Because the only way to watch this one was stone, cold drunk, just so you could laugh at the spectacle of it all.

Let's put it this way: The 310 combined penalty yards between Green Bay and Baltimore tied for second most in an NFL game. The Packers had 175 penalty yards, only 10 shy of a single-game franchise record.

That's how stupendously bad this game was. An ice pick wasn't needed for the 20-degree temperatures. An ice pick was needed to stab out your eyes.

Afterward, players and coaches from both teams seemed somewhat stunned over the large number of flags. Packers coach Mike McCarthy summed it up nicely: "The penalties were unbelievable for both sides."

The NFL can't allow Walt Anderson's crew to go unscathed after one of the worst officiating performances in league history. There has to be disciplinary action, suspensions, flogging, something.

Players like Rice were doing anything to stay warm and, later, motivated through one of the more ugly games of the year. That included talking massive amounts of trash. Ravens fullback Le'Ron McClain once yapped to the entire Packers sideline and Green Bay's Johnny Jolly snapped at just about every Baltimore offensive player on the field.

The smack talking at one point got so insanely dumb that Packers players started pushing and shoving after one play right in the middle of an important drive in the final two minutes of the first half. That's normally the kind of knuckleheaded-ness you see from the Cleveland Browns, not the Packers.

Yet someone had to win, and it was the Packers. Despite the ugly nature of the contest, a win is a win, especially against a stubborn Baltimore team. This time of year, there are moments when ugly can still be beautiful.

And these Packers, after a rough start to the season in which quarterback Aaron Rodgers was sacked more times than there are Tiger Woods girlfriends, are starting to get dangerous.

They're now 8-4 and in the thick of the wild-card race, and Rodgers isn't getting sacked nearly as much as he once did. In Green Bay's first eight games Rodgers was sacked 37 times, but in his last four games there have been only eight. The defense has played better, too.

The Saints are the best in the conference and Super Bowl runner-up Arizona is second, but after that it's a giant puzzle. Philadelphia is a mystery, the Dallas Cowboys are due for their usual stinky December and Brett Favre in Minnesota seems ready to revert from Vikings Favre to Jets Favre.

The Packers also have a friendly remaining schedule with three of their final four teams -- Chicago, Pittsburgh and Seattle -- having .500 records or worse. Competitors Philadelphia and Dallas in particular have it much tougher.

Green Bay is making a run. The Packers have the firepower and soft schedule to do it, too.

Yet the Packers and Ravens will have nightmares over this one. Not long ago, this game might've been thought of as a Super Bowl preview. Thank goodness that won't happen. There should be a new league bylaw preventing these two teams from ever playing again.

In the first quarter alone there was one fumble and two interceptions. The Ravens heated up in the second half with two scores but their first four possessions ended in a fumble, an interception, a punt and a punt. Rice was held to 54 yards on the ground.

"They made sure they did a good job of following him out on screens and making sure that they had a guy spying him so that he couldn't get any momentum going," Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco said. As for the penalties after three quarters -- only three -- there were a total of 17 for 253 yards.

On one play, Ravens wide receiver Derrick Mason was called for a phantom offensive pass interference penalty and unsportsmanlike conduct. That meant for Baltimore it was third-and-Sheboygan.

Wait ... hold on ... they just called another pass interference penalty.

The only enjoyable aspect of this contest was watching Rodgers pick apart a Baltimore secondary that was without injured safety Ed Reed, one of the most explosive players in all of football. In Reed's place was Tom Zbikowski. It was a clear and present mismatch with Zbikowski versus Rodgers.

One scene at the end of the first half was a perfect symbol of this game. Baltimore's Michael Oher, whose life has been captured on the big screen, was jawing with a Packers player as both teams walked off the field to their respective locker rooms.

Jawing, pass interference, more jawing, more pass interference, fumble, interception, more jawing, more pass interference ... that was this game.

Head linesman Phil McKinnely, in trying to reach a hot Oher, pointed to his own head, as in, "Use yours, Michael."

If only we didn't use our eyes.