After a fairly lengthy hiatus – mainly due to the bye week and me being sick – we’re back with our weekly lighthearted post.
This week, we’ll once again be discussing the man we all love to hate – Judas.
Before the first Packers-Vikings game, I wrote a post regarding nicknames you could use if you didn’t feel comfortable with Judas.
(Just to jump off topic real quick here, we at OBOD love Judas as a nickname. We’re not going to stop using it. Not for a long, long time. Maybe never. If you’re offended, sorry, but we’re not stopping.)
Today, I want to talk about the act of booing Judas.
It’s been a hot topic amongst Packers fans, what with the rematch quickly approaching and all, but it’s not a topic we’re united on.
Based on all the unscientific polls on sites like those of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Green Bay Press Gazette, it seems like about 66 percent think he should be booed upon his return to Lambeau Field.
If you translate that over, that means just over 48,000 of the 72,928 in attendance Sunday will be letting him know he’s a backstabber/lying redneck/a-hole. If you’re one of those people, consider yourself aces in my book. After all, I’m the guy who stood up and angrily booed his image on the Jumbotron when they ran the “In-game highlights”during the Detroit game two weeks ago.
Now, I’d like to have a word with those roughly 24,000 people who won’t commit to booing Judas on Sunday if I could.
Seriously, what’s with you? Why don’t you want to boo him?
After careful consideration, I’ve determined you don’t want to boo him for one of the following reasons:
- You think he got a bad deal from the organization. You think he got forced out.
My response: You’re so wrong on this it’s ridiculous. How on God’s green-and-gold Earth did he get forced out? For years, going back to when Mike Sherman was running the show, the organization almost always told him to take as much time as he needed in deciding whether or not to return. Of course, he always took his sweet time, too, didn’t he? Then, after Ted Thompson took over, he told him he needed a decision before the draft. That’s only fair since his decision, oh, I don’t know, only impacted the entire organization. How did Judas respond to that? By saying, “What are they going to do? Cut me?” Real classy.
Then, after the 2007 season, when he finally decided to hang ‘em up, he called Mike McCarthy to inform him. What did McCarthy say? Well, he told Judas to take some more time and really think things over before calling it a career. Yep, that really sounds like being forced out to me.
And even when he decided, a couple of months later, to come back, Thompson, McCarthy and Mark Murphy were on board. They even had the plane ready to head down to Mississippi to make a group announcement. It was only then, when Judas again backed out, that they finally washed their hands of him. How could they not?
If anything, he was the one doing the forcing. After all, he was the one who decided to fly back the night of the “Family Night” scrimmage in an attempt to force the team’s hand to either trade him or bench promising young starter Aaron Rodgers. Scumbag.
None of these are things you or I could get away with at our jobs. Why should he? You think he’s just like you. Remember, he is nothing like you.
- You think it reflects poorly on us as a fan base.
My response: Um…how? Even if you don’t hate him, remember this: He’ll be quarterbacking the offense for the team that’s ahead of the Packers in the NFC North in a game that Green Bay must win in order to stay in the divisional race.
That should be enough to change your mind right there.
If it isn’t, remember that, by booing him, you’re also showing your support for YOUR TEAM. Don’t you want to do that? Don’t you want it to be hard for him to get the snap counts off? Do you care about any of this stuff?
By making it loud, you can give the Packers’ defense a decided advantage, just as the Vikings had in the Dome in the first game. Those things matter. They can directly impact who wins and loses the game.
Imagine a victorious Judas standing at the podium for his press conference, thanking the Packers’ fans for being so classy and not booing him. Makes you ill, doesn’t it?
I’d rather be a winning scumbag than a classy loser any day of the week. But, hey, that’s just me.
- You think we should show him that we appreciate all the good things he did for us.
My response: You’re partially right. He did do a lot of good things for us. Gave us some really nice memories. I can’t deny you there. But what I can say is that we did a lot of good things for him, too.
We supported him in his times of need, when his dad died and his wife got sick. We went to his stupid charity softball games and ate at his stupid steakhouse. By buying his jerseys and other assorted merchandise, we made him rich beyond his wildest dreams. That was us.
By saying you want to show him you appreciate him by not booing, you sound like a pathetic recently jilted lover who sees their ex and responds, not with anger, but with apathy.
“Yeah, I don’t like what (he or she) did, but we sure had some great times together. I can’t forget that.”
If that was a friend of yours, what would you say? You’d respond by telling that person to quit being so pathetic. You’d tell them that anger is healthy. You’d tell them that it’s okay to tell their ex to eff off if the ex WALKS INTO THEIR HOUSE.
Well, that’s what’s going to happen Sunday. He’s going to walk into your house.
And it’s not only your right, but your responsibility to boo the piss out of him every single moment he’s on the field. Let him know that you root for teams, not players. You root for honor and honesty. You root for Aaron Rodgers, not him, because his time has come and gone and it’s Rodgers’ turn now.
More than anything, though, you boo because he damn well better know that you root for the Green Bay Packers.
And he isn’t one of us anymore. Make sure he knows that Sunday.
-Chris Lempesis of Ol' Bag of Dounuts
