The Green Bay Packers are a wildly popular pick to emerge as this year’s NFC representative in Super Bowl XLV, and Packers linebacker Nick Barnett is unsurprisingly on the bandwagon.
Barnett appeared on NFL Network’s Total Access program Friday night. Though Barnett admitted that “every year I think we’re going to the Super Bowl,” Green Bay’s leading tackler segued Jamie Dukes’ question about the Packers’ first-half egg-laying in January’s playoff loss into a prediction that the game “is just going to make our Super Bowl run that much sweeter [this] year.”
Barnett gave his opinion on what went wrong in Green Bay’s thrilling but ultimately season-ending, 51-45 postseason loss to Arizona.
“We run that game over and over in our head,” he said. “And to be honest with you I think Kurt Warner was just on that time. We made some mistakes, but you know he picked it apart. When a quarterback’s on like that he sees a mistake and ... attacks it, there’s not too much you can do.”
The Packers led the NFC in total defense during the 2009 regular season, so their early meltdown in the game was shocking. The Cardinals jumped out to a 17-0 first-quarter lead, and, despite some heroics from quarterback Aaron Rodgers, the Packers would never jump out in front.