For a change, they didn't flinch at the film Monday. But neither did they strut around following their biggest rout in 39 years, a 52-3 pasting of the New Orleans Saints.
"You still realize you're 1-4, you're not anywhere you need to be," offensive lineman Mark Tauscher said. "Right now, things are much rosier than they were two days ago. But you also have to look at the big picture."
"That's the good thing about this team -- nobody's overconfident, thinking we're world-beaters," Tauscher said. "But now, we're also not thinking that we're the scum of the Earth and we can't beat anybody."
With that much youth, coach Mike Sherman was starting to wonder if the message of positivity wouldn't soon fall on deaf ears if the Packers didn't stop their nosedive.
"I'm constantly trying to remind these guys to trust the process and trust me and the coaches and the veteran players (and) ... we'll get out of this little funk that we're in," Sherman said. "Well, winning this game helps validate that to a degree. But it is one ballgame, we have a lot of football left to play."
Brett Favre was also getting worried as he experienced a winless first month for the first time in his career: "If you keep losing, at some point I'm sure you start losing guys. They start saying, 'I see no results.' I was getting concerned, as I was last year, that if we don't turn this around at some point, eventually it just becomes talk."
"(Sunday) was huge. Our confidence was at an all-time low and I think the important thing is you have to know you can win. That's something you can't practice. You have to go out and win a game and get that confidence and know how it feels," Tauscher said. "And being as young as we are, those things are important. Just to get guys having a smile around here and the environment changing I think is huge."
The Packers recovered from a similar 1-4 start last year to finish 10-6 and reach the playoffs. With a roster full of rookies and their depth damaged by injuries, they're not talking postseason again just yet, but they do realize that in the muddled NFC North they're not out of anything.
"We're not sticking our chests out, just like we weren't holding our heads down after the losses," wide receiver Robert Ferguson said. "We still have a lot of stuff to improve on. The value of it is just showing what can happen if we go out there and perform the way we did."
Their bye week will be more palatable having finally won a game in which they scored 31 points off five takeaways, capped by linebacker Nick Barnett's 95-yard interception touchdown return.
"Oh my gosh, fourth quarter, I think it was an eight-play, nine-play drive," Barnett said. "When I got to that 20 it felt like that ball weighed 200 pounds."
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