Competitive Intelligence

Packer’s Best Carolina 24-14 in Season Opener

In what was a fun season opener, our beloved Green Bay Packers saw in Brett Favre’s rusty start to his last Monday Night Football appearance an upset as the Packer’s beat the defending NFC champion Panthers on their home turf.

The Green Bay Packers dealt the Carolina Panthers the kind of defeat now familiar to Super Bowl losers.

Ahman Green ran up, down and all over the defending NFC champion Panthers, scoring three touchdowns to lead Green Bay to a 24-14 victory Monday night. That made Carolina the sixth straight team to lose in the Super Bowl and drop its ensuing season opener.

"I was surprised at how well we ran the ball," quarterback Brett Favre said. "Our philosophy is we'll wear you down before you wear us down."

The Packers could have had that chance in January, if not for Favre's errant final pass on his first snap in overtime of the divisional playoffs. The pass was intercepted and set up Philadelphia's winning field goal.

Carolina then beat the Eagles to advance to the first Super Bowl in team history.

But the Panthers looked nothing like that team on Monday night.

As Favre said before the game, anything less than the Super Bowl this season is a failure. We’ll see how they do at home against Chicago’s Bears this Sunday… if they get too cocky (i.e., fall victim to forced turnovers) they’re liable to lose.

- Arik