Jim O'Donnell: Should Aaron Rodgers have waved off the field goal unit?
AARON RODGERS HAD ONE brief, beckoning moment last Sunday to forever enter the American sports contrarian Valhalla.
It came on that now notorious fourth-and-goal vs. Tampa Bay.
The Packers were trailing 31-23, at home, against an underdog Buccaneers band that was holding on by the grasping fingertips of its defense.
There was 2:09 remaining. Only one team was going to Super Bowl 55.
It didn't take J.K. Rowling to imagine that the spirits of Lombardi and Starr and Favre were suddenly pottering above the winter air of Lambeau Field.
And with a sense of possible "NFL moment" at hand that Pete Rozelle and Cameron Crowe could only have dreamed about, mousy Matt LaFleur - the Packers half-cooked head coach - instead sent out his field goal unit.
Rodgers should have held his ground and, with great green-and-bold animation, waved them back.
LaFleur could have only responded with either mute acquiescence or a timeout.
In a timeout, the animation would have shifted to the Green Bay sideline.
There it would have been Rodgers' 37-year-old competitive football genius debating the win instincts of a 41-year-old coach still in championship development.
In the movie, Rodgers prevails. The Packers score, make the 2-point conversion and wind up winning the trip to SB 55.
In real life, they kicked the field goal and lost due to LaFleur's burp-toed timidity.
Now there are a lot of semantics floating around diminished "Titletown U.S.A." this week.
Packers president Mark Murphy said that Rodgers will "absolutely' be back next season.
Of his future, the GB QB has somewhat tempered his "beautiful mystery" remark.
The real-time pragmatism is:
Rodgers is a fool if he stays in the Green Bay of LaFleur and general manager Brian Gutekunst. They've already got Jordan Love revved up to be the braunschweigered Mitch Trubisky.
Tom Brady continues to lay out the template for what a duly diligent champion-in-autumn can most proactively get done.
Rodgers would be a very good fit in Indianapolis. He would be a dream drop-in with the Los Angeles Rams.
He'll watch the Super Bowl somewhere comfortable - perchance to scheme.
The enduring mantra of Tampa Bay head coach Bruce Arians remains: "No risk it, no biscuit."
That of metric-trapped Matt LaFleur must be, "Why risk it, just kick it."
Vince Lombardi would have bellowed him all the way to Appleton and beyond.
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• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.