Green Bay, WI -- After a season where everything seemed to be trending the right direction for the Green Bay Packers, a season where they seemed destined to get over the hump and finally get back to a Super Bowl, it all came crashing down in front of a small yet vocal Lambeau Field crowd on Sunday. Final score: Tampa Bay 31, Green Bay 26.
The game was billed as a showdown of two of the greatest quarterbacks to play the game with Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers finally getting to do battle in the postseason. However, the story of the game may have been a brutal sequence of events for Green Bay to end the first half and to begin the second half, digging a hole the team ultimately could not dig out of.
A 39 yard pass from Brady to young receiver, Scotty Miller, with one second left in the first half gave Tampa Bay a 21-10 lead. Then, Packers' Pro Bowl running back, Aaron Jones, fumbled the ball back to Tampa Bay on the first drive of the second half and the Buccaneers scored on the very next play to go up 28-10 and putting the game out of reach.
Rodgers threw a pair of touchdown passes (one to emerging tight end, Robert Tonyan and the other to All-Pro wideout, Davante Adams) in the third quarter to get Green Bay back in the game but some interesting coaching decisions and some questionable officiating down the stretch proved to be too much to overcome.
With the win, the Buccaneers move on and will become the first team in NFL history to host a Super Bowl.
Hear the Green and Gold Post Game Show below!