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Thursday, November 20, 1997

Cowboys weigh heavy on Packers

By Frank Luksa

The Dallas Morning News

(KRT)

GREEN BAY - Midweek darkness had descended outside but inside the Green Bay Packers' office of Ron Wolf, the lights were still on. Maybe this is when the team's executive vice president and general manager hatches his best ideas.

He's has some good ones. Good enough to transform a once-mighty, turned-dowdy franchise into a Super Bowl champion within five years. Yet even then, not better than those wretched Cowboys who left a 21-6 regular season smear on Green Bay's world title schedule.

"There are those who say beating the Cowboys has become an obsession, but I don't buy that," Wolf said. "However, it is a 400-pound gorilla on your back that you'd like to have removed."

Lifting the burden of eight consecutive losses to the Cowboys - seven under Wolf's regime since 1991 - will be Green Bay's objective Sunday at Lambeau Field. The game has reached mythical proportions here, to be climaxed with a Saturday night bonfire of Cowboys-related items outside a sports bar. Perhaps inside, too.

"This is a huge game for us," Wolf understated.

Wolf has molded the Packers for this moment since arriving near to the day, six years ago from the New York Jets. He inherited a 4-12 team, players who'd produced only four winning seasons in the past 24 years and a franchise that won its last world title in 1967. At 51, Wolf assumed control of Tumbledown-Town.

"I didn't think anyone my age would get a chance to run a club," he recalled. "But they gave me carte blanche on personnel decisions, and to hire anyone. If I didn't make a success, there was one person to blame: Me."

Now there is one person most responsible for reviving the Packers: Him. Wolf's major decisions were his best. He hired Mike Holmgren from San Francisco to coach, stole Brett Favre from Atlanta in a trade and wooed free agent Reggie White to Green Bay.

The Favre deal went down badly at first with locals, Wolf remembered: "I was the idiot that traded a No. 1 draft choice for a No. 2 whose only reputation was drinking beer, and who had zero completions in five passing attempts."

Wolf also is a master of lesser deals. Desmond Howard, first-round bust at Washington, and Andre Rison, brilliant but troublesome receiver, rewarded Wolf's judgment last year. Howard scored five touchdowns on returns, including a Super Bowl icing 99-yard kickoff runback. Midseason pickup Rison caught Favre's first TD pass of 54 yards against New England. After which, Wolf let both go.

Wolf has reached all of his original objectives except the one within reach Sunday: Beating Dallas.

"I wanted to make this a tough place to play. We've accomplished that," he said, referring to a 21-game winning streak at home. "We wanted to beat San Francisco in San Francisco. We've done that (27-17 in '95). But we've never done the other thing."

Wolf denied that defeating the Cowboys had become a personal issue.

"There's nothing personal except I'd like to beat these guys," he said. "I don't think they regard us as any challenge. There's really no reason for them to have any concern for us. They just keep beating us.

"As far as me walking around 364 days of the year worrying about the Cowboys, I don't. I respect the 49ers and Cowboys. Everyone in the NFC has to do that. We're up where they are, but to stay there, we have to defeat the Cowboys."

Is this Packers' team good enough to do it?

"It's easy for the two of us to sit here and talk about it," Wolf replied from behind his desk. "Those are idle words. Idle rhetoric. They're meaningless until we do it."

Fumes from a 41-38 upset in Indianapolis clung to the Green Bay exec. The memory rankled enough to make Wolf wonder about his team's all-the-way potential.

"There are no given Sundays to me. You're supposed to win games like that if you're a champion," he said. Hence, a frown over the approach of the stronger Cowboys.

"They have as good people as we will play this year. Start with Michael Irvin. You have to start with Irvin. He can dominate a game. He's dominated us," Wolf said. "They still have (Larry) Allen and (Erik) Williams, formidable guys, and Troy Aikman who never hits the ground when we play them. They don't have (Daryl) Johnston, but I don't know what that means."

Wolf does know what beating Dallas would mean to him, the city and team: Blessed relief from the weight of a 400-pound gorilla.

(Frank Luksa is a sports columnist for the Dallas Morning News. Write to him at: Dallas Morning News, Communications Center, Dallas, Texas 75265.)