*The Green Bay Packers entire coaching staff was in Hawaii last week to coach the NFC squad to a 42-30 victory in the Pro Bowl. Including Head Coach Mike McCarthy, only four members of the coaching staff had coached at the Pro Bowl before.
Among those new to the experience was offensive coordinator Joe Philbin, and he chronicled some of the happenings in Honolulu in this Packers.com diary. Here is the third and final installment:*
Scoring 42 points and winning the game was fun to see. Obviously there's a lot of talented players on that roster, so it certainly wasn't hard dialing up a couple of plays. Anywhere you turn, if you ran the ball you had pretty good options, and if you threw the ball you had good options. Obviously the running back (Minnesota's Adrian Peterson, the game MVP) was outstanding.
I thought the three quarterbacks all did a good job running the offense. We had a tipped pass here or an interception there, but all in all I thought those guys all really played well. (Tampa Bay's) Jeff Garcia is a real pro. A guy that's probably not physically the most gifted player in the NFL, but I really like the way he goes about his business and the way he handles himself. He's a real professional guy, and he played really well on Sunday. It was fun to watch him operate and talk to him a little bit.
The offensive line gave good protection, and those linemen for the Vikings, (Steve) Hutchinson and (Matt) Birk, they were the first two guys in the meeting every day. Even though the meetings weren't high-pressure, if they were supposed to be somewhere, they were professional. You're not surprised how things correlate in terms of how they conduct themselves in the meetings, on the field, you watch them with their families. They're class individuals, and it's not surprising they do things right in every area.
All the scoring had nothing to do with the play-calling. When you've got those kinds of weapons, it's not hard to call a couple of plays. Pretty much everything is going to have a chance. We only lined up to punt once, and Coach Stock had a great fake in there. Other than the two turnovers, we put the ball in the end zone the other six times we had the ball, so that was satisfying. Even on that last touchdown, the game was kind of on the line and could have gone either way, and they punched one in there with a couple minutes to go. That was a big drive.
It was fun. It's always more fun to win. It doesn't matter what the stakes are. The ride home is better, everything is better.
Our guys, Chad Clifton and Donald Driver, did fine. Chad rolled through at right tackle. We'll have to kid him now that we know he's such a good right tackle. He did a solid job. 'Drive' did some of the stuff he always does, getting yards after the catch. He made that great catch on an over route, late in the game in the fourth quarter, it was a real nice diving catch. He did the steady, dependable stuff you can always count on from him.
The family continued to enjoy the trip right up until we left. We went snorkeling on Friday, and then after the game, before we left on Sunday night, we went up to the North Shore and watched guys do some surfing. We had gone up to the North Shore earlier in the week, but the waves weren't real big. Then we found a nice restaurant Sunday right on the water and watched guys surf, and that's how we ended the trip. It was a great family trip.
I didn't have much culture shock, coming back to the sub-zero temps in Wisconsin. The older you get, you kind of like your own bed. The only thing I struggled with was the time change. I never quite got used to that. I was up rolling around at 3:30 or 4 in the morning. But I like my bed at home, and it was about time to get back. Maybe my kids had some culture shock having to get off to school this morning, but it was time to come home.
