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Players Enjoying The Ride

Veteran wide receiver Donald Driver said he is just fine with people not referring to him the team’s all-time leading receiver anymore.

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Driver still has more receptions than anyone else in franchise history, but like all the other players Green Bay's roster, he has a new title attached to his name that he thinks he will get used to.

"Walking around, now people are looking at you and saying you are the Super Bowl champs," Driver said. "That's a little bit more special than just being the all-time Packers leading receiver.

"It's still a blur. It's truly a blessing, but guys right now are just taking it all in. I think in the next couple of days it will settle in when you start traveling, going back home, and people are saying you are the champ. I think that is when it is really going to settle in and know that you are sitting on top of the world right now."

When the Packers took the field for the 'Return to Titletown' celebration on Tuesday afternoon in front of a sold-out Lambeau Field, they were less than 48 hours removed from their 31-25 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV at Cowboys Stadium.

"Right now it's still kind of surreal," linebacker Desmond Bishop said. "I feel like I am dreaming. Like somebody pinch me, wake me up. This can't really be happening. It is. It's real. It's a great feeling. It's a high that you never want to come down from."

A pair of Green Bay's veterans, cornerback Charles Woodson and defensive end Ryan Pickett, were the only players on the roster that had played in a Super Bowl prior to Sunday, and both of them had come up short in their respective opportunities with Oakland and St. Louis. Running back John Kuhn was the only one who could lay claim to a Super Bowl title prior to Sunday, but that came as a member of Pittsburgh's practice squad in 2005.

"This is my first one, so you never know what the experience is going to be," Driver said. "But it's been a great experience, it's been a great ride, and to come in here and see from the beginning when we got off that plane yesterday to today, you saw how much our fans loved us. We showed our fans how much we loved them by bringing the Vince Lombardi Trophy back home.

"I feel truly amazed and truly blessed now to say I am part of greatness. I am part of a great tradition here. To be able to look back on my career, I've been able to look at those walls and see all of the people that won the championship before me. Now I get the opportunity to be on that wall with those guys. It's truly a blessing."

Change is inevitable in the National Football League, and there is no doubt that the Packers' roster will look different next season like every other team's in the league. There is some uncertainty surrounding the league's collective bargaining agreement, and the Packers have players entering free agency along with a new draft class coming in.

"We've just got to grab onto those young guys and just really harp on them on how we work here, how we take part in the classroom, how we study when we go home, how we study film, how we study our opponent," defensive back Jarrett Bush said. "Just get them into our chemistry, how we do things around here a certain way. If we do that, hopefully they have that mind to mold and they should do just fine."

In the locker room following the celebration and during the event, talk of offseason workouts and winning another Super Bowl was already being bandied about.

"I think it's important for everybody to take a little bit of time and really let it soak in because it was a long season," Kuhn said. "It was 24 games, including the preseason, so you have to enjoy it somewhat. We'll be hearing from the coaches on when to start getting ready for next season, that I can promise you."

For now, they can focus on everything they accomplished this season, which included overcoming injuries, winning six do-or-die games to end their season, three on the road in the playoffs as they became only the second No. 6 seed ever to win a Super Bowl. The team photo of the 2010 Green Bay Packers will go up alongside the other three Super Bowl-winning teams in franchise history, a place they will always hold.

"Just the fact that people call us 'champ,'" Bishop said. "You have to respect that and that goes down in history forever. Before the game, our speech was 'outlive your life,' and in a way we did that.

"A hundred years from now when none of us is here, they are still going to remember the 2010 Packers as winning the Super Bowl."

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