Undoubtedly, Sunday was the best GM/Head Coach Mike Sherman has felt walking into Lambeau Field's media auditorium for a post-game press conference this season.
When he entered the room after the Packers' 41-20 win over the Dallas Cowboys, Sherman stepped to the microphone for the first time after a win on the team's home field in four tries in 2004.
The coach gave the 70,679 in attendance credit for helping to spur the Packers on to victory when he was asked about the feeling of putting up a 'W' at home.
"It feels like it's long overdue," Sherman said. "As I told the players, we should expect this because we should expect to win at home even though we had a very worthy opponent today. Any day in front of our crowd in our stadium, we expect to win. Our fans today were phenomenal. They were there in voice. You could hear them, you could feel them. They were as much a part to do with this as anything. I'm happy that we were able to send them home with a win."
As the team put up big numbers on offense for the second consecutive week (they hung 38 points on the Detroit Lions last Sunday), Sherman who took over the play-calling duties before last Sunday's win, credited the players as well as offensive coordinator Tom Rossley with helping him push all the right buttons.
"Trust me, it's not the plays, it's the players making plays," Sherman said. "When they go out and make plays and throws and catches and runs and blocks, it's easy to call the game."
While play-calling may seem to be a breeze for Sherman, he said that choosing the right play from the chart is no simple task.
"It's not easy, I'll tell you. (Calling plays) is a grind. Tom Rossley did a great job in his supporting role today. When I needed a play he was right there with one, and good ones. The halfback pass (Tony Fisher's eight-yard touchdown toss to Bubba Franks) was Tom Rossley's call."
Sherman feels that what the team has shown on the field the past two Sundays is the Green Bay Packers team that everyone had been expecting all season.
"I think we're coming into our own a little bit," said the coach. "I wish we could have come into our own sooner, but we made some strides today converting 9 out 12 third downs. Certainly when you do that and you're pretty good in the end zone, you're going to score points and move the football."
While back-to-back wins certainly go a long way to improving the mood around 1265 Lombardi Avenue, the man in charge knows that there is still much work to be done to overcome the team's slow start.
Sherman was asked if he took any comfort in the fact that after seven games in 2003, the Packers stood at 3-4 and were able to go on to capture the NFC North division title.
"I don't know that there's any comfort involved with regard to what we haven't done this year," Sherman replied. "There's comfort to know that we've won our last two and we're getting better and there's a good chemistry in the locker room. I look at our team when we were having that rough stretch when we were 1-4 - we're still in the hole, we're still climbing our way out, don't get me wrong, we've got a long ways to go - but if we didn't have the right guys in the locker room then, we wouldn't be able to win today or last week and hopefully in the future. I credit the leadership in the locker room the men that keep things together, because it's not fun to live in Green Bay, Wisconsin when you're 1-4."
Sherman looks forward to many more happy post-game visits with the media this season, and if the Packers' performance over the past two weeks is any indication, he should be getting just that.
