Green Bay Packers: Top 5 Weird and Controversial Moments

From the beginning of the franchise to the present day, the Super Bowl-champion Green Bay Packers have had their share of weird and controversial moments.

As one of the oldest athletic clubs in professional sports, the Packers have been there and done it all.

Though we do not necessarily think of the Packers as a franchise that has been plagued by controversial  and weird moments, they have had provided us with some of the most interesting stories in professional sports.

These stories have resulted in the standardization of goal posts throughout the league and the first-ever ejections for fighting during a game.

The Packers have always been a team synonymous with the history of the NFL. In this case, they are also responsible for some of the weirdest and most controversial moments in NFL history.

On to the show.

Nick Barnett Becomes the Tackled

In a 2007 Week 16 blowout of the Packers by the Bears, one of the weirdest moments in Nick Barnett's career occurred.

Barnett went from being the tackler to the tackled.

After a simple running play ended in a tiny scuffle, referee Jim Quirk came up behind Barnett and effectively pulled a takedown move on him. Quirk aggressively grabbed Barnett around the neck and fell to the ground, pulling Barnett along with him. Barnett ended up laying on top of Quirk.

Quirk's reaction appeared entirely unnecessary when replays showed that Barnett was just struggling to get up off of the ground. As Mike McCarthy stated later in a press conference "I'll tell you what, I've never seen anything like that in all my years... I didn't see all of it but I saw the end of it. I thought it was totally unprofessional."

Barnett ended up getting his revenge on Quirk, as the NFL later fined Quirk $8,150 for inappropriate contact

Terrell Davis Walks in

It's the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XXXII. The Denver Broncos have 2nd down on Green Bay's 1-yard line. The game is tied 24-24 with 1:45 remaining.

Terrell Davis takes the handoff, cuts right, and finds a hole through which you could drive a Mack truck.

Just over a minute later, Brett Favre's pass falls incomplete at the feet of Packer tight end Mark Chmura. Game over. Broncos win.

Why was it so easy for Davis? Because Packer coach Mike Holmgren decided that it would be best for the Broncos to score and leave the Packers with almost a minute and half to drive down the field and tie the game. A sound strategy, if it was first down.

After the game, upon being told that it was actually second down when Davis ran the ball in, Holmgren stated "Second-and-goal from the 1? If that was the case then we made a mistake."

It certainly seems that it would have been smart to let the Broncos score quickly and keep time on the clock. However, scoring a touchdown in a minute and half is much harder then kicking a field goal. The final Packer's drive stalled at the Broncos 31.

Had they been down only a field goal, the Packers would have had a chance to tie the game up, and perhaps eventually win Super Bowl XXXII

Special Teams Snafu

In Week 3 of the current season, the Packers and Bears faced off for the 183rd time.The Packers would eventually win 27-17.

While the game was certainly notable for historical reasons, it will probably also be remembered for one of the most unusual special team's plays in recent history.

Late in the fourth quarter, the Bears trail the Packers 27-17. After forcing the Packers to punt, the Bears' Devin Hester goes back deep to receive the kick. The ball is snapped and kicked deep. Standing near his own 20, Hester calls for a fair catch. Unbeknownst to all of the Packers players sprinting towards Hester, he is not about to catch the ball.

On the other side of the field, Johnny Knox catches the ball and races 89 yards for a touchdown. Unfortunately for the Bears, a holding call erases the touchdown. The Packers go on to win the game by the same score.

The play was ingeniously developed, and the only reason that it didn't work was because of a controversial holding call on the play. Chicago Bears defensive coordinator Dave Toub went so far as to state that he would use the play against other teams, even though most of them will now probably have prepared for it going into a game versus the Bears.

Packers and Bears KO Each Other

The history between the Chicago Bears and the Packers stretches back a very long time. It is an extremely bitter and intense rivalry, so not suprisingly, one of the first ejections in an NFL game involved these two teams.

In a 1924 game that the Bears eventually won 3-0, the Bears' Frank Hanny and the Packers' Walter Voss earned the distinction of becoming the first players ever thrown out of an NFL game for fighting.

The two players had exchanged verbal punches for most of the first half before it finally boiled over into a full-on brawl. The two players were then ejected. Interestingly enough, two years later, Hanny was ejected once again in a game versus Green Bay.

It's Good... No, It's Not

In 1965 the Packers won their ninth NFL Championship. And one of the most controversial calls in NFL history occurred in the Western Conference Playoff game.

The Packers trail the Baltimore Colts 10-7 with less then two minutes remaining, and the Packers drive into field-goal range. Don Chandler, the Packers' kicker, takes the kick and puts it high over the upright. While many spectators think the kick misses, the referees signal that it is good.

Chandler later hits a field goal in overtime to win the game for the Packers, 13-10. Green Bay goes on to defeat the Cleveland Browns in the championship game.

Goal posts were standardized following the 1965 season. The uprights were to stretch 20 feet above the crossbar and be between 3 to 4 inches in diameter.

Though NFL officials denied it, the height increase of the uprights was a reaction to the 1965 NFL Western Conference Playoff game, and later came to be known as the "Don Chandler Rule."