Larry Brown Sports

If the Packers played their best ball against the Giants in the playoffs last season, Clay Matthews thinks Green Bay would have won the game. That may be true, but that doesn’t mean New York didn’t earn the victory. On Tuesday, Matthews told Yahoo! Sports that the Packers “beat ourselves” and that it was not the Giants who beat them. It should come as absolutely no surprise that Justin Tuck disagrees with that assessment.

“Obviously you’d believe that success would breed reality, right?” Tuck said before practice Wednesday according to the NY Daily News. “I guess people love living in Fantasy Land and want to make excuses for the situation.

“Thank you for giving us the game, Clay. I appreciate it a lot. Did they play their best ball? I don’t know. But we won the football game. Talk is cheap. Play the game. We’ll see Green Bay again this year so we will see who lays down that week.”

While I have never been a big fan of Tuck and and his typical trash talk, I tend to agree with him in this situation. Any team could claim they are a better team that simply beat themselves. It’s a cop-out. Did the Packers play their best ball that day? No, but that doesn’t mean the Giants didn’t beat them. As Tuck went on to say, New York forced them into bad situations.

“When they fumbled the ball, I think it was us that stripped it out,” explained according to ESPNNewYork.com. “We sacked them. I think it was us who beat their O-linemen and got to (Aaron) Rodgers. So I don’t think they just Ole’d everything and gave us the game. I think they were trying to win.”

While the concept of winning vs. not losing is something that Tuck himself has talked about before, it’s not like the Giants were a fluke. They went on to overcome arguably the best defense in the NFL in beating the Niners and the best offense in beating the Patriots. Nothing was handed to New York. Matthews is simply making himself feel better about a tough loss.

Photo credit: Jim O’Connor-US PRESSWIRE

Last week we shared with you an awesome photo depicting a little kid with a glorious spiky-haired mullet, making one of those cheesy poses that only happen in child portraits. The photo went viral likely because it was purportedly of Clay Matthews in kindergarten. We assumed as much because that’s what Matthews himself shared on Twitter without any hint to the truth. Welp, evidently we were had by a (poorly executed) joke.

As The Post Game points out, the photo is indeed not of the strapping Packers linebacker but rather of a young Justin “The American Kidd” Lawrence, a 22-year-old MMA fighter who recently competed in the most recent season of “The Ultimate Fighter.” Check out Lawrence’s Facebook page for an up-close-and-personal look at the mullet in all of its glory. In our original post, we said the photo should qualify Matthews as a first-ballot mullet hall-of-famer. Looks like that honor now goes to Lawrence.

Anyway, on Thursday, Matthews finally set the record straight, saying “check your facts” and sharing this awesome photo of him as a youngin’:

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Clay Matthews is known for those long, golden locks of his that spill out of the bottom of his helmet on Sundays. They’ve become such a trademark for Matthews that they’ve even secured him hair-product endorsements. But as it turns out, long hair is a look Matthews even had during his youth. Only back then the look was part of tremendous spikey-haired mullet:

Matthews shared the above photo of him in kindergarten on Twitter on Saturday. Everything about it — the hair, the tucked-in shirt, the pose, the autumn leaves — is awesome. I think this qualifies Matthews for a first-ballot mullet hall-of-famer.

UPDATE: Matthews later said that was not him in the picture. It’s actually of MMA fighter Justin Lawrence. Still funny.

Photo via @claymatthews52

When Rod Tidwell was hoping to make it big in the NFL, scoring an endorsement deal with Depends was not on his list of dreams. But that doesn’t mean some of today’s star players are too cool to endorse an adult diaper.

Wes Welker, DeMarcus Ware, and Clay Matthews all participated in a Depends commercial to promote the “Real Fit for men” diaper. Depends is running a “Great American Try-on” campaign, and as Adam Rank of NFL.com points out, the campaign is in support of the V Foundation.

It’s pretty cool that these guys are risking ridicule to endorse a product that is typically considered embarrassing. Now that these studs are wearing diapers, how could anyone be too embarrassed to give them a try?

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers appears to have been living it up ever since leading his team to a Super Bowl victory over the Steelers and grabbing MVP honors with an outstanding game. First he went to Disneyworld, then he appeared with his celebrity crush Ellen for an interview, and most recently he was at an Oscars party taking pictures with Stacy Keibler and meeting Mila Kunis. Oh yeah, that was all before leaving the same party with “girlfriend” Jessica Szohr.

PICTURES: Aaron Rodgers with Stacy Keibler

We said Rodgers appeared to be doing what any Super Bowl MVP would do — leveraging the popularity into media appearances and meetings with hot girls. Teammate Clay Matthews took note and ribbed Rodgers for the exact same thing, as I learned via Adam Rank at NFL.com. Matthews joked with Rodgers on twitter saying “Is it true ur dating Mila Kunis!? Ur so Hollywood bro!!”

SEE: Clay Matthews gives Rodgers his championship belt

Rodgers responded by saying “if by dating u mean met for the first time the other night, then yes. Uve changed bro. Ur so socal now.” Maybe the socal jab was a reference to Matthews being like the Hollywood paparazzi and bringing up the Mila Kunis thing, but it’s clear they were just messing with one another.

Everything seems like it’s in good fun, and I trust that of all athletes Aaron Rodgers is one who can remain level-headed despite his surge in popularity; think about the type of character he has to have endured the Brett Favre drama and thrived. But much like Adam Rank pointed out at NFL.com, they need to remember what kind of focus it took to reach the Super Bowl. Somehow I don’t think partying it up was part of the recipe. (Or maybe they know there will be a lockout and they’re not concerned).

Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews started off the season on fire, registering three sacks in each of the team’s first two games. His torrid pace to begin the year had us wondering if he could break Michael Strahan’s single-season record, but alas the linebacker fell short. Around the beginning of the season when Matthews was receiving intense media exposure, he mentioned that having a blond wig available to fans would be cool.

Envisioning a product similar to the Manny Ramirez dreadlock wigs that became popular in LA, I inquired with the Packers’ promotion department to see if they might create something similar. I was told that they were “looking at options” but that they had “to balance individual vs team” when making their decisions. To my knowledge, a Clay Matthews wig never appeared, making it clear they decided not to go with such a promotion despite Clay’s interest.

Several months later, Matthews got his wish of having his hair promoted.

The second-year linebacker signed a deal with Suave hair products to rival what Steelers defensive star Troy Polamalu has done with Head and Shoulders. You’ll notice that Matthews’ deal was arranged through his marketing agent, not the Packers, which isn’t too surprising.

Though the team could receive criticism for not promoting the players in a fun manner such as the way Matthews desired, how can one argue with their values and results? The Cincinnati Bengals have two of the most self-promotional players in the league on their squad and were one of the worst teams. Green Bay meanwhile focuses on promoting the Packers brand and organization, and they’ve made it to the Super Bowl. There’s a reason they and the Steelers are combining to form a Super Bowl so rich in history — they each have similar team values.

We praised Aaron Rodgers for his magnificent performance against the Falcons on Saturday in the playoffs, as did his coaches and teammates. But it’s not all love for Rodgers the day after his big game. Pro Football Talk posted a video of Packers fans who showed up at the airport to see the team off Friday, hoping for autographs.

To summarize what happened, Aaron Rodgers ignored breast cancer patient Jan Cavanaugh who came straight from a radiation treatment hoping for an autograph. Linebacker Clay Matthews made up for the disappointment as much as possible, stopping to sign and chat with the woman. Here’s the video that was pulled from WBAY’s website but was transferred to YouTube:

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