Joyner Has His Big Chance Now Green Bay Linebacker Yearns For A Crack At The Super Bowl

Seth Joyner quit watching Super Bowls long ago.

The Green Bay Packers linebacker, among the league’s best defenders for more than a decade, couldn’t stand being in front of his television for the biggest game of the year. But last season Joyner made an exception.

Reggie White and Keith Jackson of the Packers and New England’s Keith Byars, whom he played with in Philadelphia, were going for the ring they all thought they’d be wearing with Buddy Ryan’s Eagles in the 1980s.

So Joyner pulled up a chair.

When it was over and White was running around the Superdome with the Lombardi Trophy held high, Joyner was back in Paradise Valley, Ariz.

“I love all those guys like they’re my brothers, so I was happy for them, very happy,” Joyner said. “I was also very envious.”

Joyner’s career was languishing with the Arizona Cardinals and he figured his hopes for a title were over.

“For every team there’s a small window of opportunity to get it done,” the 33-year-old linebacker said. “I knew the year when Randall Cunningham got hurt our window of opportunity just closed in Philadelphia. It was done.”

Philadelphia qualified for the playoffs four times in Joyner’s eight seasons there, and it only got worse in Phoenix, where three seasons ended nowhere near the postseason.

“In Arizona, I was in a box room with no windows,” Joyner said.

But now the sun is shining through his window of opportunity.

Joyner joined the Packers last summer after getting dumped by the Cardinals in a cost-cutting move.

Although he missed the first five games following arthroscopic knee surgery, Joyner has played a key role in Green Bay’s surge to the NFC championship at San Francisco on Sunday.

The Packers traded Wayne Simmons to Kansas City on Oct. 7 to open a starting spot for him. After getting acclimated to Fritz Shurmur’s defensive schemes, Joyner began to make a regular contribution as a pass rusher, either as a blitzer from the outside or as a down lineman on the interior.

“Seth’s got a real good command of what we’re trying to do defensively,” Shurmur said. “I think we’re seeing him play a lot looser and as a result, making a lot of plays.”

And Joyner is finally back on the playoff stage, where he’s at his best.

“To have to play in the last four, almost five years of my career without getting into the playoffs has been very difficult,” Joyner said. “Once you get a taste of that, it’s like a wild animal that eats berries all his life and all of a sudden he gets a taste of blood. Now, all of a sudden, berries won’t satisfy his hunger.”

Joyner knows this might be his last shot at the Super Bowl. His salary cap figure of $400,000 this year jumps to $2.2 million next season, and he realizes the Packers might not be willing to spend that kind of money.

“I’ve got a great hunger to get to the Super Bowl because I’ve never experienced it,” Joyner said. “My hunger is a tad big stronger than most guys on this team because they got that ring already. And there definitely isn’t a whole lot of time left for me.”