GREEN BAY, Wis. – The good news is the Green Bay Packers have experienced so many thrills of victory that they’ve reached the playoffs most seasons. The bad news is the Packers have felt the sting of so many agonizing defeats.

Right when you think the Packers can’t possibly find new and horrible ways to lose, they prove you wrong.

Saturday night’s NFC wild-card game was a meltdown of monumental proportions. The Packers led 21-3 at halftime, 21-6 entering the fourth quarter and 27-16 with 6 1/2 minutes to go but lost 31-27.

But because the Packers have perfected the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, that’s not even the worst playoff loss this century.

Here’s our vote of the five worst since 2000.

5. Block Party

In 2020, the Packers went 13-3 to earn the No. 1 seed but lost the NFC Championship Game to the Buccaneers in front of only a smattering of health-care workers due to the pandemic.

In 2021, the Packers went 13-4 to earn the No. 1 seed again. For the divisional round against the 49ers, Lambeau Field was loud and frozen. All season, though, there was a giant elephant in the room. It was Green Bay’s special teams.

With the Packers clinging to a 10-3 lead with about 5 minutes to go, Jordan Willis plowed through long snapper Steven Wirtel. With personal protector Henry Black deciding not to protect, Willis blocked Corey Bojorquez’s punt. Talanoa Hufanga recovered and returned the loose ball 6 yards for a game-tying touchdown.

The Packers went three-and-out on the ensuing possession and the 49ers won on a walk-off field goal.

Of course, it might not have come to that had Marcedes Lewis not fumbled with the Packers leading 7-0 and driving toward more points.

4. Frozen Favre

On the Saturday of the 2007 divisional playoffs, the Packers spotted the Seahawks a 14-0 lead before rallying for a 42-20 win. A day later, the No. 1-seeded Cowboys were upset 21-17 by the Giants.

Just like that, Brett Favre in a renaissance season had been given homefield advantage for the NFC Championship Game.

With a kickoff temperature of minus-1, Favre’s 90-yard touchdown pass to Donald Driver gave the Packers a 7-6 lead. Early in the fourth quarter, with the Packers approaching the red zone, Favre was intercepted but running back Ryan Grant forced a fumble that right tackle Mark Tauscher recovered at the Giants’ 19. On third-and-3 from the 12, Grant lost 7 yards, so the Packers had to settle for a game-tying field goal.

On the last play of regulation, the Giants’ Lawrence Tynes missed a 36-yard field goal, which sent the game to overtime.

You know the rest. On the second play of overtime, Favre on what would be his final play with the Packers was intercepted by Corey Webster. Tynes’ 47-yard field goal sent the Giants to the Super Bowl.

“I’m not going to say I thought we had this one, but I felt like everything had fallen into place,” Favre said afterward. “All that was left was to play the game.”

3. “F the Packers”

There’s probably no need to rehash what happened just a few days ago.

During the regular season, the Packers gave up less than 25 points in 13 of 17 games. On Saturday, they gave up 25 points in the fourth quarter alone.

“We’ve got to continue to be aggressive,” defensive back Javon Bullard said on Monday. “Players, coaches, everybody. As a team, we’ve got to continue to be aggressive. When you got your foot on somebody’s neck, man, there’s two types of people in this world. You’ve got one guy that’s just going to put your foot on their neck and keep talking sh** and you’ve got the other guy that’s going to put him out while he’s down.

“So, we’ve got to be that team that’s going to put people out when they down. We ain’t do that this year. We didn’t do it the last game, we ain’t do it in the previous game before that, so that’s something that we’ve got to find within ourselves to be better next year.”

2. Fourth-and-26

In 2003, the Packers were scuffling along at 6-6 before they caught fire, ending with a four-game winning streak that included Brett Favre’s unforgettable 399-yard masterpiece at the Oakland Raiders in the wake of his father’s death.

If there was a team-of-destiny feel, it intensified a week later. In an NFC wild-card game at Lambeau, the Seahawks forced overtime on Shaun Alexander’s third touchdown run of the game. What followed was the most famous coin flip in NFL history.

Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck won the toss and proclaimed, for all the world to hear, “We want the ball and we’re going to score.” On third-and-11, Hasselback served up a 52-yard pick-six to Al Harris.

So, Green Bay took a five-game winning streak to Philadelphia to face the top-seeded Eagles. The Packers had the game all but won on Bhawoh Jue’s 18-yard sack of Donovan McNabb on second down and his breakup of McNabb’s pass on third down.

That set up fourth-and-26. The Packers’ safeties played too deep and McNabb hit Freddie Mitchell for an improbable first down. The Eagles kicked a field goal to send the game to overtime, Brian Dawkins intercepted Brett Favre on Green Bay’s first play of overtime and won on a chip-shot field goal.

1. Brandon Bostick

The 2014 NFC Championship Game will forever be remembered by Brandon Bostick’s disastrous decision to catch an onside kick that was meant to be fielded by sure-handed Jordy Nelson. The reality is it took a calamity of errors to keep the Packers from going to the Super Bowl.

The Packers led 16-0 at halftime. Really, though, the game should have been over in the first 30 minutes.

On third-and-10 from Seattle’s 29 on the opening possession, Aaron Rodgers thought he had a free play, went deep and was intercepted by Richard Sherman. No flag was thrown, though.

After an interception, the Packers started at Seattle’s 19 and settled for Mason Crosby’s 19-yard field goal. After a fumble, the Packers started at Seattle’s 21 and settled for another 19-yard field goal. After a long punt return by Micah Hyde, the Packers started at Seattle’s 33 but kicked a 40-yard field goal. Two more interceptions failed to produce any points.

Before Bostick’s blunder, the special teams made a giant mistake. On fourth-and-10 from the 19 late in the third quarter, the Seahawks ran a fake field goal and punter Jon Ryan threw a touchdown pass to cut the margin to 16-7.

Still, it was 19-7 with about 5 minutes left when Russell Wilson threw an interception to safety Morgan Burnett. Julius Peppers told Burnett to give himself up, which eliminated what might have been a long return. The Packers punted, and then all hell broke loose.

A 26-yard pass to Marshawn Lynch set up Wilson’s 1-yard touchdown run that made it 19-14 with 2:09 remaining. From there, Bostick flubbed the onside kick, Lynch scored the go-ahead touchdown and a gimpy Rodgers drove the Packers to a field goal to force overtime.

Seattle won the overtime coin toss and won the game on Wilson’s 35-yard touchdown pass to Jermaine Kearse.

“I messed up in the NFC Championship Game, and trust me, it hurts,” wrote for Sports Illustrated a couple weeks later. “I’ll probably think about my role in the botched onside kick every day for the rest of my life. It haunts me like a recurring nightmare.”

Honorable Mentions

How painful is Green Bay’s postseason history? These killer losses didn’t make the list.

In the wild-card round in 2009 at Arizona, the red-hot Packers tied the game at 45 and forced overtime on Aaron Rodgers’ touchdown pass to, of all people, Spencer Havner. Green Bay got the ball to start overtime, Rodgers got hit in the facemask and fumbled, and linebacker Karlos Dansby returned the fumble for the game-winning touchdown.

In the divisional round back in Arizona in 2015, the wounded Packers somehow forced overtime on 101 yards worth of Hail Marys to Jeff Janis, only to lose when Larry Fitzgerald was wide open and ran through Green Bay’s secondary for a gain of 75 to set up his winning touchdown.

For years, Rodgers longed to host an NFC Championship Game. He got his wish in 2020. During COVID. So, in a mostly empty stadium and with no cooperation from Mother Nature, the Packers hosted Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. Brady threw interceptions on three consecutive drives in the second half, but the Packers turned them into only one touchdown.

Late in the game, Matt LaFleur opted to kick a field goal to cut the margin to 31-26 rather than go for it on fourth-and-goal at the 8. Brady ran out the clock when Kevin King was flagged for pass interference on third-and-4.

“I’m just pretty gutted,” Rodgers said. “It’s a long season. You put so much into it to get to this point. We had our chances.”

The 49ers ousted the Packers in 2012, when Colin Kaepernick ran circles around the Packers, 2013, when Kaepernick led the 49ers to a walk-off field goal on a miserably cold night, and 2023, when the Packers blew a fourth-quarter lead, Anders Carlson missed a field goal and Jordan Love threw an interception.

“We had an opportunity to win that game and didn’t capitalize on it,” Love said. “It’s a tough way to end the season.”

SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE DAILY PACKERS NEWSLETTER

More Green Bay Packers News