Q&A with Super Bowl Champ Greg Jennings

Greg Jennings played 10 seasons in the NFL – seven with the Green Bay Packers, two with the Minnesota Vikings and his final season with the Miami Dolphins.  Jennings produced a star performance in Super Bowl XLV where he helped lead the Green Bay Packers to a 31-25 defeat of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Jennings caught four passes for 64 yards and two touchdowns in the game, including the game-clinching touchdown. Jennings claims his biggest catch of his career was a third-and-10 grab for 44 yards that shifted the Packers momentum and helped secure the victory. Jennings was a two-time Pro Bowler and amassed 1,000 yards in three seasons as a Packer.

BM: What is your Super Bowl prediction and why?

GJ: My Super Bowl prediction is and, I’ve been 100 percent every single year, the team that scores the most points is going to win.

BM: What are your impressions on the two teams?

GJ: Honestly, my impressions on the two teams if you look at it on paper, the Philadelphia Eagles have an unbelievable roster, they have a great opportunity that’s in front of them. They have a great team. They should be able to get it done, Atlanta should’ve been able to get it done, Seattle should’ve been able to get it done. The thing about the Patriots is if you don’t put them away, if you give them an opportunity to be within striking distance in the closing minutes of the game, they’re so fundamentally sound that they’re not going to beat themselves. Then they have this guy that you may know, the most fierce competitor since Michael Jordan was in a team uniform, his competitive juices, everything about him takes over and he wills his team to victory and that’s Tom Brady. If Philly does what they should do defensively and offensively, they should get a Super Bowl LII victory.

BM: Does this time of the year bring back memories of your performance of when you scored two touchdowns in Super Bowl XLV?

GJ: It definitely brings those feelings back having the opportunity to play in the Super Bowl and when you’re around Super Bowl talk everyone brings up past Super Bowl winners and your name kind of gets mentioned. To have the performance like I was able to have because of my teammates, because of the guys like Aaron Rodgers, Jordy Nelson and James Jones and Donald Driver and the list goes on and on and on – Nick Collins, Charles Woodson… It’s special, it’s something that no one can ever take from you and it’s something that you’re in an elite group of people. Not everyone wins a Super Bowl, not everyone scores a touchdown in the Super Bowl, not everyone scores two and I’ve had the opportunity to do that and it’s a surreal feeling. And, mind you, those two touchdowns were still not the biggest catches of the game or of my career. The 3rd-and-10, hands down, was the biggest catch of my career. It shifted the momentum in the game, Pittsburgh had regained the momentum at that point, and it propelled us to ultimately winning the Super Bowl.

BM: Are you a memorabilia or sports card collector?

GJ: I used to be a big sports card collector when I was a kid, basketball in particular. I still have Jordan rookie cards and Karl Malone and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I used to collect religiously and then I fell off once I started pursuing sports and meeting some of those guys, it was like “Oh man, I really don’t need this anymore, I know this guy now.”

BM: What was your favorite set of basketball cards?

GJ: Upper Deck. I was an Upper Deck guy. Topps had some good cards, you would always get some good guys in Topps.

BM: How often do you wear your Super Bowl ring and how much do you cherish your Super Bowl ring?

GJ: I would say I never wear my Super Bowl ring, but typically for things like this, somebody will mention this and I’m like oh “Yeah, hey I have one of those, let me put it on the next time I do something.” It’s typically around Super Bowl time, like I forget it a lot. But, I mean, I cherish it, because it is a part of something special. It signifies that we did something that no one else can do that year but us and we have a memory, a little memento to remind us of that.