Thirty five years ago, a large group of Green Bay Packers fans were gathered outside a Tampa hotel by the swimming pool. Cocktails were flowing and spirits were building.

Suddenly, the great Packers linebacker Ray Nitschke, eight years retired, came out and walked around the pool toward the group, many of whom were wearing something green and gold.

"We’re gonna kill ‘em tomorrow," Nitschke said, leading the cheering crowd. "Kill the f*****s."

It was a balmy Saturday night, less than 24 hours before the Packers would take on the hapless Buccaneers at Tampa Stadium. The spirits were high for the fans, many of whom had retired to Tampa and were delirious with anticipation of seeing their guys in action, killing the local team.

When the dust finally settled on the game the next day, the two teams had played to a 14-14 overtime tie. Both teams were on their way to 5-10-1 records. Lynn Dickey passed for more than 400 yards that day.

Zeke Bratkowski was the Packers’ quarterbacks coach and the closest friend of head coach Bart Starr. After the game, Bratkowski was standing in a hallway, sweat dripping down his face, as he spoke to several reporters who wanted to know why this team could gain 400 yards through the air but only score 14 points.

"Football is a complicated game," the former quarterback said. "All it takes is one guy to screw things up on a play. No matter what you plan, one guy can wreck everything."

That statement, made 35 years ago, could well apply to the hapless Packers, who have gone from a 6-0 co-favorite for the Super Bowl to a 6-3 team trying to hold on to some measure of respectability and remain within hailing distance of winning their division.

It is hard to overestimate the shock and humiliation of the 18-16 loss to the Detroit Lions on Saturday. Detroit was a team and an organization in turmoil. The Packers were playing in invincible Lambeau Field.

The lamenting cries from the masses after the game, on old-fashioned radio as well as social media, were deafening.

"Fire Dom Capers!"

"Take the play calling away from Tom Clements, and give it back to Mike McCarthy!"

"What’s wrong with our MVP quarterback?"

"Where the heck is Eddie Lacy?"

"Do we really miss Jordy Nelson THAT much?"

"When was the last time we had a sack? Anybody remember?"

Nobody in the world gets quite as upset as Packer Nation when things go badly. But it’s important to pay heed to the words of Bratkowski. There is no sport more complex than football. In some respects, it’s like the complicated choreography of an intricate ballet. One ballerina falls down, and the whole ballet is ruined.

In football, when one thing falls apart – physically or mentally – all the best-laid plans of man go flying out the window, and you are about to pay the piper.

Once you realize how difficult this game is, you can see that there is abundant blame to go around.

Certainly Aaron Rodgers is playing badly. He says he’s healthy, but he seems to play so un-Aaron-Rodgers-like that you’ve got to wonder what happened to him. He gets undue praise when the game goes well, so he gets equally undue condemnation when things are screwed up like this.

While a guard or tackle or tight end or wide receiver or linebacker or safety may make a mistake, it’s the MVP quarterback who is supposed to resuscitate the team, pull it up out of the doldrums. A team should be able to count on its star to help it over bumps in the road. This star has become his own bump.

Packers fans are pretty smart. What they are seeing is a quarterback who is unsure when he drops back, whose throws are off target – sometimes way off target – and who seems even more unwilling to gamble with a throw. He’s always been cautious but now seems almost fearful.

There is almost nothing like the loyalty that Packers fans have for their team. But 35 years ago, when the overtime came to an end with no scoring, those snowbirds who had left Green Bay for the sun of Tampa booed loudly.