No. 81 doesn’t give the Green Bay Packers quite the same impossible headache as No. 80 did, but it still puts a few worthy names on the table. Marv Fleming made a strong case as the only Packers Hall of Famer in the group.
Rich McGeorge put together a long, productive run. Perry Kemp brought plenty of production in a shorter span.
And yet the pick here comes down to a player whose Packers moment is too big to ignore.
That player is Desmond Howard.
Before he became a Packers legend, Howard arrived in Green Bay with a résumé that already screamed star power. He was a unanimous All-American and the Heisman Trophy winner in 1991 at the University of Michigan, where he posted 61 catches for 950 yards and a school-record 19 receiving touchdowns.
He also added 165 rushing yards and two scores on 12 carries, plus 634 return yards and two more touchdowns as a kick/punt returner. Washington grabbed him with the No. 4 overall pick in the 1992 NFL Draft, after trading up because it feared Green Bay might take him at No.
- Instead, the Packers took cornerback Terrell Buckley, who stayed in Green Bay for three seasons before going to the Miami Dolphins.
Howard’s path eventually led him out of Washington after three years. He was left unprotected in the 1995 expansion draft, selected 55th overall by the Jacksonville Jaguars, and spent one season there before signing with the Packers ahead of 1996. That year turned into the defining stretch of his career in Green Bay.
As a receiver, Howard wasn’t a major part of the offense. He caught just 13 passes for 95 yards on 23 targets.
But as a return man, he was electric. He led the league with 875 punt-return yards and three punt-return touchdowns, while also adding 460 kickoff-return yards during the regular season.
The playoffs only raised the stakes. Against the San Francisco 49ers in the Packers’ postseason opener, Howard opened the scoring by taking a punt 71 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter of a 35-14 Green Bay win. In the NFC title game against the Carolina Panthers, he piled up 104 yards on four kickoff returns.
Then came Super Bowl 31.
Green Bay led New England 27-14 at halftime, but the Patriots trimmed it to 27-21 late in the third quarter on Curtis Martin’s 18-yard touchdown run and Adam Vinatieri’s extra point. Howard answered immediately.
He fielded the next kickoff at the 1-yard line and took it 99 yards to the end zone, setting the Super Bowl record for the longest kickoff return at the time. Jacoby Jones later broke that mark with a 108-yard return for the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl 47, but Howard’s still stands as the second-longest.
The Packers closed it out 35-21 after Brett Favre hit Mark Chmura on a two-point conversion, and Howard’s night was already etched in history. He finished the game with four kickoff returns for 154 yards and six punt returns for 90 yards, giving him 244 all-purpose yards. That total was tied for the most in a single Super Bowl at the time, though Jacoby Jones later topped it with 290.
Howard’s performance earned him Super Bowl MVP honors, making him the first and still only special teams player to win the award.
He parlayed that into a contract with the Oakland Raiders and spent two seasons there before returning to Green Bay in 1999, this time wearing No. 82. That second Packers stint lasted only eight games before he was released and signed with the Detroit Lions, where he played the final three and a half seasons of his career and made the Pro Bowl in 2000.
Fleming, McGeorge and Kemp all had longer Green Bay tenures. But Howard’s 1996 season was historic, and his Super Bowl performance gave No. 81 its defining moment. For that reason, he stands as the best Packers player to wear it.
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