Twenty-five years later, Packers still reaping the ripple benefits of signing Reggie White

"All I said to (coach Mike) Holmgren was: 'This improves your football team, doesn't it?,’” Packers team president Bob Harlan is quoted as saying in a Milwaukee Journal article that appeared April 7, 1993.

"He said: 'It sure does.'"

As we know today, it was an understatement of epic proportions. The free agent signing of former Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Reggie White on April 6, 1993 – 25 years ago last Friday – improved the Packers and put them on the course to a Super Bowl triumph. More than that, it represented a sea change that returned the long-suffering Packers, trapped in small-town America and miles from its glory days of the late 1960s, into one of the preeminent franchises in the National Football League.

In six seasons with the Packers, White never missed the playoffs, and Green Bay won Super Bowl XXXI in early 1997. Coupled with the decision to acquire Brett Favre, it was a maneuver that cemented the legacy of Packers general manager Ron Wolf as one of the state's greatest sports executives.

White signed for four years and $17 million, choosing the Packers in a bidding war that also featured the Washington Redskins and San Francisco 49ers. Today, it’s not a contract that would move the needle. In 1993, it was a blockbuster that made him the third-highest paid player in league history behind John Elway and Dan Marino.

"I feel the dollars offered by Green Bay were just far too much to overcome," 49ers President Carmen Policy said in the article by Bob McGinn. "Without guaranteeing the contract, which we wouldn't do, we couldn't come close to matching the deal."

Also from the article:

“The Packers, with about $30 million in cash reserves, had the money to front-load their offer that basically blew away the opposition, including Cleveland, which was fourth in line. Without the financial restrictions, the Packers feared they would have been outbid by Debartalo. But the 49ers were handicapped.

"It wasn't so much how much money he got, but how it was structured," an official with the Browns said. "Obviously, the Packers could structure their deal."

Harlan called the signing perhaps the most momentous day in his two-plus decades with the organization, given that White, 31, was a seven-time Pro Bowl selection and still viewed at the top of his game. Harlan said it might be the best veteran offseason acquisition since Green Bay traded for Hall of Fame linebacker Ted Hendricks in 1974.

The Packers were confident that 23-year-old quarterback Favre could lead the offense to great things, and they weren’t wrong. With a big late season win over the Raiders in 1993, the Packers returned to the playoffs for the first time since 1982. Then, Favre found Sterling Sharpe for a 40-yard touchdown pass with 55 seconds left to lift the Packers to a 28-24 victory over the Detroit Lions in a victory during the wild-card round.

White, who famously said God helped guide him to Green Bay, opened the door for other big-name players to come to a place previously viewed as an undesirable NFL landing spot. Sean Jones, Keith Jackson and Andre Rison – all key cogs in the team’s Super Bowl run – were players specifically mentioned by a Sports Illustrated article looking back on White’s legacy.

“Before that decision guys would say, ‘If Green Bay drafts me, I don’t want to go.’ It was Siberia,” said Jackson. “But Reggie White saw something different about it. … Reggie saw all these positives about Green Bay that nobody really knew about. He saw it as an opportunity to go somewhere where the people are super fans. And when you lose a game, there’s nobody screaming at you saying you’re a bum. The media is reporting the facts and not trying to create a controversy. It was actually an oasis to play football, and you really concentrated on being a football player.”