Last week, I wrote about how some Packers players don’t think there’s a lot to do in Green Bay.

Some people liked it, some people didn’t.

This is for the latter.

Sports fans are passionate about and loyal to their teams, none more so than cheeseheads. People who live in a place are passionate about and loyal to where they live (though several social-media comments from Green Bay natives that had moved away echoed the story's remarks). And Green Bay, a town with a well-defined historical identity, is as provincial as they come.

So maybe I should have known what sort of firestorm was coming when I suggested the city – the smallest with a major professional sports team, in rural Wisconsin, with a low-key reputation that was already fairly well-established – might not be a terribly thrilling place for professional athletes.

But OK, a couple of things. First, the story didn’t assert that Green Bay was a bad place or the players didn’t like it – on the contrary, a few of the nine said they enjoyed the smallness and quietness, indicating it helped them focus on their job – only that, outside of video games, poker and movies, they didn’t do much. Second, it wasn’t an opinion piece; it contained 60 percent direct quotes from players – unparaphrased so as to avoid the very controversy it attracted – and the one paragraph of personal narrative described things that actually happened to me and were pertinent to the broader point. 

Two different people told me Buffalo Wild Wings was a fun place to go out to and a downtown hotel desk clerk said there isn’t much in downtown Green Bay. That's priceless. I didn’t avow those opinions; they came from residents of the city. Could I have talked to other people with different views? Sure, but this wasn’t a story about whether ordinary people like Green Bay; it was about Packers players, and I talked to nine of those.

At the end of the day, it was a lighthearted, different piece that some people took way too personally. I live in Milwaukee, so I certainly understand civic inferiority complexes, but man, perspective. Green Bay is a nice town that loves the Packers, but it's not Miami, New York, Denver, etc. People compare themselves to their peers.

Millionaire football players don’t compare themselves to regular folks who may find plenty of things to do in Green Bay; they compare themselves to their peers in much bigger, more vibrant markets. If a writer from Chicago wrote the same story about Milwaukee, with on-the-record quotes from players here, I’d be like, yep, makes complete sense. It's all about frame of reference and individual preference.

Personally, I like Green Bay just fine and enjoy visiting – and going up regularly for a couple days a week rather than living there full-time or opining after just one trip to Lambeau, I believe, makes me knowledgably objective, rather than "ill-informed." I've been to Bay Beach and toured the breweries. I frequent the trendy, downtown coffee shop Kavarna – where women wear scarves and I once saw a man with a handlebar mustache, que cosmopolite! – and, in fact, on the day that story was published, I’d gone to the Neville Public Museum because I'm really into natural history.

Anyway, I don’t like how we left this, Green Bay. Since I prefer to be read by haters than be considered one, I want to try to do as many of your things to do as I can. There are online lists and guides, of course, but I’d also love to hear recommendations from readers, like these pleasant suggestions.

Already, I’ve been told there’s a prevalent punk music scene and a bunch of great LGBT bars in Green Bay. Who knew? Me, now. Perhaps the Packers rookies I spoke with aren't aware of or interested in that stuff, but maybe they are. We could all stand to learn, try and discover new things, including me.

That sounds like a New Year’s Resolution. Save it for 2016! But after the playoffs.