What I Think About Brett Favre

I know I've told this story a hundred times, but it's fitting for this particular post. My Freshman year at Lawrence University up in Appleton, Wisconsin, the guys living next to me (both them born and raised in Wisconsin) came to me one Sunday morning and invited me to join them watching NFL football. Turns out they were huge Green Bay Packer fans (big surprise). I'd heard of the Packers, of course, but living in Omaha focuses your energies more on the Huskers than any other team, so aside from Vince Lombardi I didn't know much about them. But I agreed to watch. Turns out this was the first start for the Packers' new quarterback, a untested kid who was drafted out of Mississippi by the Falcons and traded to the Packers before the season. He'd taken over in the latter part of the game the week before and done well. The announcers murdered his name throughout the whole game. By the end of the game you could tell that the new leader had arrived and that the Packers were finally back on their way to greatness. It was 1992 and the quarterback was Brett Favre. 309 straight games later, the man is still playing.

It didn't take long for me to become a huge Packer fan myself, and it was in no small part to the energy and enthuasism that Favre played with on the field. Every time he flung his fist in the air to celebrate a play or run downfield to congratulate a teammate, you couldn't help but get psyched with him. Most of his years with the Packers produced an equivalent even number of touchdowns to interceptions. His second year as a starter was just painful to watch, and we cringed each time he dropped back for a pass and just hurled it into the air. But he developed over time. His greatness was best seen when he led them to the Super Bowl in the 1996 and 1997 seasons.

Over the years I've admired him a great deal and the success of the Packers rose and fell with his play. I may never forgive him for the interceptions he threw in the playoffs against Carolina and most recently New York Giants. But all in all he was my QB and I was proud of that. Each year I wanted him to come back and play, to avoid retiring even if meant he would have gone out on top. When Mike McCarthy was hired I thought he and Ted Thompson were correct to demand Favre decide what he wanted to do well before the draft and training camps start. How can coaches plan their season when the player with the most influence on 50% of the team may not be there? Simply put, you can't. When they traded him to the Jets I was saddened, but I knew it was time. Anything was better than him going to Minnesota where he'd really cause some problems.

Now, three years later, the Packers are a playoff team again thanks to the play of Aaron Rodgers and the coaching of McCarthy. And Favre has skirted with retirement for the umpteenth time and is coming back again with the Vikings. I can see the Vikings and Packers making it to the playoffs this year and facing each other one last time with Favre at QB. Somehow that just seems fitting. At this point, I don't know who will win, but I can say I won't be rooting for Favre.

When Favre is inducted into the Hall of Fame he'll have been retired (completely) for 5 years. We'll remember the summer dramas he made us endure, but we'll focus on his well-earned status as one of the top 20 quarterbacks of all time. We'll remember his championships, his interceptions, his comebacks and his amazing passes that hurt the hands of his receivers. We'll see him in purple, green and white, but the focus will be on the green and gold, as it should be. Favre may no longer be as revered in Wisconsin as Bart Starr, but his legacy is secured. As a Packer fan I will always honor the man and the player he was for us, and I will sneer and mock him as he drags out his decisions and play for other teams. But in the end he was my QB while I was growing up in Wisconsin and Chicago, and he is still the man. I hate to see him in purple, but I still love to see him play.