Brett Favre has always played on his terms, sometimes to the detriment of his team. Is he still a legend?
- Image by DavidErickson via Flickr
I have a Christmas present for Brett Favre. Here it is, raw and unwrapped. It’s nothing much. Just a rational defense of a career that, to me, already stands tall on its own.
The End. And Then the End Again. Alright…One Last Time.
The late stages of Brett Favre’s illustrious career have been, to say the least, heavily scrutinized by the media. Now, with the odds of Favre making a triumphant return to the gridiron lower than ever, we have some time to reflect.
Of course, the reflection has already been done, refrigerated, microwaved, left out overnight, and heavily seasoned to cover up any dodgy odors. For three years we have heard testimonials to Favre’s greatness, eulogies for Brett’s playing career, and angry declarations that he has overstayed his welcome in the NFL.
That buzzing you hear is the gnat-like workings of an overbearing sports media lodged in your brain. The little drones are telling you that Favre has harmed his legacy. That we have seen a decline unfold before our waiting eyes. That Brett is somehow less because he played more.
Allow me to silence the gnats with some top quality Sanity Spray.
(Kills 95% of pundits on contact!!)
We’ll start with Brett Favre and the NFL’s open doors policy.
News for the News Mavens
Breaking news!! All sports editors and braindead bloggers tune in!
If Brett Favre had overstayed his welcome in the NFL, nobody would have hired him to play. This is a simple but (surprisingly) commonly overlooked fact.
The Favre Watch began in Green Bay (where Packers brass worked to force Favre out) moved to New York (where Jets coach Eric Mangini inexplicably named his son after Brett midseason) and finally to Minnesota. Favre was welcome in Green Bay (by the fans), welcome in New York (by everybody but the psychotic NY media), and especially welcome in Minnesota where he was once an enemy combatant for a bitter division rival.
If he wanted to, Brett could sign on with any of a half-dozen teams eager for his services in 2011. More importantly, the signing would be on Favre’s terms. In the high-stakes world of pro football there is always a place for a proven winner.
Let’s take a look at the hiring process as it pertains to 40+ year old quarterbacks for some much-needed perspective.
Most ancient quarterbacks lurk in the wings, hands in their pockets, waiting for a late-season injury to a younger man to necessitate their return to the game. For an example of this, we need look no further than Favre’s one-and-done fling… the New York Jets.
In 2005, after injuries knocked out Jets QB’s Chad Pennington & Jay Fiedler, Vinny Testaverde’s skeleton was exhumed at age 42 and trotted out for six games. Testaverde dug deep and made some plays, but his 59.4 passer rating was the second-worst of his career.
Not deterred, Testaverde filled in for the Patriots in 2006 as a backup to Tom Brady. In 2007 he was hired by the Carolina Panthers when starter Jake Delhomme & backup David Carr both went down in Week 3. Vinny was 44 years old when he took his final NFL snap at Tampa Bay, the city where his 21-year pro career began in 1987.
Did Testaverde overstay his welcome? Of course not.
Vinny just changed his role. And that is the big difference between Testaverde & Favre.
Brett never changed his role. He was (is) bigger than that. Brett is a starting NFL quarterback, and if he wants to keep on being a starting NFL quarterback he will. If there were a league policy regarding such matters it would read thusly: “Champions Welcomeâ€
The Man, The Myth, The Legend*
*Legendary status subject to approval by the Associated Press, the NFL, CBS & Mel Kiper’s hair
Brett Favre holds a ridiculous number of NFL records at the quarterback position. Enough to fill an entire page on their own. One stands out above them all.
Two Hundred Ninety Seven consecutive NFL starts. That is no mere statistic. That is a legacy all its own.
To start 297 consecutive NFL games takes an absurdly unlikely combination of amazing talent and otherworldly grit (plus a healthy dose of luck, voodoo rituals & thrice-daily blessings by an ordained priest.) Most of us will sit out work with a head cold. Brett Favre has gone to work with damaged internal organs including (but not limited to) his brain.
Legend enough for you? Still hearing some gnats? Are they saying, “He only played to extend the streak. Totally selfish. What a jerk.â€Â Here comes the remedy…
The week after Favre’s streak ended at 297, he made start 298 on a frozen sub-NFL quality field knowing that he would get hurt. This was no inkling. Brett described after the game how he hoped that would get through a whole half. Favre still had a torn biceps tendon that had partially calcified around the major damage.  The result was constant pain amplified by a list of other more minor injuries sustained by his 41 year old body.
His streak was back to one. His team had already been eliminated from playoff contention. His top receiver (Sidney Rice) was still less than 100% after having surgery on a busted hip, his top possession receiver (Percy Harvin) was battling severe migraines, and his Pro Bowl running back (Adrian Peterson) was being held out of the game with ankle and knee injuries. His offensive line had failed repeatedly to protect him all season, and he was going up against a Chicago Bears defense that ranked amongst the league leaders in QB pressure.
Favre started anyway. He took the pain one more time, and ya know what? He grinned and bore it like a gridiron warrior while younger players whined about the playing conditions like mincing European soccer players.
Brett Favre lasted less than a quarter before being crushed into submission by rookie Corey Wootton’s sumo-style body slam. The resulting concussion kept Brett out of the game according to changing league policy that mandates such things, but you have to know that Favre would have trotted back onto the field the next series if he had been allowed to by the Minnesota training staff and coaches.
Two possibilities can be derived from this tale:
1) Brett Favre is a sadomasochist and enjoys having his body lifted and thrown head-first onto frozen dirt by 6’6†270 pound defensive ends.
or
2) Brett Favre loves the game so damn much that he would rather suffer and play than… well… than anything else on the whole bloody planet.
You are not obligated to admire him, but unless you are a combat veteran or have borne children you are obligated to respect him… and his untouchable legacy.
More is Still More
We finish here… at what looks like the end of Brett Favre’s amazing career. Here is the only place it makes any sense.
The man who started by throwing two interceptions in four pass attempts during his rookie season with Atlanta went on to throw more interceptions than anyone ever. He is still a hero. Not because he threw all those picks but because he kept on winning (two NFC Titles, one Superbowl) kept on excelling (11 Pro Bowl Selections, 3 consecutive AP NFL MVP Awards) and never stopped loving the sweet taste of competition.
Favre was almost turned away by the Green Bay Packers because his trade-day physical turned up Avascular Necrosis of the hip, a degenerative disease that ended Bo Jackson’s career. This was his second season and he was told he would suffer a short, painful career as a result. Nineteen seasons and two hundred ninety seven starts later Favre is still just a guy who knows that he is lucky to keep playing football at the highest level of the sport.
Sports pundits will tell you, and knuckleheaded fans will agree, that Brett Favre’s final years were his worst. That he was foolish to come back and play over and over again. But the statistics bear that Favre had his best season last year with Minnesota where he put up the highest completion percentage and lowest interception percentage of his career. That 2009 Season, which ended with trademark carelessness on a Favre interception, featured some of the most exciting plays of Brett’s long career.
And each of his five first quarter completions were also trademark Favre; driven like a bullet into the hands or chest of his receivers. He shook his bare throwing hand after each delivery, opened and closed it like an automaton checking for functionality, and then went out and mechanically kicked ass like only a handful of quarterbacks ever will.
I challenge any anti-Favre pundit to tell me that they did not enjoy watching the old man go out and work his magic a few final times.
Anybody who didn’t dig Favre’s highlight-reel passes to Sidney Rice last season is no true football fan. Anybody who failed to find humor and inspiration in Brett boyishly galloping around the deadly-serious stage of an NFL field each week is brain-dead or heart-dead or both. And anybody who would not honor such a man simply because he played on despite bad odds and an army of critics needs to reassess their definition of “heroâ€.
For a hero Brett be, and I would take one jubilant Brett Favre over a hundred droopy-faced Peyton Mannings from here until eternity.
Merry Christmas Brett! Come back and visit us anytime.
