About Brett Favre
Brett Favre finally retired. I like Brett. He plays hard, seems to be a good guy off of the field, and has a great sense of humor. Once again, to quote Adrian Monk, “Here’s the thing”: I was never enamored with his game. He has talent and a great arm. You'll never get me to dispute that. I’ve been watching him since he became the starter at Green Bay. I've been a fantasy football player for most of Brett's career. Fantasy football is all about statistics. Stats are not the true measure of a player and never will be but they sometimes provide a piece of the puzzle. Brett has been a decent fantasy QB in systems that don't subtract for interceptions. That's one of his things. He can throw five touchdown passes or five interceptions in any game. Here's another thing: It's not like he had to do it all alone. Here's a guy who has had more than his share of playmakers on his team. At wide receiver, he had Sterling Sharpe, Antonio Freeman, and Javon Walker. At running back, he has had the very best years of Dorsey Levens and Ahman Green. All of those players, and maybe a few others that I can't remember, had good years at Green Bay. Favre had some great games, some awful games, and he was great and awful in the same game sometimes. He seems to be a smart guy but he hardly ever played smart. One of our local sportscasters said of him once that he keeps both teams in the game. In a nutshell, that is Brett Favre. In his 17 years in the NFL, he never really outgrew that. His already bullet-proof legend will only grow over the next few years and he’ll be a first ballot Hall-Of-Famer but I don’t consider him one of the great quarterbacks of his era. I wish him well, though. Good Luck, Brett.
Quote of the Day
It's been a great career for me, but it's over.
Brett Favre, Green Bay Packers
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "I am not sure how ducks are supposed to walk--nor, for that sake, how other birds walk--so I cannot use that criterion."
Brett is one of the best ever.
I think your perspective on Favre is pretty right on. I'd add that he also seemed pretty tough, as in not afraid to play hurt. But that consistency problem surfaced frequently.
And I still have not figured out how Favre is pronounced pharv. That's always kind of irritated me. :)
That whole Vicodin thing some years ago tainted his tough guy image a bit with me, Dave.
I think I may have mentioned a late friend of mine who grew up as a St. Louis Cardinals fan; his era as a fan started when Dizzy and Paul Dean were pitching and spanned the full careers of some great players. He had a special ax to grind: Stan Musial, he announced long, long after Musial was retired and in the Hall of Fame, was a living example of how stats lied. He said Musial was a mediocre player who happened to put up very gaudy numbers consistently throughout his career. If you go by the number of World Series the Cards got into during his career, he might have a point. But "mediocre"? Here's another mediocre player judged on the same criteria: Ted Williams.
But to get to football: I think you're selling Favre way short. Yes -- he might throw five TD passes and five interceptions in the same game. But he didn't very often. He kept both teams in the game? His team's won-lost with him as starter was something like 160-90; if he was keeping the other teams in the games all those years, just think of what the Packers could have done with someone really good.
In his best seasons, Favre was a killer. Of course he had good players around him; he has that in common with all the best QBs of his generation in their best years (check out the running game, receiver corps, and defense that the 49ers had when Joe Montana was rolling; Denver had a pretty fair all around team when Elway "finally" got it together, too). He reached the top of the game, and he succeeded there. And as someone else commented, he was a tough guy, physically and, more important, mentally; you never had a doubt watching him play that he was leaving it all on the field, as they say, and you can bet that that was an inspiration to the guys around him.
I'm a Bears fan and relished the few times Chicago was able to beat the Packers during Favre's career. Sure, he had his shortcomings. But there have been very, very few players in any sport whose game didn't have a hole somewhere.
A former colleague of mine had a beef with Musial and his stats, too, Dan. Said he racked up many of them against scrubs during the war years.
In your defense of Favre: "if he was keeping the other teams in the games all those years, just think of what the Packers could have done with someone really good."
That's what his detractors, myself included, have always wondered. I don't think I'm being all that harsh. I just think he was a decent, but not great, QB.
Elway won his two championships because of Terrell Davis. Here nor there but I never much cared for him, either, but not because of his play on the field but because of his shabby treatment of the team who drafted him.
I had Saints season tickets during the Montana years. The Saints had good teams for most of those years. Montana never lost a game in the Superdome. Montana was a great player. I doubt he EVER threw five interceptions in a game. I can't remember many times he threw two.
This is the kind of discussion that would be better in person so that you can I don't have my teeth bared. But:
I said that thing about the 160 wins because, to my mind, it's patently absurd to think that any other quarterback would have done much better over such a long stretch. Green Bay's winning percentage over his career was .640, for crying out loud. Yeah, Montana was the best of his era and might have done more with the team around him. But you can't be sure. The 49ers built a great series of teams in the '80s and he was paired for much of his career with a brilliant coach and the best wide receiver ever. (On the downside: He did throw four interceptions in a game. Once. And still won. Durability wasn't his strong suit.)
The point being: No, Favre wasn't Montana; but neither was anyone else. It's not an argument I can prove, but I don't think there's any quarterback you could put in Favre's place--there are only two or three viable candidates in any case--who would have done more than marginally better than Favre did.
I know you don't have your teeth bared, Dan. :) Frankly, I expected more disagreement over this. Dave and I are in agreement, you and Mike are in agreement. My opinion of Favre isn't based on his numbers as much as yours appears to be, though. I wasn't as clear on that as I could have been. It's based on watching him play. The guy played by the seat of his pants and I'm not sure he ever knew what he was doing until he did it. Steve Young was like that, too, but he outgrew it. I just think Favre is a notch below Montana, Young, Aikman, Manning, Brady, Marino, Kelly, Moon, and even the Saints own Drew Brees. FWIW, I think Tom Brady may be the best of them all. Until this year, he has played with mostly journeymen around him.
I'd forgotten about the vicodin, but he did kick that about 8 or nine years ago, at least that's what they say.
This would be a great discussion over a beer. Sort of a "I'll see your all-time TDs thrown with all-time interceptions thrown" kind of thing. All in good fun of course. I still agree with Rob, but I will say this about Favre: More years than not I wish the Vikes had him.
This has been so interesting. A great exchange of information and ideas and impresssions and beliefs and truths and what else? I have said so before and I'll say it again: you have missed your calling.
Thinking back over the Billy Joe era, I think I might have had those same thoughts about Favre, myself, Dave. The Saints had some real duds during the Favre years, including having Billy Joe Hobert and Billy Joe Tolliver in the same year(s). I remember someone drafting "Billy Joe" in the fantasy football league. When I asked "Which one?", my friend, Hyde, said he thought the guy should get both.
I would hesitate to call this a "great exchange of information and ideas", Mom. In my case, it's just an opinion and everyone has one of those. I think Dave is right in that its an argument better suited for a bar over a few beers.
At some point in the last few months, I did a little review of the quarterbacks who have "piloted" the Chicago Bears over the last four decades or so. Four decades because that goes back to the time when the Bears last had real quarterbacks -- by which I simply mean good, effective passers who didn't shoot themselves or the team in the foot too often. The last two QBs to fit that description in Chicago--and I'll give a simple statistical definition in a second--were Bill Wade and Rudy Bukich. (You're saying to yourself, "Who?"). Wade led the team to its last pre-Super Bowl-era NFL championship in the early '60s, and he was followed by Bukich, who could sling the ball. The team had some good receivers then, too -- Johnny Morris, Dick Gordon, and a guy named Ditka.
Following Bukich, some sort of darkness settled over the Bears or George Halas's mind or both. They, or he, decided that if you had a running game and a good linebacker corps, passing was just a fancy-pants extra. When you go through the stats, year after year after year after year, one things sticks out: The Bears very, very rarely managed to go through the season with fewer interceptions thrown than TD passes. They had some entertaining guys on the field, like Bobby Douglass, who was sort of the Nuke LaLoosh of the NFL. All arm and no brain. Virgil Carter, who reached the pinnacle of his career when he told reporters that Halas was chickens__t for not playing him (his exact word). Bob Avellini, who had a shockingly long career for a player whose main talent appeared to be putting on his jersey right side out.
Anyway, I believe the Bears went 20 seasons, between Bukich and Jim McMahon, before they had a year where their QBs collectively threw for more touchdowns than interceptions. In that light, Rex Grossman is sort of a superstar. And in that light, there's no word in a Bear fans lexicon that could come close to describing Brett Favre.
Of those you mention, I only remember left-handed Bobby Douglass and McMahon. I also remember Jack Concannon but I don't remember his game that much. Certain QBs had great luck against certain teams. Viking Wade Wilson OWNED the Saints. No rational explanation for it. He was pretty lousy when the Saints signed him. I know Favre owned the Bears for a substantial portion of his career.