Well, it’s finally over. According to Vikings head coach Brad Childress, Brett Favre will not be donning the horns and suiting up for Minnesota, a conclusion that only took an entire summer and what probably added up as days of coverage on ESPN to decide. After 18 never-boring years, Favre told Childress that life on the farm is too good to pass up for a chance to possibly lead the Vikings to the top of the NFL
If I’m the Vikings organization, and especially one of their players, I’m feeling like the guy who asks out the most popular girl in school, then has to wait until two days before the big dance only to find out her answer was no, which she chose to announce on the front page of the school newspaper. Not only did they get turned down a week before training camp opens, they had a very public courtship with Favre that ended up leaving them standing alone in the corner of the room while the one they were going after is in the middle of the dance floor without them.
This isn’t to say that I don’t respect Favre, or that I believe his reputation is tarnished by this in any way. To me, if he damaged his legacy at all, it was a combination of when he put on a uniform that was not the Green Bay Packers and when he became the greatest backyard quarterback of all time in those Wrangler jeans commercials.
(Which brings up another point… how many fingers do you think he broke while tossing 90-mph fastballs to the middle-aged guys playing football in jeans and flannel shirts? If I’m lining up as a receiver in one of these games, chances are that I either just downed a six-pack of Old Milwaukee, which is what I assume that’s what Favre would drink, or I’m coming off winning a bet with my buddies on how many bratwursts I could eat in 15 minutes. When I look over and see a guy who is well-known for firing cannon-like throws and who thinks he’s still 25, I’m taking a bee line down the field and not looking back until I hit the cooler. That may just be me though.)
When he was in his prime, which I think lasted up until a few years ago, Favre was the epitome of the old-school quarterback, a gun-slinger with a rocket arm and a penchant for taking as many chances as possible. He would try throws that nobody else would even think about it, and even when it went horribly wrong, as a fan, I loved watching it. Here was a guy who started 291 straight games, by far the most of any quarterback in NFL history, and holds the career records with for yards passing, passing attempts, completions, passing touchdowns and… interceptions. Now if you’re like me, one of those things stands out more than the others. His touchdown-to-interception ratio is a pedestrian 1.5:1. His 228 career picks are almost half of his 442 career passing touchdowns, a ratio that if held by 90 percent of the quarterbacks in the NFL, would lead not to the Hall of Fame, but to a clipboard and a visor on the sidelines.
But it wasn’t the fact that he threw an interception almost as many times as he did a TD, it was how he threw them. It was how he played the game every single snap, with utter disregard for both the design of the play and his personal safety, most of the time in equal proportions. If there was any player in the league could have made a smoother transition from the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field to the frozen asphalt of your local playground, it was Favre.
It was those same qualities that endeared him to millions of football fans throughout his career that made his retirement/unretirement/cameo in a Jets uniform/retirement No. 2/will-he or won’t-he escapade with the Vikings a must-see-T.V. event throughout the summer. He was a player who never gave up on a play, and in the end, never could quite give up on his career.
In the end, I’m glad that I won’t be seeing him have to walk into Lambeau wearing purple and gold and have to watch the fans that would have erected a cheese shrine to him three years ago have to bear seeing him on the field for their hated rivals.
To me, the saga of No. 4 is over at just the right time. That is, at least until next offseason.
