It also led him into retirement. Mental exhaustion was cited by Favre, as well as by Mike McCarthy and Ted Thompson, for the decision Monday night that crushed his legion of fans. The other side was that Favre knew the score in Green Bay and that his time had come.
Through the hotel window is a view of what used to be an NFL playground. Brett Favre threw two of his touchdowns over there at Sun Devil Stadium, but the place looks a little more forlorn, seems a little more empty, though hardly a soul stirs inside. Once or twice a season, it seemed, something that Brett Favre did would make me take time from a hectic day to jot it down. Here are 10 of those moments culled from two bulging manila files marked "Favre.
My only wish is I had saved more for posterity. Milestone events, games in the career of Brett Favre. General manager Ron Wolf traded for the hand-picked young quarterback he expects his hand-picked coach to develop as the triggerman of his master plan for rebuilding the Green Bay Packers. He hadn't played even a preseason game for the Green Bay yet, but Brett Favre, two weeks into his first training camp, was talking matter-of-factly about replacing Don Majkowski as the starter and leading the Packers back to the Super Bowl.
You can talk about passing touch, command of a system and mobility all you want when it comes to evaluating quarterbacks. But when the game is on the line and you need to push the ball downfield, as the Green Bay Packers had to before a crowd of 57, Sunday at Lambeau Field, there is no substitute for a quarterback with a cannon arm. Two of the most magnificent plays in Green Bay playoff history lifted the Packers to the heights of sheer euphoria late on an unforgettable Sunday afternoon at the Pontiac Silverdome.
The Green Bay Packers endured an entire season of blown opportunities to finally pull out a close game at the end. They also waited 20 years to find a worthy successor to Bart Starr as their quarterback. The eyes of America gazed upon Brett Favre Monday night in his hour of immense personal grief.
Somehow, some way, Favre found a way to play one of the greatest games of his fabulous career. For the third straight week, Brett Favre was the absolute difference. He broke Dan Marino's record for career touchdown passes with his st in the first quarter, fired another in the fourth quarter and stayed one step ahead all day long. Brett went in there and ate the rest of the jar, or put something in it, I can't remember.
But I do remember Andy throwing a fit when we walked in to sit down for a meeting and he was going to take out his jar of peanut butter and his spoon and start eating it. They were like two peas in a pod. They fed off each other.
And they had the team laughing all the time. It was the most unbelievable relationship you ever saw. Not that either one of them couldn't do it by themselves, but they just happened to both be on the same team. Detmer: He was one of those guy's guys that liked to cut up. He'd kinda do imitations with body parts and stuff like that.
Your typical locker room kind of humor. He was usually front and center with those things. Hasselbeck: I'd be sitting at the breakfast table and Brett would be like, "Oh, hey, will you go get me a milk for my cereal? And the whole time I'm eating it, not even aware that it's burning my tongue, just thinking, "Wow, how cool?
He asked me to get milk for his cereal. Pederson: We had a picture of this dead horse in our meeting room. Any time that we felt like our position coach was getting a little bit long-winded in our meeting he would always point to the horse … and say, "Hey, we're beating that dead horse. It's already dead, we can't cover much more. Hasselbeck: One night we had a night off in training camp, and instead of getting cafeteria food, we would go to a bar and grill there in De Pere or somewhere and we'd get dinner.
I thought it was a good idea to pick up some fishing worms on the way back and secretly hide it in Brett's tin of dip. His routine was as soon as the lights would go out and Andy would start the film, Brett would grab his tin and he'd put a dip in. Anyway, he does it, and he freaks out.
And he didn't know who did it, but he was sure that it was probably David Klingler. He was kind of a fisher, Southern kind of guy.
I'm a city kid from Boston who took the train to school every day. Anyway, Andy stands up because Brett got a little hot and was like, "I did it! It wasn't him, it was me! And that's when I was like, "No, Andy didn't do it, I did it. He was ready to fight, then he was like, "Yeah, that's pretty solid.
Mariucci: I had those three quarterbacks over at my house a lot, Mark, Ty and Brett. I have three sons, too. We had spaghetti, and we ate, then all of the sudden those three quarterbacks went downstairs in the basement with my three kids to play dodge ball. Gayle and I stayed up, we start clearing the table and doing dishes. We can hear them downstairs, yelling and having a good time, balls flying, hitting the walls. Just like a bunch of kids.
Well all of the sudden, they shut the lights off. That was going to be the next part of this game. They're going to play dodge ball, with the lights out. And then I hear, "Aaaaaah! You Son of a …! Brett Favre hit Mark Brunell in the face with a dodge ball point blank.
He had a welt on the side of his face. Probably could've took his eye out. Dodge ball. In the dark. Probably from 5 feet away. It was like, "OK, guys, game's over. Do we have to do this right now? Pederson: When guys were down practicing special teams, he would take the rookies' clothes and tie them end to end in the locker room, like taking bed sheets and hanging it off the hotel balcony so you could climb down. Your socks were in one spot, your shirt was in the other, your underwear was in a spot.
Bono: He was always imitating someone. He could be walking by you and hear a comment and react to it and make the whole room laugh. He was always very light-hearted.
Brunell: He would impersonate guys that worked at the Packers facility, he would impersonate guys that he grew up with that we didn't know and didn't even know if it sounded like them, but it sure was funny. He did John Elway a lot, the pigeon-toed thing. He did a Marino, too. But the one that stands out was Elway.
He could do Elway pretty good. Just the way he walked to the line of scrimmage and the way he talked, it was hilarious. Detmer: He did Keith Jackson great. We were playing the Steelers in a preseason game and I had to go down early with the kickers because I was the backup holder. I'm out there, Mariucci comes out, and the quarterbacks are supposed to come out like 10 minutes after the kickers.
I'm out there, and kickers get down, and no quarterbacks are there. Mariucci is kinda starting to pace, looking around. It's kind of a long way up the tunnel and around in Three Rivers Stadium there and Mariucci is looking at me, and I'm just laughing, like, "I don't know.
He comes back, and all three QBs are trotting across the field and Favre's just laughing, and Mariucci has this flustered look on his face, like, Unbelievable.
I ask him, "What were they doing? Hasselbeck: Even the wild-card game that had overtime when I said to Ryan Longwell, like, "Hey, we want the ball, we're going to score," and it picked up on the referee's mic, if it wasn't that game, it was a game earlier. We go out for the coin toss and I have a winter hat on. And Brett says, "Oh, hey, did you hear what happened last night in Milwaukee? He was just always doing that kind of stuff with everybody, but me for sure. Hasselbeck: The streak, it's just absolutely incredible.
And the style of play. Eli Manning had a streak going, or maybe even Peyton, but to play like Brett, I've never seen him slide in the pocket. I've never seen him want to like throw the ball away. Mariucci: I think any great player in any sport, he'd love to have on his resume that he's the first at something or the best at something or a record that's been held for a long time. Something that's really unique and exclusive to him. The Cal Ripken-kind of a streak is really important to him.
Hasselbeck: I backed him up for three years and people would say, "Oh, well, it's not like Brett Favre wasn't healthy and always hurt. He was always hurt. He always had something. One year we played the Indianapolis Colts and I was sure I was starting. He didn't finish the game at Tampa, and I was just sure. I took every rep, getting ready to play. Brett's in a walking boot, he's on crutches. And on Friday's practice, he comes out with a size 15 shoe on his right foot, a size 13 or 14 on his left, and just hobbles around and practices on it.
I'm like, "Are you kidding me, dude? You stole all the reps. I'm going to need all these reps for the game. He threw a touchdown pass to Ahman Green underhand. It was just, he was amazing. Pederson: A lot of times there were a lot of games that he probably shouldn't have started but he did and he battled through it. That's just Brett. That's just a compliment to him and his longevity. It's an amazing statistic. In today's game, the quarterback position is a little more protected.
He played when some of the hits that you see today were not illegal. Detmer: Just playing, week in and week out, was tough enough. But Brett had a little bit of a knack for, he was one of those guys, he'd make a throw and the first thing that would happen was he would kinda back outta there. We called it the crawfish. Steve Mariucci would be like, "There you go, crawfishing again. He'd throw, then kinda scoot back to avoid getting hit. That's when guys could lead with the top of head and they could hammer you.
A little different nowadays. He had a pretty good knack for throwing and getting away. Bono: If you could go back and watch every film, I think it would be rare to find a blasting hit on him. He was very good at making people miss. Yeah, I'm sure there are a few just knockdown hits, but I don't think there are as many as you would think in that year career. Someone was chasing him or he would step up and be running, and someone would hit him from behind, and you'd think, God, he just got blasted.
But then you'd watch it on film and you're like, Damn, yeah he got tackled, but how did he avoid the bigger blow? Mariucci: The average human being or even the average quarterback would have missed many games in that year career because of injury. And Brett probably should have, could have missed many of those games because of an ankle that's ballooned up so big you can't even tape it. Or ribs. Or his stomach. Or his shoulders. You name it.
Oh, my god, he played a whole season with a broken thumb on his passing hand. What I really didn't know how to do was play hurt. And I didn't know how to play well hurt. Early in that year, I struggled. I was dealing with something like a hip flexor type thing.
And I was like, "How on earth does Brett do this, year after year, game after game? I just learned to have more respect for it. The 16 games, four preseason games, for sure playoff games, year after year, broken bones, injections.
Whatever it was, he always got it done. Mariucci: That quality in individuals should really be important to everybody, I don't care what you do. Where you don't miss work. You don't miss practice. You don't miss meetings. You're dependable, reliable, available.
That quality was somehow embedded in him from his parents, that, if you're supposed to be somewhere, you better be there, whether it's baseball practice when you're a kid, or at dinner table. Or curfew. Whatever that is, be where you're supposed to be, do what you're supposed to do. Be dependable. That's why he refused to miss.
Doug Pederson: It just goes to his competitive nature. It's hard, I think, when you've played that many games and started that many games to just say, "I'm done. Mariucci: The retirement-unretirement stuff, it got complicated with Green Bay. It got really weird. When he first retired, when he was crying there and he had a minute press conference, he was reluctantly retiring.
In the back of his mind, he didn't want to do it. Bono: I think it was more that he just loved to play the game. He just didn't want to retire. He couldn't just decide. He loved it so much that he couldn't step away from it. Mariucci: He felt they wanted him to, he felt that they made up their minds, but he didn't want to do it. He was saying all those things about, "It's time," and all that.
There was little Brett Favre on his shoulders, saying, "You shouldn't be saying this because you know you don't want to retire. You know you can still play.
Hasselbeck: I don't know if it was the age thing as much as everyone was gone. I remember there were a few games in '99 when he'd bring them back and he'd be crying after the game or we'd be on the sidelines and we'd need a two-minute drill to win it and the fans would be behind the bench, like, "Oh, it's no problem, Brett, you got this.
You're gonna just take us down and win it. After '99, those guys were gone. Holmgren was gone, Mooch was gone, Andy Reid was gone. And now he's throwing to new guys. Now the greatness of that organization and Brett is that he kept doing it with those guys. He did it with a new coaching staff every year. That was a lot of pressure. You're still the guy and everyone expects the same level of play, you're fighting through injuries.
He manned up, but it's hard to do, week after week, year after year. Detmer: People were always asking, "What do you think Brett will do when he's done playing? That's probably more scary for him and makes him more nervous than carrying the burden of the streak and the franchise on your back, because that's what he loves. When he's done and can't do it anymore, he's probably like, "What the heck am I going to do? Hasselbeck: The new players would come in and they'd want Brett's autograph more than to be his teammate.
He doesn't manage to get his arm fully cocked and then pushes the ball away from his body. Perhaps it is best to just look at the video.
Whenever I think of Eeyore I think of "Don't worry I'll get there. If it wasn't bad enough that he had further to throw due to his 6'7" frame, he was slow moving through his motion to boot. Thank you, Ken Behring and Tom Flores, for taking him instead of that schlep Brett Favre that never amounted to anything in his 20 year career. Is there still any question they tried to ruin the franchise so they could move the team to California?
As much work as Tebow spent re-working his throwing motion, 15 years of ingrained mechanics and muscle memory don't go away over-night At times he will demonstrate a quick compact throw, but he seems quick to fall back to the old, clunky throwing motion. His arm drops back like a fulcrum, circles around the back and then makes a bit overhead swing.
Don't take my word on it
0コメント