Let’s look at the facts. I said at the time that the Packers should make an agreement with Favre and Rodgers. Tell Favre he’s got 2 years left and tell Rodgers they are giving him an EXTRA $5 million/year to be the backup, and he will start the third year. I felt Rodgers would be great, yet in Favre’s last year in G.B., the Packers had the youngest team in the league and lost in the NFC championship game in overtime due to the worst coaching performance on both sides of the ball in playoff history. The coaches did things all game that I told people 5 minutes into the game they needed to change. So, let’s see what happened. Favre goes to the Jets his first year away, and takes a 4-win team to 8-3. They beat N.E. in N.E. and 8-0 Tennessee. This was despite completely idiotic coaching by Mangini, who kept running the ball. Had he not done this, they would have been 11-0. The Jets were the best team in the AFC and would have gone to the Super Bowl, but he tore his bicep and hurt his shoulder at that point. The Jets lost 4 of 5 and just missed the playoffs. Even with those injuries, they would have won 3 of the 4 had they passed, as when they did pass on first down, they got first downs! The next year, Favre wins the Super Bowl and MVP with a Viking team that never came close before. So, it is obvious that Favre would have won Super Bowls the next 2 years in G.B. What did G.B. do those 2 years: The first year, they won 6 games, I think, and lost 7 games by 4 points or less, games they would have won with Favre since Rodgers was in his first year starting. The next year, they made the playoffs, lost due to a terrible call, but would have lost to the Vikings and Favre since the Vikings beat them twice during the season, I believe. I will grant the Packers might not have won the Super Bowl last year since it would have been Rodgers’ first year starting, but the net effect is one additional championship for the Packers.
This is the response to another e-mailer:
I love it when people focus on some interceptions at the end of games, and define his career that way. There were a few, and sometimes the receiver ran the wrong route. No one talks about all those “gunslinger” passes that worked and that won games, as Favre won more games than any QB in history. And, the key point is that had the offensive coordinators let him pass early in the games instead of running the ball, those games would have been easy Packer victories and would not have come down to the end. Favre was doing everything he could to win. Most QBs go down quietly, and that seems to be accepted. Favre never gave up trying to win, and did win those games the majority of the time. He was playing these games extremely frustrated by the conservative gameplan, which, because he was such a great competitor, put him in situations that sometimes did not work out. If he hadn’t thrown those few passes and they lost, everyone would have been fine. Since he tried to win and threw a few interceptions, everyone is on his case.
In the Minnesota-N.O. NFC championship game that the Vikings easily won to put Favre in his 9th Super Bowl, the V.P. of Officiating of the NFL released a video after the game showing many of the bad calls against the Vikings. Everyone talks about his interception at the end of regulation. Here’s what happened in that game. It was a game that the Saints made obvious from the beginning that their goal was to hurt Favre and put him out of the game. He took cheap shot after cheap shot, and at the end of the third quarter, they just about broke his ankle and he could hardly walk. It was very questionable as to whether he could continue. The entire game, he was by far the best player on the field, and I think he was 41 years old. He drove the Vikings to many scores. On one drive, he drove them to the Saints 1, and Peterson fumbled. On another drive, he drove them to the Saints 10, and Berrian fumbled. They lost in overtime due to a bad call, as the Saints won the coin toss, went for it on 4th-and-1 from the Viking 42, didn’t come close to getting the first down, but the refs gave it to them. The refs then called a 13-yard pass-interference penalty on the next play, when replays showed the receiver falling and the linebacker-defender not touching the guy and not even that near to him. That led to the Saints’ “winning” FG. Let’s look at what Favre did in the 4th quarter after he was badly hurt. First drive: Drove the Vikings to a TD. Second drive: Drove the Vikings to the Saints’ 10, where Berrian fumbled. Third drive, with very little time left and everyone saying the Vikings should play for overtime, drove the Vikings into winning-FG range, where they had a 12-men-on-the-field penalty, changing it to what would have been a 55-yard attempt and causing Favre to try to get closer instead of being conservative since they were in FG range. However, despite his great performance all game and despite the fact that the Vikings were in the championship game largely due to him (they didn’t come close before he got there and were terrible once he left) and despite the fact that his teammates made crucial errors, all people remember is the one interception. And, they talk about it as if they Vikings were in easy FG range and the interception took them out of it. By the way, after the game, the league changed the overtime rules to give both teams a shot with the ball.