Brett Favre: The Man, The Myth, The Man-Crush
It is a sad day in Wisconsin.
Tears are melting into cheese shaped foam. John Madden is grooving to Eric Carmen - while blubbering incoherently. Peter King carefully adorns his column with another scene from the Favre family dinner table. The announcement has come.
Brett Favre has retired.
Favre will be remembered as one of the greats to ever play the game. He restored the Packer glory, leading them to two Super Bowls - winning one of them. He is the only player to have won three MVP awards. He leads the NFL in career touchdown passes (442) and passing yards (61,655). He was also football’s Iron Man starting - from assuming the position in 1992 to his retirement in 2008 - 253 straight games (275 including the playoffs).
His Canton claim is a mere formality.
However, Favre’s importance should not be overstated. He was magnificent, but hardly transcendent.
Favre did win one Super Bowl, but during his career that feat has also been accomplished by successful stalwarts like Kurt Warner, Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnson.
He was eclipsed even in his pomp by perhaps the greatest quarterback of all time, John Elway. His accomplishments this decade also dwarf compared to Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. His body of work is also followed closely in the rear view mirror by contemporaries like Steve Young and Troy Aikman. Favre had a prolific career, but he was hardly the best.
It is tempting to anoint Favre. He embodies the American ethos, coming straight out of a Western with guns blazing. He oozes masculinity with his scruffy beard and Wrangler jeans. Webster would accompany the definition of “quarterback” with his picture. But, Favre was neither the best of all-time nor even the best of his era.
ESPN may be in mourning, but do not fret sports fans. Life as we know it will continue.
Tags: Brett Favre, ESPN, Green Bay Packers, John Madden, Retirement
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
6 March 2008 at 10:06 pm
Got to disagree with you here big time. Brett Favre was a throwback to a time for (sort of) old timers/traditionalists like me when the game was purer and actually worth watching. This past year I didn’t watch the NFL except when Favre was playing. I grew up with the NFL attending my first game at age 5 in 1979 and spending 8 sundays a year every year in a stadium from 1981 thru 1991, and several times a year after I left for college and came home for a weekend. In 1997 I attended my last NFL game. The sport isn’t the same purer, exicitng game it used to be. Today’s NFL is a corporate game than shuns non conformists and is full of prima donas. I will miss him and know others will as well.
6 March 2008 at 11:17 pm
I agree that he was a great player and fun to watch, but I don’t think he warrants his own commemorative issue from SI.
Living in the midwest, I got to see a whole lot of him. He had great, special moments, but he also had some pretty lousy ones.
I’ve been cognizant of football for Brett’s whole career. Among his contemporaries, Montana was better, Elway was better, Manning was better, and Brady was better. That would put him Top Five over the course of his career. I think you can make a case for Marino being up there as well. I also think that Steve Young was better during his heyday, but over the course of his career you have to give the advantage to Favre. You can also make a case for Aikman being up there as well, Favre never won in Dallas.
It is only as he has come to the end of his career that he has become some sort of sports demi-god.