So much to love about the cast of characters in this excerpt.
First a caveat, Jeff Pearlman has done some pretty good reporting, but one error stuck out. A misread of the characters in this chapter: describing Ted Thompson as humorless. Publicly, OK, I see where you get that. But if you are telling us how the personalities clashed during this time period, you could get a better description. Thompson's humor might be well hidden and not often on display, it might even border on rudimentary, but its not that he doesn't have one. The coming conflict had little to do with humorlessness.
The characters:
Tom Rosselly taking credit for recommending Rodgers to Thompson after an unscheduled workout. Regardless of actual impact, nice story about how the QB coach at Cal got AR a good mention in GB.
Craig Nall and Najeh Dookie Davenport taking up the cause of old man Favre by knocking rookie Rodgers' attitude. That's two sources with impeccable professional judgement!
Ben Steele, with the team all of 1-2 years and 17 games. Could tell by Rodgers home run trot in the charity softball game that he wasn't humble enough.
Dylan Tomlinson of Gannet Media taking credit for warning Rodgers about Favre, who he openly claims to have loathed from his time covering the team 2003-200?.
Ron Jaworski proving back in 2005 that apparently Greg Cosell and Meril Hoge were the brains of NFL matchup.
A shot at Sherman by Pearlman himself (see first paragraph): Sherman probably did give Favre too long a chain, but it wasn't this one sided. He harnessed Favre to an offense that was run first all the way and the QB went along with it. I suspect Favre went off script a few times with play calls and throws they wished to have back, but Sherman wasn't toothless as presented in this chapter.
JT O'Sullivan is here, Chris Samp, Ruvell Martin, Pepper Burruss, Darrell Bevell, and Donald Driver.