Packnut
10-01-2006, 09:50 AM
The Philly press has been very nice to Brett all week long. Here is another article.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/sports/15648269.htm
FavreChild
10-01-2006, 10:58 AM
As they should be nice. Thanks for the link.
MadtownPacker
10-01-2006, 11:06 AM
Why click when you can just read? :wink:
Posted on Sun, Oct. 01, 2006
Defying the odds, Favre plays on
By Bob Brookover
Inquirer Staff Writer
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/sports/15648269.htm
The off-season decision seemed like such a no-brainer for Brett Favre.
Retire or play on?
Carl Spackler, the hygiene-deprived character played so brilliantly by Bill Murray in Caddyshack, would have advised the latter option to the Green Bay Packers quarterback, but he didn't see the danger in mixing golf and lightning, either.
Most football fans would have recommended retirement.
Favre, who'll turn 37 later this month, has a championship ring, a spot reserved in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, and "nothing to prove," according to Mike Bartrum, the Eagles' long-snapper who played with the Green Bay quarterback the year the Packers won the Super Bowl.
The Packers, on the other hand, were coming off a 4-12 season and had a new head coach in Mike McCarthy and little chance of a quick return to the Super Bowl glory Favre enjoyed a decade ago.
All of the above screamed retirement.
The voice in Favre's head, and on the satellite radio in his pickup truck down in his native Mississippi, agreed with Carl Spackler. The voice on the radio belonged to Phil Simms, the former New York Giants quarterback who was being interviewed on a nationally syndicated show when he was asked what advice he'd give Favre about retirement.
Simms, in the April 14 interview on Sirius Satellite Radio, advised Favre to "play as long as you can. When you think it's over, play another two years... because life after football, it's forever."
Favre, as fate would have it, was listening. Twelve days later, he informed the Packers he would play on, and tomorrow night he'll make a return appearance to Lincoln Financial Field for a nationally televised game against the Eagles.
Eagles coach Andy Reid, who spent two seasons as Favre's quarterbacks coach in Green Bay, believes his former pupil made a wise decision.
"At that position, if you know you still have the skill level and things just aren't quite right around you, then that makes it even tougher," Reid said. "You're relying on other people to protect you and then to catch the football. He always had the skill level. It was just a matter of getting the people around him and it looks like they've done that. I think he is having fun again."
The debate about whether Favre has enough around him will continue. The Packers come to town with a 1-2 record after a victory over the Detroit Lions last Sunday. Favre, at least for that one game, recaptured his youth, completing 25 of 36 passes for 340 yards and three touchdowns. He has thrown six touchdown passes in three games, but as recently as opening day, he looked like an aging veteran on a bad team when the Chicago Bears blanked the Packers, 26-0.
Regardless of the twists and turns that lie ahead for Favre, another quarterback who once had to make the same difficult decision understands what the Green Bay quarterback endured.
"My situation really wasn't all that different," said Troy Aikman, the Hall of Fame quarterback from the Dallas Cowboys who now works as the lead analyst on Fox's NFL broadcasts. "A lot of people think I retired because of all the concussions I had, but that wasn't the reason I retired."
Aikman said he stopped playing after a dozen seasons with the Cowboys because he stopped having fun.
"I get asked all the time whether I miss playing," Aikman said. "I don't miss playing. I miss winning. I felt like I played at the beginning of my career. My last few years were very, very frustrating. I felt like we had lost sight of what made us successful as an organization.
"After a number of years of remaining confident and optimistic and thinking that things would get better, I realized it wasn't going to happen and I decided to get out."
Favre could have easily made that same decision based on the way the Packers played last season, but Bartrum thinks that's exactly why he returned.
"I know he's a competitor and he wants to get out there and show everybody he can play," Bartrum said. "Coming off the year they had last year, I'm sure that didn't sit well with him."
Aikman's final years in Dallas - the Cowboys did not have a winning record in three of his final four years - did not sit well with him. In fact, he said he pondered coming out of retirement and signing with a team he felt had a chance to win a Super Bowl. It wasn't the Eagles, although that rumor did circulate when Donovan McNabb was injured in 2006.
"I had discussions with a team for an entire off-season and I was going to make a comeback, but the team couldn't pull the trigger," Aikman said. "It was a chance for me to get rid of the sour way things had gone my last couple of years."
Favre, who has started a remarkable 224 straight games, has decided to try to get rid of last season's sour taste by returning to the Packers.
"I don't agree with people who were against Brett coming back or who think he should have retired because they didn't think the Packers were going to be very good," Aikman said. "If Brett loves playing the game, he should play. If you want to argue that you don't think he can play at the same level he once did, that's fine."
But Aikman believes Favre can win if he has the right parts around him.
"He's always taken chances," Aikman said. "When you start to struggle as a team and the talent around you isn't as good, that kind of stuff becomes more profound.
"I think the Packers' problems really started when their offensive line got dismantled. When they lost Mike Wahle and Marco Rivera, they started to struggle. I don't buy into the idea that Brett can't play anymore."
Even if Favre doesn't have the players around him and even if the Packers don't recapture the glory they once had with No. 4 at quarterback, the legacy, according to Aikman, will remain unchanged.
"A lot of people thought Emmitt Smith should have retired after the Cowboys decided to go in a different direction and let him go," Aikman said. "When people look back on his career, they're not going to remember that he spent two tough years in Arizona. Nobody remembers Johnny Unitas in a San Diego uniform."
And so Brett Favre plays on.
Packnut
10-01-2006, 11:29 AM
As they should be nice. Thanks for the link.
My pleasure.
Harlan Huckleby
10-01-2006, 01:46 PM
I wanted to trade Favre last Spring. But now I have a hunch the team could go winless without him, that wouldn't be a good step for the franchise.
GoPack06
10-02-2006, 02:03 PM
well you know a fan didnt write it. Worst fans in all of sports.
FavreChild
10-02-2006, 02:17 PM
Well, it was in the Inquirer, so that's pretty legitimate.
I will say that I live in what could loosely be defined as Eagle Territory, and I am wearing extensive Packer gear today. Haven't heard one negative comment. Some Iggle fan friends of mine are in fact not too confident about tonight, especially with their injuries.
So give the Beagle fans a *little* credit. (Not too much, though). :wink:
GBRulz
10-02-2006, 02:49 PM
Great article.
I wonder though, what team was Aikman in negotiations with for an entire off-season, but didn't sign him?
MasonCrosby
10-02-2006, 02:53 PM
Well, it was in the Inquirer, so that's pretty legitimate.
I will say that I live in what could loosely be defined as Eagle Territory, and I am wearing extensive Packer gear today. Haven't heard one negative comment. Some Iggle fan friends of mine are in fact not too confident about tonight, especially with their injuries.
So give the Beagle fans a *little* credit. (Not too much, though). :wink:
really! man i've been heckled all day by the ones i know!
Kiwon
10-02-2006, 05:36 PM
The Philly press has been very nice to Brett all week long.
They should be nice after the way that Brett and his family were trashed in 2003. Brett showed a lot of class by not making a big deal out of it. I don't think that many other superstars would have let that pass without making a big stink about it.
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