HarveyWallbangers
11-28-2007, 03:23 PM
It's good to see the fawning again--after media bashing he took the last couple of years.
Favre is the ultimate iron man
By Mark Kriegel, FOXSports.com
It is commonly supposed that Cal Ripken set the standard for all would-be Iron Men in American sports.
I'd like to propose a new standard-bearer: Brett Favre.
I mean no disrespect to Ripken, whose streak of 2,632 consecutive games played across 17 seasons will never be broken. I understand that baseball and football are very different games and not easily compared. But let's be serious: the relative perils of football and baseball don't merit much of a comparison. If the Iron Man is one who can free his mind of pain and monotony, if the ideal embodies the virtues of endurance and courage and plain, pigheaded will, then Favre is that guy.
Ripken was a shortstop, and later, when his reflexes slowed, a third baseman. Favre remains what he has always been — a quarterback, the most vulnerable position in what is arguably the most dangerous sport. It's not too much to say that each snap could be his last. Still, he's been an NFL quarterback for 17 seasons now. Thursday night's contest between Green Bay and Dallas — the NFC's most compelling matchup — will mark Favre's 251st consecutive regular-season game, 271 if you count playoff games. It will also be his 249th consecutive start, second only to Jim Marshall, the Vikings' defensive end, who played from 1960 to 1979.
Marshall's record — 270 consecutive starts — should be regarded with nothing but awe. But Marshall was a big man, a lineman and a hitter; Favre, for lack of a better word, is a hittee. The quarterback, unlike any position in any sport, is a target. Game plans are designed to disable him. You see the products of such preparation each Sunday: quarterbacks leaving the field concussed or hobbling, one step closer to orthopedic ruin.
On Jan. 9, 1969, Joe Namath delivered his famous Super Bowl "guarantee." Less well known, but no less prescient, was his concluding remark that evening. "The name of the game," he said, "is kill the quarterback."
Football has changed. The strategic geometries are more sophisticated. Players are bigger, stronger and faster. The game is more violent than ever. But the good quarterback is still the guy willing to take the blind-side hit. What's true for boxers is true for quarterbacks, too; the hit you don't see is the one that takes you out. Yet the good quarterback — by which I mean psychologically robust — accepts both the pain and the probability of devastating injury. He deals with it.
This dealing with it, I would argue, led Joe Namath to regard drink as an analgesic. Certainly, it led Favre to Vicodin, and a 46-day stint in a rehabilitation clinic after the first of his three MVP seasons. The following autumn, when asked what caused his addiction, Favre told Playboy: "You want to play. You don't want to give the other quarterback a shot at your job. I also have a streak going. I have played 80-some games in a row, the most in the league. The record is 118 and I plan on breaking it."
That interview was published 10 years ago, November, 1997. Tony Romo, who has quickly become famous as the Cowboys quarterback, was a junior at Burlington High School in Wisconsin and a big Brett Favre fan. Thursday will mark Romo's 22nd consecutive start. He's 27. When Favre was 27 he told a reporter: "I feel like I'm 40 ... I hope my body can keep up with me."
By then, he'd probably suffered half a dozen concussions. "It doesn't hurt," he told Playboy. "You just don't know who you are for a minute." He'd taken 13 Vicodin to get through the ESPYs. He had survived, among other maladies: five surgeries, turf toe, an arthritic condition in his hip, a separated shoulder, bone chips in his left ankle, fractured vertebrae and the removal of 30 inches of intestine after a car wreck in college.
The game wouldn't get any easier, nor would his personal life. But he played through the departure of his favorite linemen. He played though the Packers' inevitable rebuilding. He played through the death of his father. He played after his wife, Deanna, was diagnosed with breast cancer, now in apparent remission after a lumpectomy and chemotherapy.
And against every expectation, Favre seems to have improved with age. Now in his 17th season (the 16th of his streak), he is playing as well as ever. Through 11 games, he's thrown for 3,356 yards while completing 68.5 percent of his passes. He has 22 touchdown passes against only eight interceptions. Consider those numbers in relation to Ripken's solid, if unspectacular, 17th season: 17 homers, .270 batting average, 84 RBI.
"With football I found my calling," Favre once said. "It's a good game for someone who will go out and knock himself silly to get a win."
Back in 1992, in only his seventh start, Favre suffered a separated shoulder after Reggie White famously bodyslammed him. The blow was a deliberate attempt to knock the starter out of the game.
"That's his job," Favre would recall.
Some months later, Favre would be recruiting White to sign as a free agent with Green Bay. Favre always understood that kill-the-quarterback ethos. He accepted it, maybe even embraced it.
Still, life might've been a little easier if he could've played shortstop.
Favre is the ultimate iron man
By Mark Kriegel, FOXSports.com
It is commonly supposed that Cal Ripken set the standard for all would-be Iron Men in American sports.
I'd like to propose a new standard-bearer: Brett Favre.
I mean no disrespect to Ripken, whose streak of 2,632 consecutive games played across 17 seasons will never be broken. I understand that baseball and football are very different games and not easily compared. But let's be serious: the relative perils of football and baseball don't merit much of a comparison. If the Iron Man is one who can free his mind of pain and monotony, if the ideal embodies the virtues of endurance and courage and plain, pigheaded will, then Favre is that guy.
Ripken was a shortstop, and later, when his reflexes slowed, a third baseman. Favre remains what he has always been — a quarterback, the most vulnerable position in what is arguably the most dangerous sport. It's not too much to say that each snap could be his last. Still, he's been an NFL quarterback for 17 seasons now. Thursday night's contest between Green Bay and Dallas — the NFC's most compelling matchup — will mark Favre's 251st consecutive regular-season game, 271 if you count playoff games. It will also be his 249th consecutive start, second only to Jim Marshall, the Vikings' defensive end, who played from 1960 to 1979.
Marshall's record — 270 consecutive starts — should be regarded with nothing but awe. But Marshall was a big man, a lineman and a hitter; Favre, for lack of a better word, is a hittee. The quarterback, unlike any position in any sport, is a target. Game plans are designed to disable him. You see the products of such preparation each Sunday: quarterbacks leaving the field concussed or hobbling, one step closer to orthopedic ruin.
On Jan. 9, 1969, Joe Namath delivered his famous Super Bowl "guarantee." Less well known, but no less prescient, was his concluding remark that evening. "The name of the game," he said, "is kill the quarterback."
Football has changed. The strategic geometries are more sophisticated. Players are bigger, stronger and faster. The game is more violent than ever. But the good quarterback is still the guy willing to take the blind-side hit. What's true for boxers is true for quarterbacks, too; the hit you don't see is the one that takes you out. Yet the good quarterback — by which I mean psychologically robust — accepts both the pain and the probability of devastating injury. He deals with it.
This dealing with it, I would argue, led Joe Namath to regard drink as an analgesic. Certainly, it led Favre to Vicodin, and a 46-day stint in a rehabilitation clinic after the first of his three MVP seasons. The following autumn, when asked what caused his addiction, Favre told Playboy: "You want to play. You don't want to give the other quarterback a shot at your job. I also have a streak going. I have played 80-some games in a row, the most in the league. The record is 118 and I plan on breaking it."
That interview was published 10 years ago, November, 1997. Tony Romo, who has quickly become famous as the Cowboys quarterback, was a junior at Burlington High School in Wisconsin and a big Brett Favre fan. Thursday will mark Romo's 22nd consecutive start. He's 27. When Favre was 27 he told a reporter: "I feel like I'm 40 ... I hope my body can keep up with me."
By then, he'd probably suffered half a dozen concussions. "It doesn't hurt," he told Playboy. "You just don't know who you are for a minute." He'd taken 13 Vicodin to get through the ESPYs. He had survived, among other maladies: five surgeries, turf toe, an arthritic condition in his hip, a separated shoulder, bone chips in his left ankle, fractured vertebrae and the removal of 30 inches of intestine after a car wreck in college.
The game wouldn't get any easier, nor would his personal life. But he played through the departure of his favorite linemen. He played though the Packers' inevitable rebuilding. He played through the death of his father. He played after his wife, Deanna, was diagnosed with breast cancer, now in apparent remission after a lumpectomy and chemotherapy.
And against every expectation, Favre seems to have improved with age. Now in his 17th season (the 16th of his streak), he is playing as well as ever. Through 11 games, he's thrown for 3,356 yards while completing 68.5 percent of his passes. He has 22 touchdown passes against only eight interceptions. Consider those numbers in relation to Ripken's solid, if unspectacular, 17th season: 17 homers, .270 batting average, 84 RBI.
"With football I found my calling," Favre once said. "It's a good game for someone who will go out and knock himself silly to get a win."
Back in 1992, in only his seventh start, Favre suffered a separated shoulder after Reggie White famously bodyslammed him. The blow was a deliberate attempt to knock the starter out of the game.
"That's his job," Favre would recall.
Some months later, Favre would be recruiting White to sign as a free agent with Green Bay. Favre always understood that kill-the-quarterback ethos. He accepted it, maybe even embraced it.
Still, life might've been a little easier if he could've played shortstop.