Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Favre v. Packers

What we saw in the Monday Night Football game was what Green Bay used to see from Brett Favre. The reason that Ted Thompson (GB's GM) cut him semi-loose is that Green Bay hadn't seen that Brett Favre for years.
Favre made no secret that the weekly grind of film study, meetings, practice, and everything else that defines pre-game prep had become irksome to him. So he tried to get by on his native talent. Good for him because he has loads of talent. The trouble is that everyone else in the league does, too. Which means that he went into game after game for years, under-prepared mentally, not knowing what he needed to know to compete as well as his potential would allow. At the same time Favre started getting a little old. The last month or so of each season highlighted that age as his performance began to decline in those games. That is the Brett Favre that Green Bay saw from the 2000 season on.
So when Thompson traded Favre to the Jets he did so because Favre didn't seem to want to do more than just come to the games, strap it up, and let loose. Make no mistake, Favre went the the required meetings and practices, but there is a huge difference between doing the minimum demanded and what it takes to be great.
I get it, after 20+ years of playing football I'd be tired of it, too. But you just can't phone it in when you're playing at the profession's pinnacle. Favre needed a change of scenery to motivate him to play to his potential again, and he got it.
Now all that remains to be seen is what Favre plays the rest of the season in Minnesota. Without a doubt, the Monday night game against Green Bay was Favre's Super Bowl. What we saw was what we saw when Brett Favre cared enough to do everything he could do, not just what he had to do, and it showed.
Of course we also saw an offensive line that kept him from so much as getting a scratch while Green Bay's Rogers just got hammered relentlessly. Even so, the Packers were still one play from winning all the way until the last minute. If Green Bay had anything like the pass protection the Vikings generated, this Monday Night game might have been the best, ever.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. If Favre had kept playing post-2000 the way he's playing in Minnesota this year, he would still be a Packer.
He didn't, and that is a sports tragedy.