Brett Favre

Gregg Easterbrook writes:

There are 44 seconds remaining at Lambeau Field. The Packers, trailing 23-20, are on the St. Louis 11-yard line, close to a dramatic last-second win. The crowd roars at military afterburner decibels. Brett Favre takes the snap, he drops back, and -- fumbles, St. Louis ball, game over.

"For more than a decade, Favre has been a joy to watch and a darling of the football gods. But now his powers are declining, and when great athletes begin to lose abilities they once had, many find this hard to face..."

But a case can be made for handing the ball to Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay's quarterback of the future, and letting Rodgers get some experience so that 2007 might be a winning season for the Packers... Should the Packers be 2-6 a month from now, the dignified thing would be for Favre to remove his helmet and hold the clipboard for Rodgers.

I can't find a way to give Mr. Easterbrook a piece of my mind directly, so I'll do it in this forum. Perhaps he's a reader.

From the moment Brett Favre sauntered onto the football field in relief of Don Majkowski back in 1992, I have been a fan. He's the greatest quarterback to ever play the game. I dedicated my dissertation to him (well, the first draft, but that little caveat doesn't seem to appease my long-suffering wife). Yet I recognize that he's lost a bit in the last couple of years. There were a few situations in Sunday's game where he missed a play that he would've made five or ten years ago. He's having kind of a mediocre season. He's clearly not the guy he was in the 1990s.

But let's put this thing in perspective. First of all, the fumble was more the fault of the Packers' right tackle, who let the defender swoop in from the blind side and knock the ball out of Favre's hand. Second, before we put the nail in the coffin of the Packers' season (1-4 so far), note the following remarkable fact(s):

Combined record of teams that have beaten the Packers this season: 17-3.
Record of team that the Packers beat: 0-5.

The Packers have lost to each of the NFC division leaders - Philadelphia, Chicago, New Orleans, and St. Louis. They have beaten the worst team in the league, Detroit. So it's kind of hard to get a measure of how bad (or good) the Packers are. Clearly not in the elite, but clearly not among the dregs. In the broad middle, there is hope. Hope for maybe a winning season, hope (against all hope) to sneak into the playoffs as a wild card. It's way too early to count any team (ok, except the Lions) out of the playoff hunt. And as long as the Packers still have life in them, Favre should continue to play. Finally, let's not assume this is Favre's last year. He could easily go one or two more after this one, in which case I'm happy to see Aaron Rodgers ride the pines for awhile longer.