Brett Favre is a great quarterback who is possibly having his best season at the age of 40 playing for the Minnesota Vikings.
The game featured many Viking turnovers (including two Adrian Peterson fumbles) but it was Favre, who spent the majority of his career in Green Bay, that literally threw away the Vikings' chance to play in the Super Bowl with an interception in the closing seconds of regulation time as the Vikings were threatening for a field goal chance with the game tied at 28-28.
With seemingly 10 yards empty ahead of him, Favre elected to try an across the body pass that was picked off at the 22 by Tracy Porter who came from the blindside. No quarterback should try that type of pass at any point in the game let alone at the end, when protecting the ball is most important. There was so much room to run that even Kevin James after an all you can eat buffet sitting could have made it into Ryan Longwell field goal range.
The telecast ended with video of the streets of New Orleans filling up as Saints fans rejoiced... even though the Packers are no longer in the playoffs, somehow I am guessing the anti-Favre fans in Green Bay are also smiling tonight.
Karma is a bitch.
On the downside, now the endless speculation on Favre's status begins.
Nah man, I think turnovers are just part of his style. He throws shitloads of touchdowns but also shitloads of INTs... He had a great season this year actually. The fact that he's a veteran QB who make the cardinal rookie sin of throwing across his body is classic Favre in my opinion. I see it as payback for treating my Jets like shit...
historically, where does favre rank..?
historically, i think he'll end up a good step behind brady, manning, montana, and maybe even aikman and young.
I'd rank him ahead of aikman and young and put him on par with a Marino...but definitely behind Manning and Montana (no one even comes close to Manning in terms of being able to quickly adapt to changing situations). In terms of turnovers, at least his isn't as bad as Adrian "can't hold on to the ball" Peterson...who I think cost the Vikings more points on Sunday than Favre.
favre is a sure thing HOF'er, but his career is overrated.
1st level: montana, manning, brady
2nd level: aikman, marino
3rd level: favre, elway
aikman is overrated and based on what ive heard/read unitas and tarkenton should be in your 1st level. favre probably sits right around the marino and elway level with all three being behind montana, tarkenton, unitas and manning. im not sure if favre is THAT overrated since we're comparing him to guys (like marino and elway) who get thrown around in the top 5 quarterbacks of all-time arguments.
a fun stat on pro-football-reference.com is AV (approximate value). of course, this should not be used as the bible for ranking players but it is interesting to compare. by the way, favre ranks 4th overall since 1950...
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/blog/?page_id=518
i don't mind favre's waffling on his decision... we're all entitled to change our mind, and it IS a real difficult decision...
what i can't stand is the way the media has just looked the other way as his skills have declined to the point where he's usually harming his team. this past season excepted, favre has been a turnover prone disaster monkey out there, and the commentators always find a way to blame his receivers.