Senior writer jclombardi highlights Favre watch headlines.
Beaten and battered, Favre faces harsh reality: No matter how you feel about Brett Favre, it was hard not to feel just a pinch of sympathy for him Sunday. Once a three-time NFL most valuable player and just last year still among the best quarterbacks in the game, Favre is finishing out his career with a team in a death spiral and looking every bit like a 41-year-old man in a young man’s game. As purple-clad fans fled the Metrodome and Packers fans stayed behind to savor the closing minutes of a 31-3 beat-down of Favre and the Vikings, the chants of “Go, Pack, go!” must have rung hollow in Favre’s ear flaps. Favre is a Hall of Famer reduced to irrelevance. As Favre walked off the field, a handful of Packers made their way through a phalanx of photographers to pat the quarterback on the helmet or shoulder pads and wish him well. ”One thing we always say is that we miss one another,” Driver said. “I asked him if he would be OK and he said, ‘Yeah,’ and then he said, ‘I love you.’ I said, ‘I love you, too.’ And that was it.” Safety Nick Collins told Favre to “keep his head up and keep playing.” ”He said, ‘Y’all keep going. You’re playing good. You can do it,’?” Collins said. “We’ve been watching him the whole season, watching everything he’s going through,” Jenkins said. “You feel bad for him as a former teammate. He’s a pretty cool guy. You don’t wish bad luck on anybody. It’s just one of those things. He’s having a tough year and hopefully he’ll be able to get past it, whatever direction he goes in after this season.”
Favre to ‘re-evaluate things’ following rout: In 1992, the Green Bay Packers breathed life into Brett Favre’s NFL career. Sunday, they may have put that marvelous career to rest for good. The Packers completed a season sweep of their former quarterback with a remarkably easy 31-3 victory over his Minnesota Vikings Sunday at the Metrodome. That evened it up at two wins per team since Favre joined the Vikings in 2009 and it will probably remain tied because Favre doesn’t look or sound like someone who has a 21st NFL season in his 41-year-old body. When the unexpected rout was over Sunday, two things were clear: The Vikings as we know them are done and Favre might be, too. Afterward, he wouldn’t even commit to playing another game, saying twice that he would go home and re-evaluate. He cracked a joke while declining to say exactly what he would re-evaluate.
The last goodbye?: If this is it, and Brett Favre left the door slightly ajar to that possibility with his promise to “re-evaluate” his situation, then it was understandable that some folks at Mall of America Field at the Metrodome Sunday afternoon took pity upon the 41-year-old Minnesota Vikings quarterback. None of that sympathy, however, was coming from the Green Bay Packers’ locker room in the wake of their 31-3 whupping of their former teammate and his team, effectively ending the Vikings’ season with six weeks remaining. “None. Not at all,” said Packers veteran cornerback Charles Woodson, who played the 2006 and ’07 seasons with Favre. “This is football, and we’re all after one goal – to win games and ultimately win a championship. What somebody else, another team is going through, means nothing to us. We’re full steam ahead.” Wide receiver Donald Driver, Favre’s teammate and friend from 1999 through 2007, agreed. “Nah, not at all,” Driver said. “I love him, love him to death, but when you play this game, there’s no friends until it’s all over. I think he would have agreed if he would have beaten us. I’m happy that we beat him. Now I can say that I’ve won with him, lost with him and I’ve beat him. I can put that on top of my shelf.” Asked point-blank if he’s fully committed to finishing the season, Favre initially tried to deflect the question with a joke. “As I stand here today, I never expected us to be in this situation,” Favre replied. “I came back for a Super Bowl. I also knew there (was) a chance that wouldn’t happen. Probably a better chance that it (didn’t) – a way better chance that you don’t play near as good as you did last year. It doesn’t mean you can’t have success, but this is a little bit surprising. Again, I’m just going to go home and, I don’t want to say think about this game, just re-evaluate tomorrow.”
Will Favre play again this year?: Considering the player, the scene was surreal. Brett Favre, with his legendary consecutive starts streak now five away from the landmark 300, stood on the Minnesota Vikings’ sideline with the clock winding down on Sunday. His team was getting trounced 31-3 by his former employers, and most of the fans had headed for the exits long ago. There Favre stood, arm-in-arm with teammates Ryan Longwell and Steve Hutchinson. Then one trainer. And then another. Was Favre, in the middle of a disastrous season, saying good-bye? Whether Favre’s season – and career – will end after this game seems unlikely for someone who’s given so much of himself in his career and would forever tarnish his legacy by throwing in the towel with six games to go. But he made no effort to emphatically say he’ll stick with a team that is sinking so quickly that coach Brad Childress’ dismissal after the season seems like a foregone conclusion. Asked if he wanted to finish the season, Favre said, “I don’t want to sit here and tell you I’d love to sit here and tell you I’d love to finish the season and then go out and lose 31-3.” Pressed on the meaning of his going home to “re-evaluate” statement, Favre said: “I have no idea. If I had known it was going to lead to that question, I would have re-evaluated that answer.”
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