Brett Favre: The Chicago Perspective

Brett Favre has spent the past 17 years dazzling fans with his play, seeming to not care what happens to his body as long as he was able to help his team win the game.

Packer fans cringed when they watched him throw up the ball to Donald Driver, and spent the next minute and a half afterwards cheering, because Brett had thrown the perfect pass to the receiver that most quarterbacks would have seen as covered.

He lived by the gunslinger mentality. He threw a touchdown or an interception seemingly every play. (He even holds the NFL career records for touchdowns and interceptions.)

And as a Chicago fan, nobody spent more time in the fetal position after he shredded bad 90's Bears teams one after another.

He goes down in history as one of the greatest of all time.

Montana, Unitas, Namath, Favre. No matter what conversation you are having, if football is the topic, Favre is the answer.

He started as a little known guy from Mississippi; he's a blue-collar guy who believes in hard work possibly more than anybody else who ever played the game.

Paul Tagliabue didn't even know how to pronounce his name when he was first drafted in 1991 by the Atlanta Falcons.

He was traded to the Packers and that's when the legend began.

Matt Hasselbeck was the back-up to him for some years in Green Bay. Matt has a great story of finally getting fan mail one day: He was so excited—until he read it.  Inside, the young lady had asked him; because Favre's mailbox is always full, to get her a Brett Favre autograph.

Favre's celebrity was even felt in the town of his most heated rival, Chicago.

After a Bears game, you could regularly find shirts that say "Packers Suck, Favre Swallows." But those shirts where really an admiration of our love for a great player.  (As well as the hatred of an evil team that got lucky.)

So, from a Bears fan to the town of Green Bay: Sorry you lost your star quarterback, good luck next season, you're going to need it with Aaron Rodgers.

Other news from today

• Side note from this article, the final ball that Favre threw in a regulation game, is currently in possesion of a former U.S Army officer who lost both his legs in Iraq.  The ball was given to him by Corey Webster who made the game clinching interception in the NFC Championship game.
• Javon Walker signs 6-year 55 million dollar deal with the Oakland Raiders
• Warren Sapp retires after 13 year career. No more booty dances in the endzone for Sapp.