Brett Favre: An Impossible Act to Follow

Whether we're Packers fans or not, we loved watching Brett play. Whether he was throwing side-armed ill-advised throws over the middle or sprinting to the end-zone to jump into his receiver's arms after taking that pass for six, he made us smile. We smiled because he loved the game as much as we did and it made us think "If I played QB, that's what I'd do".

Enter Aaron Rodgers, the 24th pick of the 2005 draft and heir to "Throne de Favre." Coming into the 2008 season, he carries a 73.3 rating, 329 career passing yards, one TD, and one interception (Favre: 85.7 rating, 61,655 yds, 442 TD's, 288 int's).

Is there any way this poor sap can succeed? If you look at recent history of Hall of Fame caliber QB's and what happens to their franchise when they leave, it almost always takes eight to nine years for that franchise to find another winner under center. That's a decade of craptastic to mediocre football.

Let's look at previous follow-ups to Hall of Fame signal callers.

• Joe Montana to Steve Young: OK. This one seemed to work out alright. Bad example. In my defense, Steve Young did have six years of QB under his belt, including two solid years with the ugly orange Bucs. Let's concede this one.

• Dan Marino to Jay Fiedler: Marino had about every record ever set at QB and in came Fiedler. Jay never had more than 20 TD's in a season and was pretty much gone in four years. The Dolphins still haven't recovered.

• Roger Staubach to Danny White: It took the Cowboys nine years to find Troy Aikman.

• Troy Aikman to Randal Cunningham/Quincy Carter/Chad Hutchinson: Enough said. Finally Tony Romo is showing promise about eight years later.

• John Elway to Brian Griese: Griese was OK, but fizzled out in four years like Fiedler. After Elway, Denver didn't want OK, they wanted Ole' Bucktooth back. Then came Jake Plummer and now Jay Cutler about eight years later. Maybe he's the answer.

• Phil Simms to Dave Brown: Simms won two Super Bowls, Brown never threw more than 12 TD's in one season. Guess you have to expect that from a QB out of Duke though, right? The Giants were hurting for a while until Kerry Collins brought them to a Super Bowl seven years later.

Just when the young Packers were turning the corner...