Good Riddance, Brett Favre

Brett Favre was a great player. He holds a slew of NFL records and will have a bust in the Hall of Fame in Canton, OH as soon as he is eligible.

That being said, he played way past his prime and was one of the most irritating professional athletes to follow over the last decade.

I, for one, will be glad to no longer have to put up with the endless showering of praise given to him by the national media and certain broadcasters, and it should be obvious who I'm talking about.

Boom!

This past season with the Jets stands as a microcosm of Favre's whole career. He led the team to a good turnaround season and put up some gaudy stats for himself. But in the end, he could not get it done when things mattered most.

In the season’s final week against the Dolphins, Favre and the Jets fell flat. It was the final chapter of a collapse that saw the Jets tumble from 8-3 to 9-7.

Adding insult to injury, Chad Pennington, the man the Jets shipped off to make room for Favre, threw for two touchdowns and no interceptions, while Favre went 20 for 40 with one touchdown and three interceptions.

Favre's legacy will be the touchdown and passing yardage records. And all of the consecutive games played at the league's most demanding position. And three MVP awards.

But no one should forget the interception record he holds or the penchant he showed for throwing them at some of the worst possible times, like a 2002 playoff game against the Rams, where Favre threw six interceptions.

Two years later in a playoff game in Philadelphia, he lobbed a pop-up right into the arms of Brian Dawkins in overtime to set up the game-winning field goal. History repeated itself in 2008 when he did the same thing against the Giants, practically handing them the NFC title.

Despite all this, I do respect Favre for playing through all of the physical punishment and dealing with a seemingly endless string of personal tragedies. 

And I suppose you can blame ESPN and the rest of the media for always reporting every little detail about all of the drama surrounding him, like his constant indecisiveness about whether or not to retire.

But all of the attention and accolades must have gone to his head, because Favre seems to have an inflated opinion of himself, as seen when several of his Jets teammates came out after the season and said he exhibited behavior that clearly showed he put himself above the team.

Not hard to believe, considering that he had already turned his back on the Packers just a few months before. I suppose some people just have a habit of making themselves the center of attention.

He was not as good as Joe Montana or John Elway. And Peyton Manning and Tom Brady will both have had better careers than him by the time they hang it up.

Yes, he won a Super Bowl. ONE Super Bowl. So did Brad Johnson and Trent Dilfer.  And in his last 11 seasons, only once did he take his team to a conference championship game.

So goodbye, Brett. It's been fun. At least it was a decade ago when you could still play and weren't hurting your team. I'm glad to finally see you go.

And yes, I'll say the same thing this time next year after you have played another season and are retiring again.