Talking Brett Favre on Sports Overnight America

Last night, I joined Pat Mauro of Sports Overnight America in the wee hours of the morning to discuss Brett Favre, the Vikings, and the Timberwolves.

In case you missed it—or if 12:40 CDT was past your bedtime—the text of our conversation is below, with a little bit of my excess verbiage trimmed for the sake of brevity.

The Favre and Vikings chatter is covered here. You can read the T'Wolves talk here.

Special thanks to Pat—who was a terrific host—for having me on board.

Pat Mauro: Is Brett Favre going to be a Viking? It almost seems like every fan, everyone involved with the Vikings—unless your name is Sage Rosenfels—would like the sound of Brett Favre as quarterback of this team. Am I out there in saying that?

Marino Eccher: No, I think you’re pretty on-the-ball there, Pat. First of all, to answer your question, I do think barring a major setback with that arm, you are going to see Brett Favre in a Vikings uniform come training camp time.

And for the most part, I think the team is going to feel pretty good about that. Now obviously, that depends on which Brett Favre you’re getting.

If you get the guy who, through the first 11 games of last year, threw those 22 touchdowns, 13 picks, completed about 70 percent of his passes, well, it’s all good and gravy.

If you get the guy, who went 1-4 to close out the season, couldn’t make a throw to save his life, and ended up needing bicep surgery for a torn tendon, you’re going to have some problems with that.

PM: Thomas Jones said, “Hey, we lost because of Brett Favre,” and he ended up eating his words, because of that. He chose not to pursue that a little bit farther.

But the Jets were in pretty good position to go to the playoffs, and if you look at everything that happened those last four or five games, Brett Favre was basically the reason they didn’t go to the playoffs.

ME: I think it’s kind of a double-edged sword, because you look at the first two-thirds of the season, and it was Favre this, Favre that, the Favre experiment’s working, the team is 8-3. People are talking about, “Are the Jets gonna get a first-round bye?” People are mentioning the Jets as a Super Bowl contender.

But Favre fell off the wagon in a huge way in that last third of the season, completed fewer than 60 percent of his passes, two touchdowns, nine interceptions…he was really struggling to make throws that throughout his career had just been second nature to him.

Now, if he comes to the Vikings, you’re probably going to get that same kind of up-and-down feeling. Whether it’s deserved or not, at the end of this season, if you have Brett Favre quarterbacking the whole way, you’re going to say either it was Brett Favre who got them to the top of the mountain, or Brett Favre that could not do it.

PM: With the Jets, they wound up getting rid of Chad Pennington, who went to Miami and wound up having a really good year for them and appears to be their guy. In Minnesota, it was Gus Frerotte last year, it was Jackson, they ended up adding Rosenfels.

It’s almost like, even Brett Favre—and we don’t know what’s up with the shoulder, we don’t know if it’s 100 percent—but it’s almost like, “Brett Favre’s better than all those guys,” isn’t he?

ME: Absolutely…if Brett Favre is anything close to, not even his three-time MVP status, but if he’s anything close to what he was at the beginning of last year, or what he was in 2007 in Green Bay, he’s a tremendous upgrade over Rosenfels, he’s a tremendous upgrade over Tarvaris Jackson.

In regards to Rosenfels, you’re talking about a 31-year-old career backup, a guy who has been distinctly average over his NFL career. He’s a fine second option, he’s a fine veteran presence if you’re trying to push a young quarterback.

But he’s not a long-term solution, he doesn’t have a lot of star power, and he does not have a tremendous track record of success.

When you talk about Tarvaris Jackson, you talk about a guy, who, last season, he threw nine touchdowns, two interceptions, you look at that and say, “Hey, maybe he’s coming along a little bit.”

….Jackson is a guy who only threw for about 117 yards a game last season. What that tells you is the Vikings were not comfortable putting the ball in his hands.

It tells you that they did not think he was the guy who could win games...In that playoff game against the Eagles, Jackson did not look good.

So if you’re got Favre anything close to healthy, if you’ve got an arm that’s anything close to working, you certainly have to look at him as a dramatic upgrade over the position as it stands right now.

PM: If he’s healthy, you figure that the majority of the time, he says, “Hike,” and gives the ball to Adrian Peterson. Adrian Peterson’s going to be carrying the load, and that takes a lot of pressure off whoever the quarterback is.

…We know Brett Favre’s getting older, it’s not the Brett Favre of a few years back, but if it’s just the Brett Favre of the first 11 or 12 games with the Jets last year, this is a better Vikings team than they were last year.

ME: And I think that’s going to be be the case. Now, what you have to wonder about a little bit is putting Favre in that situation and saying, “OK, you’re the second fiddle on this offense to a feature back.”

Because really, throughout Favre’s career, that’s not really happened. He has always been the focal point of the offense, and he’s never lined up in front of somebody who’s a bigger name than he is.

In Green Bay, Ahman Green had a couple of good years. Favre’s last year there, Ryan Grant kind of came on late. But he’s never shared the backfield with a star running back.

It’s going to be interesting to see, if he ends up in Minnesota, if he’s comfortable in a system where he’s not asked to carry the load, where he’s not asked to win the game by himself, where he’s just asked to kind of get out of the way and make the throws when he needs to make ‘em. It’s going to be interesting to see if that famous Favre ego can handle that.

PM: Do you get the feeling that if this doesn’t happen—and I think we all get the feeling it is going to happen—but if it doesn’t happen, the Minnesota faithful are going to be greatly disappointed?

ME: Well, I think at this point, there will certainly be a letdown, because over the last couple weeks, month or so, it’s been kind of an open secret that if everything is alright medically, Favre is gonna end up with the Vikings.

Over the last week, you’ve seen reports pop up from a couple of different sources, you’ve seen reports pop up from Minnesota’s KFAN that there is a contract in place, and that it’s all but a done deal.

So now that it’s come this far, I think that yeah, if Favre doesn’t end up being the guy, Vikings fans are gonna come down off that high a little bit, because they’re not sold on Tarvaris Jackson, and I don’t think they’re convinced that Sage Rosenfels is anything special.

PM: Rosenfels put up some pretty good numbers with the Texans, but how much of this with the Vikings organization is about, “Hey, Brett Favre gives up the best chance of winning,” versus, “Brett Favre’s gonna put a lot of seats in the stands.”

ME: ...I don’t think there’s any question in their minds that Favre gives them the best chance of winning.

I think there is something intoxicating about the idea of bringing him on board. I think it creates a buzz. I don’t know that the Vikings have a whole lot of trouble putting butts in the seats, so to speak…but I think there’s something about Brett Favre that makes both the organization and fans stop and say, “Wow, that would really be something special to have going on this year.”

PM: Do you ever wish as a Vikings fan that they played in an outdoor stadium?

ME: You know, I don’t. I’ve spent a little too much time in the winter in Minnesota to wish that rationally, and when Zygi Wilf came out a couple years ago and said, “Let’s get an outdoor stadium,” I said, “Great, I’m gonna get a plasma; I will be very comfortable at home if that’s the case.”

And I think Brett Favre would not be thinking about this as seriously as he is if the Vikings played outdoors, because over the last couple years, we’ve seen that that reputation of his as an outdoor quarterback, as a guy who just loves to mix it up in the elements, is not what it used to be.

He did not look comfortable—even dating back to that last playoff game in Green Bay in 2007, he had a couple of bad games last year outdoors, so I think playing indoors this year can only be good for Brett Favre at this point.

PM: You know, we all love Brett Favre, Brett Favre’s a great ambassador for football, as long as Brett Favre continues to play, I’ll be a fan of his, but do you ever get the impression that Brett Favre is a little bit overrated?

You talk about the playoff game a couple years ago, throwing the pick against the Giants. He’s thrown a lot of crucial picks in the playoffs. I know he’s done a lot of great things, there’s no question, he’s obviously a Hall of Famer, but do you think because we all like Brett Favre so much, that when you get right down to it, he’s a little overrated?

ME: ...I don’t think there’s any question that this point that with all the love that’s been heaped on Favre throughout the years, that he is kind of riding a little bit on those ’95, ’96, ’97, really magical seasons…and on the “good old boy” stuff—everybody likes his, “Aw, shucks,” and “He’s a gamer,” “He loves to play the game,” and I think he’s earned that.

I think he certainly has a little bit of an overrated stature at this point. Now, it’s hard to say, because I think that’s kind of a common sentiment, so it’s hard to say when a guy goes from being overrated to being underrated simply because of that backlash.