Who Would You Trade Brett Favre For?

Brett Favre is back in the NFL and all is right with the world.

Favre, who will be 40 in October, has been signed by the Minnesota Vikings and will be the starting quarterback this year.

The Vikings felt they needed to upgrade the quarterback position after Tarvaris Jackson had some shaky games during the regular season and melted down in the playoffs last year.

The Vikings signed Sage Rosenfels expecting him to be an upgrade, except that all along they have had an infatuation with bringing Favre out of "retirement", as he is expected to be the leader to get them over the hump, like he did with the Jets.

Oh wait, the Jets and Favre melted down at the end of last year and missed the playoffs. The fascination with Brett Favre is the name, not necessarily the performer, as the Vikings are willing to overlook his choking against the Giants in the playoffs two years ago or terrible play during many games late last season.

The Vikings see a superstar, though, I'm not so sure about his superstar status currently.

I've decided to run a test, comparing every starting quarterback in the NFL versus Favre. Straight up, would each team trade their QB for Favre today. I have to do it straight up since every team might mix in a trade if Adrian Peterson was involved. Age only plays a small role in this analysis, as I'm looking more at recent performance to determine if these teams would prefer Favre or their current QB.

I'm also taking personal issues out of play, since there is no way Green Bay or Cleveland or the Jets would trade for him. I want to find out where Favre currently stands in terms of NFL QB's.

1. Players who would definitely not be traded for Favre: Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Phllip Rivers, Drew Brees, Tony Romo, and Peyton Manning. There is not much analysis needed, all of these QB's are definitely better, even if a guy like Romo is sometimes shaky and not proven in the playoffs.

2. Players who would most likely not be traded for Favre: Kurt Warner, Matt Ryan, Donovan McNabb, Eli Manning, and Aaron Rodgers. This is the next tier of QB's, who have minor things against them either because of age, injuries, or inexperience, but are definitely better than Favre.

3. Players who would probably not be traded for Favre: Chad Pennington, Trent Edwards, Joe Flacco, Carson Palmer, Kerry Collins, Matt Schaub, Matt Cassel, Jason Campbell, Matt Hasselbeck, Jake Delhomme, and Jay Cutler. This next group either has players who are getting old (but have more in the tank than Favre), or experienced players who have went through injuries, or young guys still developing but who have showed signs of improvement. I think all of the QB's above are preferred to Favre by their GM's and coaches.

I've already named 22 quarterbacks, so only 10 teams may think that Favre is better than their QB (The Vikings of course being one of them).

4. Players who might be interested in trading for Favre: David Garrard, Mark Sanchez, Matthew Stafford, Kyle Orton, JaMarcus Russell, Brady Quinn, Marc Bulger, Hill, and Leftwich. Some of these QB's and teams are on the list because they are unsure who their QB is going to be. Even if Favre is better than all of the guys on this list now, he might not be for long, as QB's like Stafford and Sanchez and even players like Quinn, Hill, and Russell have the opportunity to develop into better quarterbacks. Whether they do or not is to be seen.

Two years, $25 million dollars, and around the clock media attention for a guy who is probably about the 22nd or 23rd best quarterback in the NFL today.

The Vikings became star struck and in the process completely destroyed the development of Jackson and Rosenfels. Rosenfels would probably be the 27th or 28th best quarterback right now, but given time he might get better.

Favre isn't wine, he's not getting better with age.