Will The Real Brett Favre Please Stand Up?!?!

Panthers – 26

Vikings – 7

It’s that time of year again, the time of year where Brett Favre starts to break down and show his age.  I am speaking about this from first hand experience as New York Jets fan who had to endure the Favre-a-coaster last season.  That’s right folks the Vikings went into Carolina and were thoroughly dominated by the Carolina Panthers, and the Vikings offense looked pedestrian for most of the game.  You could tell after the first few drives that the Vikings weren’t going to be blowing anyone out today, but the game was all setup for them Carolina was starting a backup QB Dangelo Williams goes out of the game early with an ankle injury.  The Vikings should have been licking their chops at all the fortunate things that worked in their favor, but on this day the Panthers looked like the team pushing for the #1 seed in the NFC.  Before I start in on Brett Favre let me just say that the entire Vikings football team played like they had somewhere else more important to be on Sunday Night.

History is a bitch because it repeats itself so often, and in Favre’s case the trends are starting to show up again.  Let me comment that I think Brett Favre is a great QB, and deserves every bit of accolades he has received over the years.  All of the retirement drama and coverage was something I could have done without, and he did not help the situation because of his waffling on the subject.  Now when he came to the Jets I was ecstatic because I felt that Chad Pennington was a good regular season Quarterback, but he wasn’t a guy who was going to win you a Super Bowl.  I had some concerns about his ability to play the full season, and his propensity for throwing the ball to the other team.  Several games into the 2008 season the Jets looked like the best team in the AFC, and it all culminated with a dominating performance against the unbeaten Tennessee Titans.  At that time I was a Favre fan, he could do no wrong, he seemed to present the opportunity to bring the Jets to a place that only Joe Namath had before.  You couldn’t tell me that he wasn’t the greatest QB of all time, and I was in full Favre Buy-In if it was anything Favre on an infomercial I was buying.  Then it happened a lopsided loss to Denver at home followed by a loss to lowly San Francisco, and all of a sudden things weren’t looking so good.  Those two games were week 13 and week 14 of the 2008 season, and things spiraled to their worse in week 16 where the Jets offense only managed to put up 3 points against Seattle.  Favre looked old the last 5 or 6 games of last season, and yes he did have an nagging bicep injury, but what most veterans do is adapt if the velocity on their passes is down.  Favre kept saying he was fine and there was nothing wrong with his arm, the INT”s started to pile up along with the losses as he did not make any adjustments.  Despite the injury he just looked tired and spent, it seemed like he had lost interest that the season had become too hard and he just wanted it over.

The Jets missed the playoffs during the 2008 season after looking like the team to beat in the AFC in Week 12, now the Vikings already have a playoff spot locked up so that won’t happen this year.  The thing that should concern Vikings fans is that Favre is showing the same signs and tendencies that he did last year, except this time he is not injured (as far as we know).  I have heard from Vikings fans making excuses about the Arizona game, talking about how it was all about match ups and an aberration.  Well  what about tonight Carolina has stuck it up all season, and their backup threw for 299 yards and 3 TD’s on this Jared Allen led defense.  The problem is the Vikings aren’t as good as their record, and those early games they built their impressive record off of  were against sub-par teams.  Let’s see the Browns, Lions (twice), 49ers, Rams, Seahawks are a bulk of those wins, yes they beat the Packers twice but that’s the same team that lost to the Buccaneers.  What is even more telling is the fact that the Steelers beat Minnesota and Green Bay, and somehow these two teams are supposed to challenge them for the Super Bowl?  It’s quite clear that Favre slowing down, and when he faces teams with a good or aggressive defense he clearly has trouble.  Anyone can make plays when they have the luxury of time to throw the ball, and I think Favre benefited from that early in the season.  A glaring example of this can be seen in the last interception he threw against the Panthers, with  Sidney Rice coming open in the back of the end zone Favre threw the ball late and stared him down.  The Panthers defensive back was able to come over and make an easy interception to seal the game, it was a bad throw and Favre knew it.  If you notice the confirmed report of a heated discussion between Favre and Brad Childress where Childress wanted to take Favre out of the game and Favre refused.  That sure doesn’t sound like a coach and QB who are on the same page, in the post game interview Favre commented, “we were ahead 7 – 6, sure it wasn’t 70 – 6 but we were winning the game”.  Quite interesting that Childress wanted to remove him when they were winning the game because he was scared of potential injury, this sounds like a coach who is panicking and being overly conservative.

Since the Vikings have clinched a playoff spot people will make all kinds of excuses, but remember with Tavaris Jackson at the helm last season they were in the exact same spot.  The Vikings have the lowly Bears and then the NY Giants next on the schedule, they should easily handle the Bears like they did in week 12, but the Giants will be an interesting game.  The pressure is on if the Vikings don’t make it past the first round of the playoffs then this Favre rental experiment will be a failure, and the time and effort might have been better spent developing Tavaris Jackson for another season.  With Childress and Favre not quite in sync with each this may be the beginning of the end for the Vikings Super Bowl hopes.