Enjoying Brett Favre in a Lighter Shade of Green

Every Sunday, I find myself at the same bar, usually at the same time, and always at the same table. I've done this for three years in a row and the reason I am there is to watch Brett Favre. The problem is that this year, I sit alone in the back room that used to be crowded with other fans. 

Fans that never distinguished whether or not they followed a team or a player. Obviously, they have shown that they are team fans because on Sundays, when Brett Favre is playing in his new shade of green, I have the room to myself. 

When I was 13 years old, I was adjusting to watching Joe Montana in his new shade of red. It wasn't easy. It didn't seem natural and the more I watched him throughout the season, the less I felt. There was no love or no hate, simply a drying up of feeling that had been there five years before that. 

On a Monday night in November in 1993, I readied myself to watch the Chiefs play the Packers on Monday Night Football. As the game progressed and Montana, in his Kansas City red, dinked and dunked and calmly controlled the game, my attention had completely wavered and shifted to the other quarterback on the field. 

He was the opposite of Montana: young, wild, unpredictable and, most importantly, made the game exciting to watch. From that night, I was a Brett Favre fan and, by default, a Green Bay Packers fan.

I don't have to rehash the past 16 years and the ride on which Favre has carried his fans. He has become what all great players do not become: an ideal.  

Every game I watched, never did I once grow tired or apathetic of the way Favre played. There were times I was so excited, I couldn't calm down (second play from scrimmage in the Super Bowl against New England). There were times I was so angry, I couldn't see straight (the overtime interception against New York), and times when I was so disappointed I just went to bed (overtime interception against Philadelphia). Never once, however, did Favre bore me.  

Last January, in the middle of the snow at Lambeau Field, I watched Brett Favre sling footballs and snowballs. I saw him for the first time at Lambeau Field. If there was ever a place for a conclusion to this story, it was this game. And no matter how angry I was the next weekend watching him throw the interception against New York, at least I had seen Brett Favre's last career win in Lambeau field. 

I would've like for it to have ended there. Every Sunday when I watch Favre in his lighter shade of green, as I watch him run the Jets' vanilla offense, I wonder if history is starting to repeat itself. 

As Mangini becomes more and more conservative and Favre grows seemingly older every week, will he become Kansas City Joe? Will he fade away into the concrete of the Meadowlands and will that be his lasting legacy? Knowing Brett Favre, I would say there's no chance of that.