Brett Favre
As of last weekend, the stats will say he is the greatest touchdown thrower of all-time, passing Dan Marino’s long-standing record of 421, a record that has stood for a very long time. Does this make Brett the greatest quarterback of all-time, hardly. In reality, Favre is far from the best on the field. However, that is not why I chose to discuss him. His skills are good…maybe great in some respects (still has a cannon for an arm) but athletically he is nothing special.
What is so great about Favre is the way he plays the game, the way he respects the game and the way it respects him. Favre has been playing for the Green Bay Packers since 1992…that’s 15 years with the same franchise…there are only a handful of athletes in the world who have competed for one organization for that amount of time. This day in age, that is about as close a definition to loyalty as you will get.
What is more astounding is his commitment at his position, including this past Sunday he has now started at QB for the Packers 241 straight games, which is just over 15 straight years…are you kidding me?! The record for consecutive games played by a quarterback used to be 110…by Ron Jaworski…Favre has more than DOUBLED this number at what most people would consider to be the most dangerous position on the field. To go that long without sitting out because of injury in a league this violent is a major testament to Favre’s toughness, dedication and want to play in every game.
But Favre has never looked like much more than the guy you play backyard football with outside your hometown high school, nor has he played the game any different than that guy. If you watch Favre, even now as he’s aging, you can still see all the joy he gets from simply throwing a ball and having a teammate catch it. The fire is still there and that spirit which is so original and relentless is uncompromising.
He threw touchdown number 422 this weekend against the Vikings and if you watch that highlight closely you will see a player being thrust into the air in celebration after the historic play and you will see that it is not the person who threw the pass who is being lifted into the air but the person who threw the pass doing the lifting. That is Brett Favre in a nutshell. He is what a football player is supposed to be.
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