Bradley: Favre is the most overrated athlete of our time
Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has fighting words for Packer fans:
Which is this: Brett Favre is the most overrated athlete of our time.
Favre isn’t the greatest quarterback ever. He’s not even in the top 10. He’s 20th all-time in passer rating, 17th in completion percentage. Yes, he’s No. 1 in yardage and touchdown passes, but he’s also No. 1 by some distance in interceptions. Put it this way: If you added Peyton Manning’s and Joe Montana’s INTs together, you still wouldn’t match Favre’s massive total.
To Favre’s legion of admirers, he wasn’t just a quarterback but The Embodiment Of Football Itself. He was tough and he was daring and he got really excited and he played on the frozen tundra for the old-school Packers and … OK already! But he wasn’t the best quarterback Green Bay had seen — Bart Starr was better — and to me he wasn’t as good as the guy who nearly won a championship with the Arizona Cardinals.
That’s right. Kurt Warner. Who has won just as many titles as Favre, who has been to more Super Bowls, who has a better career completion percentage and a higher passer rating and a lower interception percentage but who had the misfortune of playing most of his career for the wrong Midwestern team in an unfrozen dome.
Unlike down-home Favre, Warner has never been seen as a real man’s man — no Wrangler ads — and hasn’t inspired the breathless adoration that John Madden and Peter King and every voice on ESPN lavished on Favre. Warner is considered a really good quarterback who throws a pretty ball and seems serious about his religion and has a talkative wife. Favre, as we know, is viewed as an icon.
I fail to see what commercials have to do with this argument, but I think Bradley was trying to drive his point home by playing to Warner’s good-guy persona.
What’s overrated in sports these days is the overrated statement itself. It’s not enough to sit back and enjoy a guy’s career, we have to pick it apart and compare it to every other player’s career in the history of the game. Favre didn’t play in Starr’s era, so you can’t compare the two. Peyton Manning has had the opportunity to play in the same offensive system since he was a rookie and Montana had Bill Walsh to learn from. If we’re going to compare things, you have to account for all variables – not just the ones that make your argument (i.e. stats).
Brett Favre might be overrated in the fact that his numbers don’t compare to other quarterbacks who aren’t viewed as a God. But to generally say he was an overrated player is a massive reach.
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Posted in: NFL
Tags: A-Rod, Bart Starr, Best NFL quarterbacks, Best NFL quarterbacks of all time, Brett Favre, Brett Favre is overrated, Brett Favre overrated, Brett Favre retirement, Brett Favre retires, Green Bay Packers, Joe Montana, Most overrated players, Most overrated sports players, Peyton Manning
He’s not even in the top 10.
The writer loses all credibility right there. Favre may not have been the prettiest QB to watch, but he was an iron man with a rocket arm and great presence who toughed out horrible weather. I don’t think he’s the “best” QB ever to play the game, but to me he’s certainly the “most entertaining.” When Favre dropped back you just knew something was going to happen — good or bad.
The interception arguement is one of convenience for Favre detractors. You are at risk to throw an interception with every ATTEMPT there fore you look at INT’s (total) to total passing attempts. Break down Favre’s interceptions per attempt and his numbers are just as good as Elway, Manning and only slightly poorer than Brady. That is how you objectively look at the interception. Favre’s career longevity results in many attempts = interceptions. I do believe he’s over-rated in some respects but you can’t detract from his overall body of work…..amazing.
Anthony nailed it. Ever since Favre first announced his retirement in March 2008, every Favre-detractor feels the need to tell anyone who’ll listen how overrated Favre is. And what’s laughable is that not ONE of these idiots ever stepped foot on an NFL field to play a game. Just because you think you know what your talking about, doesn’t necessarily make it so. Favre is one of the all-time great NFL QBs. Anyone who says different is an idiot.
Warner is a better quarterback, and a better person, than the egomaniacal former addict will ever dream of being.
Chris Carter today on Mike and Mike said besides Montana,Farve was the only player he feared.
Chris Spielman has always said Farve was his favorite NFL player. What other QB would have opposing players on the field ask for a jersey DURING a game?! Would would lend more credibility,
former,current players? or sports journos like Stalter or ESPN’s Sal Palmontonio who never even played sports in college?
In response to Midwest-
1) There is a HUGE difference between between a 2.2, a 2.7, and a 3.3 % INT percentage. In terms of the thousands of attempts made, and the critical nature of turning the ball over, even small differences in % make a big difference in outcome. It is perhaps the most sensitive QB stat there is. INT’s are weighted heavily in every rating a QB formula has, including the basic QB Rating. Favre’s QB rating, particularly outside the “Great Years” window of 95-97, is way too low for a WCO QB. 2.4-2.6% instead of 3.3%.
2) Favre played in a WCO, which trades downfield ballsiness for safe ball control offense. It accepts a slower pace to scoring points for safety. The “greats” who played in the WCO had relatively lower INT % thereby, and why their QB ratings were high. This highlighted even more strikingly by examining Elway. The first decade of Elway’s career he played in a downfield pass oriented game, and higher INT’s and lower QB ratings therefore. In 1993, Denver installed the WCO and Elway’s INT’s went through the floor. From 1983-1992, Elway had a 3.6 % INT rate. From 1993-1998, he had a 2.4 % INT rate. His TD’s went up appreciably changing schemes too.
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In general-
Favre is overrated. He is given all the credit for the Packers’ success, and the rest of the team is blamed for anything that went wrong. And yet the 16 years with the Packers boils down to one reality – when Favre threw too many INT’s, bad things happened. When Favre played within the WCO system, and his INT’s were low, good things happened. Unfortunately, even after he “got it” by and large, he reverted to his old ways in “playoff exit games” the last decade of his career. Favre used the WCO system, and of course his own supplied longevity, to build impressive personal regular season stats. And he basically choked in the post season unless there was a great team underneath him. Favre was used the LEAST in any playoff run the Packers had in 1996. The reality is the team absorbed Favre’s rather high INT% as best it could and was one of the best teams going. But when his INT’s would become unabsorbable (averaging about 2.5 INT’s per playoff exit game) the Packers’ season would be over.
Lastly, it amazing how Favre is considered perhaps the greatest ever, a living legend, while Donovan McNabb, by 2011, is largely considered a joke. While Favre has played half again as long, and so cumulative based stats are much higher, all the percentage based stats are very similar, if not in McNabb’s favor. How does one take a joke, multiply by 1.5 (Favre’s half again as long career) and somehow get a legend or the greatest of all time? In part, due to a massive overrating of Favre. I didn’t mind the overrating of Favre per se, just that the rest of the Packers had to be run down to rig just how the “great of all time” only had one championship.