In his TMQ rant against Brett Favre and Brad Childress, Gregg Easterbrook participates in a little revisionist history…
This should hardly come as a surprise, since Favre’s past two teams melted down late in the season. In 2007, the Green Bay Packers lost the NFC Championship Game at home, and Favre had so worn out his welcome in Green Bay — he had his own dressing area so he wouldn’t have to interact with other players — that coaches and management couldn’t wait to get rid of him. In 2008, the New York Jets were outstanding early, but lost four of their final five games and missed the playoffs. The coaches were all fired and Favre was given the boot. Basically, in a single season, he blew up an entire team. Now things have started well at Minnesota and are declining late. This is not a surprise, this is Brett Favre’s recent pattern. Don’t marry Zsa Zsa Gabor and think she really cares about you. Don’t hire Favre and think he cares about anything but Favre.
Hmm.
Let’s start with the ’07 Packers — if a team loses the NFC Championship Game in overtime to the eventual Super Bowl champs, it’s considered a meltdown? Since when? He threw for 236 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions in that game. That’s a meltdown? Easterbrook claims that Packer management “couldn’t wait to get rid of him,” yet Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy stated publicly at the end of the season that they wanted him back, and when Favre wanted to unretire the first time (in the spring of ’07) they were all set to fly to Mississippi to talk it over before Favre called it off at the last second. Only then did they decide it was time to hand the keys to Aaron Rodgers.
