Packers’ Favre will surely be missed

The purists can argue from now until forever about whether Brett Favre is the best quarterback who played. The statistics say he was. What’s not debatable is no quarterback in NFL history was more fun to watch. For 17 seasons, Favre played a position best known for prima donnas and pretty boys and remained daring, shamelessly unpredictable, silly and fun – no small achievement in a play-it-safe league that tries to game-plan all those traits out of players – especially its quarterbacks.

But Favre was never one of those superstars who cultivated emotional remove from the game or his teammates, and he never seemed interested in some life of privilege spent behind velvet ropes. His game was boom or bust, and he had the sort of swagger, unshaven good looks and rakish charm that matched perfectly. Yet like only a handful of dominant athletes in our time – Andre Agassi was another – Favre will be remembered for being human, vulnerable, willing to confess screw-ups and self-doubt. People related to him.

He’s still the Kiln, Miss., boy who never lost his twang, the kid who loved raising hell with his brother and idolizing his father and first coach, Big Irv. He met his wife, Deanna, in third-grade catechism class, had a baby girl with her by age 19, and later went into rehab in the mid-1990s to kick an addiction to painkillers, and then drinking, after she gave him an ultimatum: “Either you quit, or we’re gone.”

“OK. I quit,” Favre said.

He was there to help Deanna when she kicked breast cancer into remission a few years back. He’ll be remembered for the utter joy he brought to each game, especially his full-speed sprints downfield after a touchdown pass. And yet he played the game of his life – a four-TD rout of Oakland on Monday Night Football in which he rang up 311 yards in the first half – brokenhearted, barely 24 hours after the sudden death of his dad. “One of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen a man do,” then-Packers center Mike Flanagan said.

What made Favre so great was he could improvise on the run like Fran Tarkenton, trade a hit to take an end-zone shot even better than John Elway, pull off comebacks like Joe Montana and exude the sort of leadership and toughness that Johnny Unitas had. He had a strong arm like Terry Bradshaw, but even more of a gunslinger’s mentality. He broke Dan Marino’s career records for touchdowns and yardage and outdid Marino when it came to Super Bowl titles, one to none.

Though coach Mike McCarthy and general manager Ted Thompson knew this day would come someday, they were still taken aback when Favre mentioned the word “retirement” Thursday, then made it official in a call to McCarthy Monday night.

“All of a sudden it kind of hits you: Brett Favre isn’t going to be our starting quarterback anymore,” Thompson said Tuesday. “It’s a little bit daunting knowing his first game was the third game of the season in 1992, and since then he’s been the starting quarterback here in every single game.”

Favre made 253 straight regular-season starts. Many people thought there would be no way he’d let the last pass of his legendary career be that god-awful overtime interception he threw to New York Giants cornerback Corey Webster in the brutally cold NFC title game, costing the Packers a trip to the Super Bowl.

But Favre seems to recognize – correctly – that one play doesn’t change everything else he’s done. He’s 38. It’s time.

“I’m just tired. Mentally, I’m tired … I’m stressed,” Favre told ESPN’s Chris Mortenson Tuesday.