Honestly. This is a nice calm question. Do you think Favre was correct in coming back or that he should have thrown in the towel or at least handed said towel over to Aaron Rodgers, that li’l guy.
Do you think he’ll play the whole season? Do you think his ‘consecutive game’ streak is feeding this? He’s already a shoe in for the hall of fame, he’s won the Superbowl a couple of times…why did he come back?
To make ammends for last year?
Well, he’s won it once but been to it twice. I think he just enjoys playing and still thinks he’s good enough to start. I’m not actually a Packer fan, but I don’t think it will hurt to let him give it another shot this year. It’s not like they’re going to be competing seriously for a championship this year anyway.
I sort of look at John Elway’s retirement as the prime example. He won the superbowl twice, tipped his hat and said “I’m done”
Went out on top. Favre’s going to have to climb out of the muck of last year’s season (which was every packer’s fault) and kind of rebuild his tarnished image.
Favre had a very good season the season prior to last, so I don’t think he is at all past his prime.
As a Minnesota fan, I’m glad he’s back.
And our cornerbacks are ecstatic!
Elway had an unusual opportunity, what with the probably necessary culmination of a long and reasonably successful career coinciding with a couple of Superbowl wins. Were Favre to have won it all last year I believe his decision to return would have been different.
I’m glad he’s coming back. He’s still too good and I really enjoy watching him. It’s a shame that such a fine career has to end with a team he’s too loyal to to leave but that hasn’t made the same commitment to winning as he has.
(I wish he’d followed Sherman to Houston but I’m guessin’ that was never in the cards.)
Ecstatic. Even with an offense that could be justly compared to a second-string World League, last year wasn’t as bad as the stats indicate. Note all the 1- 2- and 3-point losses and they really weren’t getting blown out of the water week in and week out. The INTs killed us, but based on the receiver corps every pass it seems was a jump ball no matter what.
It’s telling that after courting Woodson for over a week he signs with GB the day after the announcement. I just wish Arrington would have waited, but there must be a draft plan to have made that deal not a priority.
And, of course, he gets 2 more chances to punk the Vikings and Bears. I’m in a good mood.
I’m glad he’s coming back. The Packers aren’t My Team (that would be the Falcons and I don’t want to talk about it), but I really, really like watching Brett Favre play. Even when he’s losing, even when he’s throwing interceptions and tripping over his own feet, watching him play is just different from watching other QBs.
Favre has a personality on the field that you can see in the way he moves and reacts; it’s not like watching Hasselbeck or Brady (for example), who are both fine quarterbacks but who, even on their best days, play bland and mechanical football. Unlike most other current players, you could put Favre in a plain white uniform and he’d still be instantly recognizable on the field.
I don’t know how he’ll do in the W-L columns, but I’m just glad to get to watch Favre play for another season. The NFL will be less when he retires; I’ll tell my grandkids about watching Favre play, the way my dad tells me about watching Johnny Unitas.
I’m happy. Not because I think it will make the Packers any better next year, but because I just like watching Favre play and I like the idea of watching his swan song season. That way I can get in the frame of mind where I can say, “Well, that game sucked, but at least I got to see Favre play one more time.”
As a die-hard Packer fan, born & raised in Green Bay, I have a huge appreciation for what Favre brought to the team. After enduring two decades of dismal mediocrity growing up in the 70s and 80s, and watching a string of hacks play QB (David Whitehurst? Anthony Dilweg? Rich Campbell?), watching Favre for the last 14 years has been a joy.
So I’ll enjoy his farewell year but I won’t have any raised expectations. They still have no O line, their star running back is on the downward slope and coming off a nasty injury, and their receiving corp continues to be a revolving door.
I’m sure he’ll make me cheer and piss me off in equal measure just like he did the last few years. I usually lean between “Holy crap, what a throw! The guy is still amazing” and “Holy crap, you moron, why the hell did you throw 50 yards downfield into triple coverage? You singlehandely lost another game, you I-can-do-no-wrong dumbass!”
Although the one thing I dread is the inevitable announcer slobber fest that will happen on each telecast. The level of overdone praise some of those guys slather all over Favre is downright embarassing, even for Packer fans. I’m looking at you, John Madden.
Four, actually. And are you conceding losses to the Lions?
I’ve got to hand it to Farve (either spell it or say it right), he was a helluva QB.
(…as defensive backs throughout the NFC North begin drooling like rabid wolves.)
Holy shite! They play the Bears and Vikings 4 times this year?!? I can never keep up with these scheduling changes!
Let me be the first (maybe 6th?) to say that I’m thrilled with this news! Going to be another awesome year. Oh, yeah, I am a Bears fan after all.
Here’s how I see it, as you may already presume I have some pretty strong opinions on the topic:
[ul]
[li]The Packers will definitely be a much better team this year with Favre than without him. Rodgers, if he’s the answer or not, just can’t be expected to be an upgrade over Favre. Nor would any of the possible draftees. Favre isn’t struggling due to an physical shortcomings. He’s not too old and he’s not in a dramatic decline in his skills. Favre’s problem is that he’s gotten very very lazy. He hasn’t worked out in Green Bay for mini-camp in 3 years. Additionally, Sherman is a god-awful coach. All those close losses are more his fault than Favre’s. In short, there’s no reason to expect him to struggle any worse this year than last. Assuming he gets to camp early and McCarthy is at last a little bit better than Marty Mornhinweg this should be a respectable year for him. [/li]
I’m excited about this for one big reason. They still won’t challenge the Bears for the Division and it’ll slow the Packers rebuilding process even more by robbing them of a second consecutive top 10 pick. The longer they suck the happier I am.
[li]I do enjoy having Favre as a villain to root against. As much as I can’t stand him, watching him lose is 100 times more fun than having him gone and beating some rookie.[/li]
[li]Favre’s “debate period” was probably all bogus. I think he always intended to come back, or at the very least decided pretty early on. He was waiting to leverage the team. He wanted to prevent a rebuilding mindset and force the management to spend some money to lure players. Had he admitted to coming back right from the start the Packer could have stuck him in the middle of some youth movement. It’s the same attitude which caused him to refuse to tutor Rodgers. In the end it appears that the Packers called his bluff and mostly stood pat, though the attempts at Arrington and Woodson probably were positives. [/li]
[li]I don’t think legacy played that big of a role in it. The streak and status and records probably just aren’t that important to him. If they were I think he’d have not come back since I doubt he thinks this team is playoff bound. I think it’s just that he knows he still has it physically and he’d have felt really empty without it. He’s not one of those guys with a dozen TV deals and a huge golf fetish, football is pretty much all he does. The sour taste of all those INTs aren’t helping any though.[/ul][/li]
Part of me thinks that this might nudge the Packers closer to drafting Vernon Davis with that first pick and attempting to trade Walker for a late first rounder where they could get a contributor on defense. Seeing Vernon Davis in green and gold makes my stomach turn.
The Packer family have fans? Who knew? It takes all sorts I guess.
Just like last year, right? :rolleyes:
Now be fair, he has chances to punk out Da Bears and the Vikings. And we in turn have chances to grind him into the turf and leave the Pack in the dust on the way to another Bears division title. 
As an Aaron Rodgers fan, I’m disappointed. Step aside, man.
Favre’s interceptions didn’t just kill us, they beat us silly, slaughtered us and our families, friends, and acquaintances, then burned our bodies and scattered the ashes to the four winds.
It is impossible to blame one person for a loss, but Favre last year cost us games. As a Packer fan, I’m used to that, because he’ll usually win us more than he loses. But the simple fact was, with the exception of 3 games, he was atrocious. And, most infuriating, he quit on the team, which was the most painful part of watching him play. It seemed to me, after the second Viking game, when they lost at Lambeau by 3, he gave up. That was unforgivable to me. He phoned it in the rest of the year, with 2 touchdowns in 6 fucking games, and horrid quarterback ratings.
I love the Packers. I love Brett Favre, and, as Bottle of Smoke pointed out, he almost singlehandedly made the Packers worth watching after years of pain. But he pissed me off so much last year, with his laziness, his arrogance, his stupidity, and his apparent nonchalance about it all. The whole “will he/won’t he” just added to my frustration. It’s like the Favre I knew, the guy who makes it so much fun to watch him, was replaced by a guy wo didn’t seem to give a shit. Maybe it was all a defense mechanism for him, but some of this throws and much of his plays made me think he just didn’t care. Maybe that’s unfair, but it’s how it seemed to me.
So, needless to say, I’m not sure what to think. If he’s the Brett Favre of last year, who plays recklessly and just goes out and wings the ball to anyone wearing a jersey, no matter what the color, I hope he stays in Mississippi. If he’s the Brett Favre from earlier in his career, who plays with passion, but within himself, doesn’t throw away games, has a committment to the team to make them better, and isn’t lazy, I’ll be a happy man whether the Packers win or lose.
I was right about Favre coming back (months ago) and I’m right about the Packers being a much better team this year. Time will show. And I’ll be posting here in my joyful glee.
I agree with you that the Packers will be better this year. Mostly because it will be hard to be worse, but also because they’re a relatively young team on defense. Last year, they gave up less than 300 yards a game, and were the third least penalized defense. They do need, however, to create more turnovers, but I like their chances to do that this year.
A good draft this year, and there hopefully won’t be a long wasteland of mediocrity like the Bears suffered since 1986 until last year.
I’ve got my hopes up for that very scenario.