The NFL offers the world, and the United States in particular, so much entertainment value that people get depressed when the season is over. Fans call it the February blues, pointing out that once the Super Bowl is over, there’s no more football available for what seems like forever. It’s actually about seven months, which, well, can seem like forever. In addition to the games, the stories that are created within the league engage viewers at all times. Fans watch college players rise through the ranks of the professional stage with great fervor and tenacity. Some college players turn out to be exactly the talented NFL superstars fans have come to expect, and some are disappointed. When they’re lucky, fans get to witness a small-town kid get selected midway through the second round of the NFL Draft and go on to become one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game.
Brett Lorenzo Favre is that boy. Born and raised in a small town outside of Gulfport, Mississippi, by his parents’ school teachers, Brett was a natural at sports. He played baseball and soccer as a kid, earning five letters in baseball in high school. He also played soccer during those years, with his father as coach. With his versatility, he played numerous positions, quarterback being one of them, as well as strong safety, punter and kicker, just to name a few. Oh, how the NFL landscape would have been different today, if Brett Favre was a placekicker, instead of the “Gunslinger”, he became center.
After high school, Brett was offered a scholarship to the University of Southern Mississippi, and he immediately accepted the offer. The problem was that they wanted him to play defense, where he, like most brash youngsters with a good arm, wanted to play quarterback. His wish was his command, and he was immediately placed on the roster as the quarterback of the seventh (yes, he read that right). Fortunately, Southern Miss saw something in him that the rest of the world would later witness in awe, and placed him in the coveted position in the third game of his freshman year. He went on to play the position during his college years, before entering the draft in 1991. The Atlanta Falcons, under the coach’s protest, selected Brett Favre with the 33rd pick in the second round. He threw four total passes in the year he was on Atlanta’s roster, completing none. Adding insult to injury he felt from the sidelines, two of those passes were intercepted. He was summarily traded to the Green Bay Packers for a first-round pick in 1992. The rest, as they say, is history.
After a rough first year at Lambeau Field, Favre’s quarterbacking prowess made its way to the forefront, allowing him to lead his team to its first playoff berth in a decade. The fans were elated. Even more so when the following year they went back to the playoffs, something that had not happened in those parts since the great Vince Lombardi was in charge. In 1995 the Pack was unstoppable. Brett was winning MVP trophies and leading his team to the NFC Championship game. They lost, but it was a sign of great things to come in Green Bay.
The following year, Favre won the MVP award again, this time leading his team to Super Bowl XXXI and winning against the New England Patriots. They repeated their trip to the Super Bowl in 1997, losing to the Denver Broncos but keeping their team intact to dominate the NFC segment of the NFL for the next decade. In 2007, Brett Favre became the third player in NFL history to beat each of the league’s 31 teams in the league, joining the illustrious company of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. After that season, Brett announced that he would hang up his shoes, as a result of the Packers asking him to be a backup quarterback and retiring from the game. This announcement was met with mixed emotions from fans around the world. The Gunslinger was quitting, which made for a sad day in the life of anyone who grew up watching his fun-loving style of play over the years. The sadness did not last long…
In 2008, the Packers traded their beloved All-Star to the New York Jets, which was their wish as an alternative to playing second fiddle to Lambeau. His season in New York didn’t go as planned, as interceptions outnumbered touchdowns. At the end of the season, Brett Favre announced his retirement from the league, again. Well, not so fast…
In 2009 Brett signed with the Minnesota Vikings and showed a spark of the old Gunslinger, putting on his spurs. That season he usurped the shared title status of two other NFL legends and became the only player in NFL history to beat all 32 NFL teams. Quite a feat, considering that he had already retired twice! Before officially retiring in 2011, he definitely, or so it seems, amassed a record that is even more amazing on paper. He is the only quarterback in NFL history to throw for 70,000+ yards, 500+ touchdowns, 300+ interceptions, 6,000+ completions and 10,000+ pass attempts. Above all else, and more impressive to some, he was an Ironman, starting in 297 straight NFL games. 321 if you count the playoffs. Both are NFL records. No wonder it was so hard to say goodbye to number four.