Last in a series:
OnMilwaukee.com is publishing exclusive excerpts from the new book, "Brett Favre: A Packer Fan's Tribute." The book was written by lifelong Packers fan Tom Kertscher, a Milwaukee news reporter who authored "Cracked Sidewalks and French Pastry: The Wit and Wisdom of Al McGuire."
"Tribute" captures the highlights of Favre's career and features dozens of behind-the-scenes photos shot by Packers team photographer Jim Biever.
CHAPTER 7 -- RIVALS
"Just another game for us. Fans and media make it bigger than it is.” – Brett Favre, in 1998 after beating the Chicago Bears for the ninth time in a row.
IF PACKER FANS HAD OUR OWN hall of fame, we would have voted Brett Favre in years ago -- even if he had never won a Super Bowl or an MVP award.
Favre would get an entire wing in our hall just because of the way he punished and shamed the vile, stinking and detestable Chicago Bears.
It hadn’t always been that way, you know.
“I can remember when I first came in here,” Favre said in 1996, “most of the fans were talking about I don't care what you do, just beat Chicago twice. You can go 2-14.”
In the seven seasons before Favre came to the Packers, a force against God, Nature and Vince Lombardi had allowed the Bears to beat the Packers 12 out of 14 times.
Chicago also won the first match-up of the 1992 season, in Favre’s first game against the Bears. But in the teams’ second meeting that season, Favre led the Packers to victory -- and ever since, the Earth has once again revolved around the sun, and God and Vince have enjoyed football again.
How the Packers mashed and mauled the Marshmallows of the Midway during the Favre era:
In 28 games against the Bears, the Packers won 21 of them (75%).
On the Bears’ home field, Green Bay won 12 out of 14 (86%).
From 1994 through 1998, Green Bay beat Chicago 10 straight times -- the longest streak in Packers-Bears history, which dates back to 1921 and is the oldest rivalry in the NFL.
Give Favre the credit.
"He's the chairman of the board, the best of the best, the Mac-Daddy of football," said Bears defensive coordinator Greg Blache, who had been a Packers assistant. "If you're going to start a franchise, that's the guy I would start with. The guy's worth eight, nine wins [a season] himself. He's probably the scariest guy in football."
The suffering that Bears fans endured almost makes you sad for them. At one point, former Bear Doug Buffone, a talk show host on Chicago sports radio, seemed ready to forfeit rather than play the Packers.
“Favre is just murdering us. He's a killer,” Buffone said. “We've tried every trick in the book to get him, but every time he plays us, it's like he owns us. We've never shut him down.
“I swear he goes into every season saying: ‘Okay, I have two wins in the bag, so all I have to do is pull off 14 more."'
Favre threw at least one touchdown pass against the Bears in 25 consecutive games -- an NFL record.
Favre threw more touchdowns – 51 – against the Bears than against any other team.
And Favre used the Bears to create his own single-game record book -- most completions, 36 – against the Bears; most passing yards, 402 – against the Bears; longest touchdown pass, 99 yards – against the Bears; and most touchdown passes, 5 – against the Bears (and two other teams).
As one-sided as Favre had made things, it was surprising that Wisconsin sports fans still ranked the Packers and Bears as the state’s biggest sports rivalry in a 2003 Sports Illustrated poll.
Maybe a rivalry is best when you keep beating the you-know-what out of the team you hate the most.
Here are three of Favre's best victories against the Bears:
Nov. 22, 1992 – Packers 17, Bears 3 at Soldier Field: Before this game, Chicago Tribune columnist Bernie Lincicome put Favre in a league with Don Majkowski, the man Favre replaced, and the Packers’ other quarterback, Mike Tomczak. It was doubtful, Lincicome wrote, that Favre would be “any more of a long-range savior than Don Majkowski was before him.”
Typical dumb Bears fan.
In the second Packers-Bears contest of ‘92, with Green Bay ahead 10-3 early in the fourth quarter, Favre led a 13-play, 74-yard scoring march that put the game away. He went 5-for-5 for 53 yards on the 9-minute drive, which he punctuated with a five-yard dash for his first career touchdown. Favre chose to run -- chased by Bears linemen Richard Dent, Steve McMichael and William “The Refrigerator” Perry -- despite having dislocated his left shoulder the previous week, when Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Reggie White slammed him to the ground.
''I didn't even think about it,'' Favre said of his shoulder injury. ''At that stage of the game, anything goes.''
Chicago, which had beaten Green Bay five straight times, took the loss hard. In the locker room, the Bears huddled together, a Chicago reporter wrote, “like victims of a devastating natural disaster.”
They would get used to the feeling.
Oct. 6, 1996 – Packers 37, Bears 6 at Soldier Field: Favre threw four touchdown passes, including a 50-yard Hail Mary off his back foot to wide receiver Antonio Freeman to end the first half.
''They're going to watch that film and say, 'Holy . . . ,' '' Butler said, finishing his thought with a smile. It was Green Bay’s fifth straight victory over Chicago and, at the time, the longest such streak against the Bears since a five-game string from 1960-’62 during the Lombardi era.
"It's reached the point where every game, every quarter, every drive, every play, you expect him to do something wondrous," head coach Mike Holmgren said of Favre. "That's not really fair. You've got to remember, he's still a kid."
Gene Collier, a writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, put the Packers’ new dominance in perspective. Going into the game, the Packers and Bears had played 150 times and the average differential in the final score was 1.83 points. But in Favre’s five-game winning streak over the Bears, Green Bay had won by an average of 22 points.
Favre had helped sink the Bears to a new low. One Milwaukee reporter estimated that nearly half of the Soldier Field crowd that day was wearing cheeseheads or other Packers garb. Bears linebacker Bryan Cox moaned after the massacre, "We've got to get some damned heart. It's a line in 'The Wizard of Oz.' Some of our guys have to go see the Wizard because we don't have a lot of heart.”
Favre had ripped it out. But some Bears remained unconvinced.
“I've seen better quarterbacks," defensive lineman Alonzo Spellman said of Favre.
Yeah, right.
Sept. 29, 2003 – Packers 38, Bears 23 at Soldier Field: The Packers ruined the Bears’ debut in the new Soldier Field -- “a spaceship on stilts,” some said -- by beating them soundly on Monday Night Football. Chicago got within eight points in the fourth quarter, but Favre put the game away with a 9-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Javon Walker with 8:51 remaining and a 1-yarder to tight-end Bubba Franks with 4:21 left.
New York Times writer Thomas George captured the hideousness of the new stadium and the helplessness of the Chicago Bears.
“The renovated Soldier Field has been called everything from a flying saucer to a toilet bowl, and a mismatch in style between ‘Star Trek’ and an old Western movie,” he wrote. “Descriptions of these current Bears have been even more crude.”
After the game, things got ugly again in Chicago:
“A huge game [and] we just embarrassed ourselves one more time," said Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher. “We went out there and laid a big one.
Butkus, the Bears’ Hall of Fame linebacker, had visited with Favre on the field before the game. “It was about as close as any Bear got to him the rest of the night,” wrote Don Pierson of the Chicago Tribune.
Pierson also offered a suggestion for any discussion of naming rights for Soldier Field: Brett Favre Playpen.
Going into the game, Butkus had had a premonition, flashing back to the stormy 1994 game at Soldier Field, when most of the crowd fled before he and Sayers could be honored at halftime.
“I remembered the night I got my number retired and that storm hit and I started thinking, `Something bad is going to happen,'" he said.
The same feeling, no doubt, that Bears fans experienced every time they faced Brett Favre.
OnMilwaukee.com is publishing exclusive excerpts from the new book, "Brett Favre: A Packer Fan's Tribute." The book was written by lifelong Packers fan Tom Kertscher, a Milwaukee news reporter who authored "Cracked Sidewalks and French Pastry: The Wit and Wisdom of Al McGuire."
"Tribute" captures the highlights of Favre's career and features dozens of behind-the-scenes photos shot by Packers team photographer Jim Biever.
CHAPTER 7 -- RIVALS
"Just another game for us. Fans and media make it bigger than it is.” – Brett Favre, in 1998 after beating the Chicago Bears for the ninth time in a row.
IF PACKER FANS HAD OUR OWN hall of fame, we would have voted Brett Favre in years ago -- even if he had never won a Super Bowl or an MVP award.
Favre would get an entire wing in our hall just because of the way he punished and shamed the vile, stinking and detestable Chicago Bears.
It hadn’t always been that way, you know.
“I can remember when I first came in here,” Favre said in 1996, “most of the fans were talking about I don't care what you do, just beat Chicago twice. You can go 2-14.”
In the seven seasons before Favre came to the Packers, a force against God, Nature and Vince Lombardi had allowed the Bears to beat the Packers 12 out of 14 times.
Chicago also won the first match-up of the 1992 season, in Favre’s first game against the Bears. But in the teams’ second meeting that season, Favre led the Packers to victory -- and ever since, the Earth has once again revolved around the sun, and God and Vince have enjoyed football again.
How the Packers mashed and mauled the Marshmallows of the Midway during the Favre era:
In 28 games against the Bears, the Packers won 21 of them (75%).
On the Bears’ home field, Green Bay won 12 out of 14 (86%).
From 1994 through 1998, Green Bay beat Chicago 10 straight times -- the longest streak in Packers-Bears history, which dates back to 1921 and is the oldest rivalry in the NFL.
Give Favre the credit.
"He's the chairman of the board, the best of the best, the Mac-Daddy of football," said Bears defensive coordinator Greg Blache, who had been a Packers assistant. "If you're going to start a franchise, that's the guy I would start with. The guy's worth eight, nine wins [a season] himself. He's probably the scariest guy in football."
The suffering that Bears fans endured almost makes you sad for them. At one point, former Bear Doug Buffone, a talk show host on Chicago sports radio, seemed ready to forfeit rather than play the Packers.
“Favre is just murdering us. He's a killer,” Buffone said. “We've tried every trick in the book to get him, but every time he plays us, it's like he owns us. We've never shut him down.
“I swear he goes into every season saying: ‘Okay, I have two wins in the bag, so all I have to do is pull off 14 more."'
Favre threw at least one touchdown pass against the Bears in 25 consecutive games -- an NFL record.
Favre threw more touchdowns – 51 – against the Bears than against any other team.
And Favre used the Bears to create his own single-game record book -- most completions, 36 – against the Bears; most passing yards, 402 – against the Bears; longest touchdown pass, 99 yards – against the Bears; and most touchdown passes, 5 – against the Bears (and two other teams).
As one-sided as Favre had made things, it was surprising that Wisconsin sports fans still ranked the Packers and Bears as the state’s biggest sports rivalry in a 2003 Sports Illustrated poll.
Maybe a rivalry is best when you keep beating the you-know-what out of the team you hate the most.
Here are three of Favre's best victories against the Bears:
Nov. 22, 1992 – Packers 17, Bears 3 at Soldier Field: Before this game, Chicago Tribune columnist Bernie Lincicome put Favre in a league with Don Majkowski, the man Favre replaced, and the Packers’ other quarterback, Mike Tomczak. It was doubtful, Lincicome wrote, that Favre would be “any more of a long-range savior than Don Majkowski was before him.”
Typical dumb Bears fan.
''I didn't even think about it,'' Favre said of his shoulder injury. ''At that stage of the game, anything goes.''
Chicago, which had beaten Green Bay five straight times, took the loss hard. In the locker room, the Bears huddled together, a Chicago reporter wrote, “like victims of a devastating natural disaster.”
They would get used to the feeling.
Oct. 6, 1996 – Packers 37, Bears 6 at Soldier Field: Favre threw four touchdown passes, including a 50-yard Hail Mary off his back foot to wide receiver Antonio Freeman to end the first half.
''They're going to watch that film and say, 'Holy . . . ,' '' Butler said, finishing his thought with a smile. It was Green Bay’s fifth straight victory over Chicago and, at the time, the longest such streak against the Bears since a five-game string from 1960-’62 during the Lombardi era.
"It's reached the point where every game, every quarter, every drive, every play, you expect him to do something wondrous," head coach Mike Holmgren said of Favre. "That's not really fair. You've got to remember, he's still a kid."
Gene Collier, a writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, put the Packers’ new dominance in perspective. Going into the game, the Packers and Bears had played 150 times and the average differential in the final score was 1.83 points. But in Favre’s five-game winning streak over the Bears, Green Bay had won by an average of 22 points.
Favre had helped sink the Bears to a new low. One Milwaukee reporter estimated that nearly half of the Soldier Field crowd that day was wearing cheeseheads or other Packers garb. Bears linebacker Bryan Cox moaned after the massacre, "We've got to get some damned heart. It's a line in 'The Wizard of Oz.' Some of our guys have to go see the Wizard because we don't have a lot of heart.”
Favre had ripped it out. But some Bears remained unconvinced.
“I've seen better quarterbacks," defensive lineman Alonzo Spellman said of Favre.
Yeah, right.
Sept. 29, 2003 – Packers 38, Bears 23 at Soldier Field: The Packers ruined the Bears’ debut in the new Soldier Field -- “a spaceship on stilts,” some said -- by beating them soundly on Monday Night Football. Chicago got within eight points in the fourth quarter, but Favre put the game away with a 9-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Javon Walker with 8:51 remaining and a 1-yarder to tight-end Bubba Franks with 4:21 left.
New York Times writer Thomas George captured the hideousness of the new stadium and the helplessness of the Chicago Bears.
“The renovated Soldier Field has been called everything from a flying saucer to a toilet bowl, and a mismatch in style between ‘Star Trek’ and an old Western movie,” he wrote. “Descriptions of these current Bears have been even more crude.”
After the game, things got ugly again in Chicago:
“A huge game [and] we just embarrassed ourselves one more time," said Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher. “We went out there and laid a big one.
Butkus, the Bears’ Hall of Fame linebacker, had visited with Favre on the field before the game. “It was about as close as any Bear got to him the rest of the night,” wrote Don Pierson of the Chicago Tribune.
Pierson also offered a suggestion for any discussion of naming rights for Soldier Field: Brett Favre Playpen.
Going into the game, Butkus had had a premonition, flashing back to the stormy 1994 game at Soldier Field, when most of the crowd fled before he and Sayers could be honored at halftime.
“I remembered the night I got my number retired and that storm hit and I started thinking, `Something bad is going to happen,'" he said.
The same feeling, no doubt, that Bears fans experienced every time they faced Brett Favre.
