Fourth 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 4 -- MVP
IT’S EASY TO GET CAUGHT UP in the statistics Brett Favre put up in his back-to-back-to-back Most Valuable Player seasons.
But if you did, you’d forget how much fun we had watching him make plays:
Favre pin-balling around in the pocket, scrambling toward one sideline, half-circling back toward the other – then arching a pass across his body and into the arms of a receiver on the opposite side of the field.
Throwing off his back foot, underhanded, side-arm, left-handed.
Scanning the field for what seems like forever, spotting an opening the size of a football, firing a pass that seems sure to be intercepted – but instead goes for a touchdown.
Favre never conceded an inch, never doubted his arm, never gave up on a play.
"He just will not let the team lose," Packers head coach Mike Holmgren put it simply.
In winning three consecutive MVPs -- no one else in NFL history has won three, period -- Favre posted otherworldly numbers. During the 1995, ’96 and ’97 seasons, he threw for 12,000 yards and 112 touchdowns; he completed an average of 60 percent of his passes; he even ran for six scores.
Still, on an individual level, Favre’s trademark skill was making plays -- improvising and innovating when all seemed lost.
Having a cannon for a right arm helped, of course. Linemen said they could hear Favre’s passes. Announcers insisted there were vapor trails behind them. And receivers broke fingers trying to catch them.
How strong was his arm?
Favre "could throw a football through a car wash without it getting wet," wrote Bill Lyon of the Philadelphia Inquirer,
There were hundreds of those car-wash throws. In a ’95 game against the Cincinnati Bengals, the Packers were trailing, 10-3, with six seconds left in the first half "when Favre gets desperate at the Bengal 13-yard line," according to this account by Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times:
"No receivers are open. A field goal will allow the Bengals to maintain momentum. Favre needs a touchdown. But how to get it? Then he sees Mark Ingram standing in the end zone, sandwiched by Bengal safeties Bracey Walker and Darryl Williams. None of them are expecting the ball because no right-minded quarterback would ever try to thread that sort of . ..The ball flies into the crowd, so quick and hard and accurate that the safeties' outstretched hands can't get it and the surprised Ingram can't miss it. It hits him in the belly. The Packers tie the game and never trail again. "A miracle," Packer coach Mike Holmgren says."
Favre was much more, however, than a quarterback with a gun. His determination is what carried him. You don’t make the kind of plays he did without a boatload of confidence that you can pull them off.
That fire was stoked long before Favre was anybody in the NFL, as Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Bob McGinn could attest. In one of Favre’s first sit-down interviews shortly after he arrived in Green Bay in 1992, the 22-year-old, second-year player was asked to consider some of the greats of the game: Elway, Dan Marino, Troy Aikman.
"I can do anything they can do," Favre told his stunned interviewer. "There’s nobody in the league that I look at in awe. I just haven’t proven it yet."
In less than five months, Favre proved himself right into the Pro Bowl, alongside Aikman. And within three years, he was on his way to his first MVP award.
Favre’s passion showed in plays that were never diagrammed -- the kind that could make your heart race, or nearly stop.
One of the best gashed the hated Dallas Cowboys during the ’95 season. The Packers were on the Cowboys’ 21-yard-line, down two touchdowns late in the fourth quarter, when Favre called a pass play. Plaschke, the L.A. Times guy, loved this one, too:
"He looks. Nothing there. He scrambles, looks some more. There are still no holes in the Cowboy zone, so he begins to run down the left side. When he has reached the 14-yard line, he is caught by Dallas safety Brock Marion. Inexplicably, Favre pump fakes, even though he is six yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Stranger still, Marion falls for the fake, momentarily hesitating. Favre sprints into the end zone."
The Packers became truly special during the 1996 run to the Super Bowl. Favre showed it in a road win over the St. Louis Rams in Game 12. This time, a breakdown by Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
"There was a telling play early in the fourth quarter, when Favre threw the knockout punch on a five-yard touchdown pass to Dorsey Levens. Favre was trapped, hemmed in by the Rams' pass rush. At least three Rams had a chance to nab him, but Favre wouldn't give in. Favre kept moving, bouncing, looking, running. On a play that was all heart and guts, Favre at that moment simply wanted to succeed more than the Rams did. He wouldn't be denied. He just wouldn't lose this one-play battle. Favre outfought the Rams, and then he dropped them with the TD pass to Levens. The Packers sealed it, 24-9."
"That was the most unbelievable play I've ever seen on the field of play," said Rams defensive back Todd Lyght. "He broke four tackles on one play."
Favre could even win games on reputation alone. In Game 7 of ’97, Chicago Bears head coach Dave Wannstedt so feared Favre’s ability to make plays with the game on the line that he went for a two-point conversion rather than kicking an extra point with 1:54 remaining. An extra point would have tied the game. But after Erik Kramer overthrew his target on the conversion attempt, the Packers ran out the clock for a 24-23 win, dropping the Bears to 0-7, the worst start in their 78-year history. ``I don't want to give them that chance,'' Wannstedt of his decision to try and win the game rather than tie it. ``You have to have a lot of respect for their 2-minute drill.''
Favre’s ability to operate under pressure confounded and dispirited one team after another. Fans could see what Packer Plus writer Jeff Potrykus put into words after Game 14 of the ’97 season, when the Packers flattened the Buccaneers on their home turf, 17-6.
"How many other quarterbacks can move deftly up in the pocket to avoid pressure, locate an open receiver streaking down the middle of the field, and then fire a bullet more than 40 yards for a touchdown? Favre did just that when he hit Robert Brooks for a 43-yard touchdown to put the Packers ahead for good with 4 minutes 46 seconds left in the first quarter.
How many other quarterbacks can scramble away from more pressure, pumping the ball with every other step, and then, just before reaching the line of scrimmage and with a defender wrapped around his legs, find an open receiver near the goal line for another score? Favre did just that in the third quarter when he scrambled as close to the line of scrimmage as the rules allow and, with defensive tackle Warren Sapp trying to drag him down from behind, found Dorsey Levens open in the middle at the 1-yard line.
A humbled Sapp could only shake his head after the game: "He steps up in the pocket, people crawling all over him. He finds a dude on the 1-yard line. Touchdown."
Throughout his MVP run, when Favre wasn’t single-handedly carrying the team, he showed leadership by influencing his teammates.
Near the Buccaneers’ goal line in a 1995 game, Favre went back to pass and saw both of his elite tight-ends open. Chmura, his best friend, was in the clear, but Favre threw the touchdown to Keith Jackson, who had felt underused since coming to the team in mid-season. "I want to get him involved. We need all the weapons we can get," Favre said.
Favre even showed leadership by bonding with players who weren’t easy to like.
Wide receiver Andre Rison showed up in mid-season 1996, about a year after a feud between Rison and Favre had been re-ignited. When Rison first became available as a free agent, Favre had said he was glad the Packers didn’t sign him because he had been bad for morale when the two played for the Atlanta Falcons. Rison responded by calling Favre a hillbilly. (Asked if the comment hurt his feelings, Favre replied with a laugh, saying, "No, I am a hillbilly.")
But, feud or no, Rison led the team with five receptions in his first game as a Packer, the 24-9 win over St. Louis. Favre wouldn’t let any carping compromise the team.
"Watching Favre embrace Rison as the third-quarter ended showed just what type of leader Favre is," the Journal Sentinel’s McGinn wrote of that game.
"He means everything to this team."
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 4 -- MVP
IT’S EASY TO GET CAUGHT UP in the statistics Brett Favre put up in his back-to-back-to-back Most Valuable Player seasons.
But if you did, you’d forget how much fun we had watching him make plays:
Favre pin-balling around in the pocket, scrambling toward one sideline, half-circling back toward the other – then arching a pass across his body and into the arms of a receiver on the opposite side of the field.
Throwing off his back foot, underhanded, side-arm, left-handed.
Scanning the field for what seems like forever, spotting an opening the size of a football, firing a pass that seems sure to be intercepted – but instead goes for a touchdown.
Favre never conceded an inch, never doubted his arm, never gave up on a play.
"He just will not let the team lose," Packers head coach Mike Holmgren put it simply.
In winning three consecutive MVPs -- no one else in NFL history has won three, period -- Favre posted otherworldly numbers. During the 1995, ’96 and ’97 seasons, he threw for 12,000 yards and 112 touchdowns; he completed an average of 60 percent of his passes; he even ran for six scores.
Still, on an individual level, Favre’s trademark skill was making plays -- improvising and innovating when all seemed lost.
Having a cannon for a right arm helped, of course. Linemen said they could hear Favre’s passes. Announcers insisted there were vapor trails behind them. And receivers broke fingers trying to catch them.
How strong was his arm?
Favre "could throw a football through a car wash without it getting wet," wrote Bill Lyon of the Philadelphia Inquirer,
There were hundreds of those car-wash throws. In a ’95 game against the Cincinnati Bengals, the Packers were trailing, 10-3, with six seconds left in the first half "when Favre gets desperate at the Bengal 13-yard line," according to this account by Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times:
"No receivers are open. A field goal will allow the Bengals to maintain momentum. Favre needs a touchdown. But how to get it? Then he sees Mark Ingram standing in the end zone, sandwiched by Bengal safeties Bracey Walker and Darryl Williams. None of them are expecting the ball because no right-minded quarterback would ever try to thread that sort of . ..The ball flies into the crowd, so quick and hard and accurate that the safeties' outstretched hands can't get it and the surprised Ingram can't miss it. It hits him in the belly. The Packers tie the game and never trail again. "A miracle," Packer coach Mike Holmgren says."
Favre was much more, however, than a quarterback with a gun. His determination is what carried him. You don’t make the kind of plays he did without a boatload of confidence that you can pull them off.
That fire was stoked long before Favre was anybody in the NFL, as Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Bob McGinn could attest. In one of Favre’s first sit-down interviews shortly after he arrived in Green Bay in 1992, the 22-year-old, second-year player was asked to consider some of the greats of the game: Elway, Dan Marino, Troy Aikman.
"I can do anything they can do," Favre told his stunned interviewer. "There’s nobody in the league that I look at in awe. I just haven’t proven it yet."
In less than five months, Favre proved himself right into the Pro Bowl, alongside Aikman. And within three years, he was on his way to his first MVP award.
One of the best gashed the hated Dallas Cowboys during the ’95 season. The Packers were on the Cowboys’ 21-yard-line, down two touchdowns late in the fourth quarter, when Favre called a pass play. Plaschke, the L.A. Times guy, loved this one, too:
"He looks. Nothing there. He scrambles, looks some more. There are still no holes in the Cowboy zone, so he begins to run down the left side. When he has reached the 14-yard line, he is caught by Dallas safety Brock Marion. Inexplicably, Favre pump fakes, even though he is six yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Stranger still, Marion falls for the fake, momentarily hesitating. Favre sprints into the end zone."
The Packers became truly special during the 1996 run to the Super Bowl. Favre showed it in a road win over the St. Louis Rams in Game 12. This time, a breakdown by Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
"There was a telling play early in the fourth quarter, when Favre threw the knockout punch on a five-yard touchdown pass to Dorsey Levens. Favre was trapped, hemmed in by the Rams' pass rush. At least three Rams had a chance to nab him, but Favre wouldn't give in. Favre kept moving, bouncing, looking, running. On a play that was all heart and guts, Favre at that moment simply wanted to succeed more than the Rams did. He wouldn't be denied. He just wouldn't lose this one-play battle. Favre outfought the Rams, and then he dropped them with the TD pass to Levens. The Packers sealed it, 24-9."
"That was the most unbelievable play I've ever seen on the field of play," said Rams defensive back Todd Lyght. "He broke four tackles on one play."
Favre could even win games on reputation alone. In Game 7 of ’97, Chicago Bears head coach Dave Wannstedt so feared Favre’s ability to make plays with the game on the line that he went for a two-point conversion rather than kicking an extra point with 1:54 remaining. An extra point would have tied the game. But after Erik Kramer overthrew his target on the conversion attempt, the Packers ran out the clock for a 24-23 win, dropping the Bears to 0-7, the worst start in their 78-year history. ``I don't want to give them that chance,'' Wannstedt of his decision to try and win the game rather than tie it. ``You have to have a lot of respect for their 2-minute drill.''
Favre’s ability to operate under pressure confounded and dispirited one team after another. Fans could see what Packer Plus writer Jeff Potrykus put into words after Game 14 of the ’97 season, when the Packers flattened the Buccaneers on their home turf, 17-6.
"How many other quarterbacks can move deftly up in the pocket to avoid pressure, locate an open receiver streaking down the middle of the field, and then fire a bullet more than 40 yards for a touchdown? Favre did just that when he hit Robert Brooks for a 43-yard touchdown to put the Packers ahead for good with 4 minutes 46 seconds left in the first quarter.
How many other quarterbacks can scramble away from more pressure, pumping the ball with every other step, and then, just before reaching the line of scrimmage and with a defender wrapped around his legs, find an open receiver near the goal line for another score? Favre did just that in the third quarter when he scrambled as close to the line of scrimmage as the rules allow and, with defensive tackle Warren Sapp trying to drag him down from behind, found Dorsey Levens open in the middle at the 1-yard line.
A humbled Sapp could only shake his head after the game: "He steps up in the pocket, people crawling all over him. He finds a dude on the 1-yard line. Touchdown."
Throughout his MVP run, when Favre wasn’t single-handedly carrying the team, he showed leadership by influencing his teammates.
Near the Buccaneers’ goal line in a 1995 game, Favre went back to pass and saw both of his elite tight-ends open. Chmura, his best friend, was in the clear, but Favre threw the touchdown to Keith Jackson, who had felt underused since coming to the team in mid-season. "I want to get him involved. We need all the weapons we can get," Favre said.
Favre even showed leadership by bonding with players who weren’t easy to like.
Wide receiver Andre Rison showed up in mid-season 1996, about a year after a feud between Rison and Favre had been re-ignited. When Rison first became available as a free agent, Favre had said he was glad the Packers didn’t sign him because he had been bad for morale when the two played for the Atlanta Falcons. Rison responded by calling Favre a hillbilly. (Asked if the comment hurt his feelings, Favre replied with a laugh, saying, "No, I am a hillbilly.")
But, feud or no, Rison led the team with five receptions in his first game as a Packer, the 24-9 win over St. Louis. Favre wouldn’t let any carping compromise the team.
"Watching Favre embrace Rison as the third-quarter ended showed just what type of leader Favre is," the Journal Sentinel’s McGinn wrote of that game.
"He means everything to this team."
