I’m just wondering, has there ever been a playoff game between two quarterbacks whose posteriors have been so often smooched by so many sycophantic sportswriters? I can’t think of one. Not even Montana-Aikman, with 7 Super Bowl rings between them, ever received this kind of fawning coverage. Not Staubach-Tarkenton, or Stabler-Bradshaw. It is now considered outright heresy to bring up the point that Donovan McNabb has a career completion rating* almost identical to – and one less Super Bowl ring than – QB legend for the ages and certain first-ballot Hall of Famer Trent Dilfer. And this parody of Peter King’s friendship/obsession with Brett Favre barely manages to surpass the average broadcaster’s genuflection towards the man who’s “always having so much fun out there.”
I am with Brett Favre on Saturday morning, somewhere deep in the backwoods of Mississippi. We are hunting for a big game — namely, our belated Thanksgiving meal to stuff in an oven in Kiln, home to Brett and Deanna Favre. Brett, armed with bow and arrow, echoes of Burt Reynolds from Deliverance, quietly stalks his prey through the brush. I, outfitted only with a Ned Beatty gut, struggle to keep up. I follow behind Brett, step for step. I am so close to Brett right now, I can feel his breath. I can’t help but think, I bet Deanna is jealous right about now.
What a quarterback. What a man.
Brett is a throwback all right – a throwback to Perseus, sculpted from the Greek gods. How his rugged Russell Crowe Gladiator beard accentuates his full, buxom lips. The way Brett’s hips undulate, and gyrate, and undulate – oh, how they undulate – when Brett talks to me on the driving range. Or the way Brett’s nose twinkles when I ask him pointed questions like “Why are you such a good football player when it’s cold, Brett?” In a past life, this nubile young man must have been some sort of explorer. Hernando de Soto, perhaps.
Naysayers might have asked Brett at some point about his Thursday performance. But pay no mind to that fourth quarter pick that lost the game for the Sons of Sherman. Brett is a gunslinger. Always has been. Always will be. Those things happen. Brett was just trying to make a play. Brett can quarterback my team any day.
– from Football Outsiders
*McNabb’s career passing rating is 8 points better than Dilfer’s. However, his completion rating is only 1.5 percent better, and his performance over the last three seasons is strikingly similar to Dilfer’s two good seasons in Tampa Bay. McNabb may become a great quarterback someday; he’s still young. But to say that he’s a superstar is ridiculous. Elway and Marino were the last true superstar QBs, although Favre can make a solid claim for such status if he can lead the Pack/ride Ahman Green to another Super Bowl. Only Manning, Brady and Culpepper appear serious superstar candidates in my book, and in that order.