We got vintage Favre in what may have been the legend's final game
www.si.com
NEW ORLEANS -- The moment was deeply routine, and yet it was not routine at all. Brett Favre sat on a stool in front of a cubicle in the visitors' dressing room in the belly of the Superdome. His pads and helmet were stuffed into a purple canvas bag with the Minnesota Vikings' logo on the outside. His shoes and socks sat on the floor. Slowly he peeled off his white game pants and pulled a sleeveless undershirt over his head. He squirted white, gooey shampoo into his grey buzz cut and it began running down off his head. All of this he has done hundreds of times since he was a little boy, flinging footballs around fields in Mississippi.
He rubbed a sort left wrist and a bruised right thigh. He hobbled on a sprained left ankle. He grimaced when he moved.
Yet in other ways it was not routine at all. Vikings' defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier sat down next to Favre and hugged him, speaking into Favre's left ear. When Frazier stood, quarterbacks coach Kevin Rogers approached, showered and wearing a suit, and hugged Favre.
Next came wide receiver Sidney Rice. Over the course of their one season together, Rice flourished with Favre, with 83 receptions in the regular season and then three touchdown catches last week in the divisional playoff victory over the Cowboys. Rice is 23 and Favre is 40. Rice made Favre young; Favre made Rice grow up. They were good together. Now Rice stood in front of Favre with a towel around his waist and they embraced until Favre dropped his head into the crook of Rice's neck and his eyes welled with tears.
Defensive tackle Pat Williams was next, all 317 pounds of him, wrapping Favre in an embrace and then walking out of the locker room without turning back. Those were four. "You probably missed the other 50 guys I gave a hug to," Favre would say after all this when a reporter asked him about speaking just with Frazier.
Maybe this is the way it finally ends for Favre, with a one-season grab at a last Super Bowl falling one game short, an exasperating 31-28 overtime loss to the Saints. There were no pronouncements from Favre late Sunday night in the Dome. "In a situation like this, I really don't want to make a decision right now based solely on what's happened," Favre said after the game. Had he offered a conclusion either way, he wouldn't have been believed, not with his history of indecision.
This much is safe to say: There's a pretty reasonable chance that Sunday's loss was the last game of Favre's career. And if that's the case, it was in many ways a snapshot of his career. He was brilliant and ballsy, competing his aging old butt off in the face of relentless pressure from the Saints. He threw 46 passes and completed 28, for 310 yards and one touchdown, and for most of the night kept the Vikings pushing toward a game that they should have won. Instead, they lost with five turnovers and two other crucial mistakes. And the worst mistake was Favre's.
There was 2:37 to play when the Vikings took possession at their own 21 with the game tied, 28-28. They had lost three fumbles, including one by rookie Percy Harvin that gave the Saints possession on the Minnesota seven and quickly led to a 28-21 New Orleans lead. There had been another by veteran wide receiver Bernard Berrian late in the third quarter in the red zone. And one credited to Favre on a sloppy handoff to Adrian Peterson, one of three times Peterson put the ball on the ground. Favre had suffered a nasty sprained ankle late in the third quarter and was hobbling now.
But there was a chance to end it and quiet the Dome, which had been deafening most of the night. On third-and-eight from the 23, Favre threw 10 yards to Berrian for a first down. On the next play he hit Rice for 20 yards, and on the next, Chester Taylor ran 14 yards to the Saints' 33. Favre could have taken three knees and then let his buddy, Ryan Longwell, kick a 50-yard indoor field goal to send the Vikings to the Super Bowl.
Two running plays gained nothing and then, inexcusably, the Vikings were flagged for having 12 men in the huddle on third-and-10 from the 33. Those five yards took them out of Longwell's range. They had to run a play.
Favre rolled right. There was open field in front of him, but instead Favre made the gunslinger's play and knifed a throw across his body toward Rice in the middle of the field. It was a crazy pass. Every young quarterback is taught: Never throw late over the middle. Trouble lurks. Saints' cornerback Tracy Porter read Favre's eyes and intercepted the pass. "I probably should have ran it," Favre said afterward. "I don't know how far I could have gotten, but in hindsight that's probably what I should have done. I don't know how many yards we needed for a field goal, but I knew we needed some." He paused.
"I was just late to Sidney."
The outcome seemed almost fated at that point, and it was. The Saints won the coin toss and the game on Garrett Hartley's 40-yard field goal less than five minutes into overtime. They are going to the Super Bowl for the first time in the franchise's 43-year history.
The Vikings' Favre experiment cuts two ways. He was signed to take a very good team to the Super Bowl. They knew it. He knew it. "This was all about winning another Super Bowl," Favre's wife, Deanna, told me after the Vikings' win over Dallas a week ago. That didn't happen, and by that measure the season is a disappointment. That Favre committed the most crucial error in a game full of them only underscores the failure.
And it's fair to say: This is what you get with Favre. He will make the great play, but he will also risk the critical mistake. He has not only the most touchdown passes in NFL history, but also, by a wide margin, the most interceptions. (His last pass as a member of the Packers was also a crucial pick on a bitter cold night in January 2008, all but handing the Giants a berth in the Super Bowl). But that would also be too simple.
A larger story was written, too. Favre made the Vikings much better. You can argue that they went just two games deeper into the postseason than they did with Tavaris Jackson and Gus Frerotte at quarterback, but that ignores a 12-4 regular season and a dominant playoff win over Dallas, which had been the hottest team in the NFL. And it ignores that Favre made the NFL a more interesting place. Granted, the money-minting league hardly needs help in drawing eyeballs, but ratings soared this fall and Favre was surely a big reason for that.
Sports history is full of great players who stay too long, yet Favre was vintage. And the season touched him. "Even though it was one year," he said, "it felt like 50." He meant that in a good way.
"All I can say is it's been a great year," said Favre. "This is a great group of guys. I'd love to win the Super Bowl. Who wouldn't? I didn't have anything to prove coming in. But I'm going out on top one way or the other."
When he was finished talking, he walked through long corridors in the basement of the Superdome until he found his family and put an arm around his wife. It had the feeling of something coming to an end and it wasn't all sad. Two teams move on, Favre stays behind. He deserves to be remembered not just for the last pass he threw, but also for the hundreds that came before it.
www.espn.com
NEW ORLEANS -- Brett Favre will never forget Sunday's NFC Championship Game.
His body won't let him.
Favre was pounded like a gavel, twisted like an Auntie Anne's pretzel. The guy got hit so hard and so often Sunday that Superdome officials should have a walking tour of the field.
Here's where Favre's left ankle went right.
Here's where Favre's right thigh took one for the team.
Here's where Favre's left wrist lost a chunk of flesh.
But most of all, here's where the Minnesota Vikings had their postseason crushed.
The New Orleans Saints beat the Vikings in overtime partly because -- no, mostly because -- they beat up Favre. That, and five Vikings turnovers, including one gruesome interception by Favre in the final 15 seconds of regulation.
By game's end, Favre's body color matched his helmet color: purple. He was 40 at kickoff. He was 60 at the final whistle. In between, he was knocked all the way to Kiln, Miss.
"How old are you?" said Favre to ESPN's Ed Werder as reporters formed a loose semicircle around his locker.
"Forty-nine," said Werder. "How old you feel?"
"Something around that," said Favre.
The Saints are going to their first Super Bowl thanks to a merciless defensive game plan designed to inflict pain. Favre was the inflictee.
You should have seen him sitting in front of that locker immediately after the loss. Red welts on his left arm. Blood on his upper right shoulder. A puffy left wrist. A raw gash on the same wrist. A swollen left ankle. A tender right thigh and lower back.
And red eyes.
One by one, Vikings coaches, teammates and staff made a beeline to Favre for handshakes, long hugs, backslaps and, yeah, tears. Were they thanking him or saying goodbye?
"I'd love to win the Super Bowl, who wouldn't?" Favre said later. "But, of course, I can't print anything for you guys, but I know I'm going out on top, one way or the other.
"My goal is to get to Miami. Obviously that's not going to happen. If it is [the last season], then there's no doubt I'm on top."
Favre said it won't take months for him to make his retirement-or-return decision. He first wants to remove himself from the emotion and physical pain of Sunday's defeat. Then he'll discuss the choice with his family.
"It's hard to even think about anything other than the loss," he said.
Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier spent at least five full minutes consoling Favre after the defeat. As Frazier leaned toward him and spoke, Favre dropped his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Wide receiver Sidney Rice hugged him for at least 30 seconds.
Guard Anthony Herrera was next. Then running back Adrian Peterson.
"'Preciate you," Favre said to Peterson.
Next came rookie wide receiver Percy Harvin, whose eyes were as misty as Favre's.
If this was the final game of Favre's Hall of Fame career, it ended with him standing near the sideline, helmet on, helpless as Saints kicker Garrett Hartley punched through the game-winning 40-yard field goal in OT. It was an inglorious end to a glorious season and, depending on Favre's decision, a glorious career.
Once again, Favre's final pass in an NFC championship resulted in a costly interception. It happened in the 2007 NFC Championship Game against the New York Giants. It happened Sunday against the Saints.
Favre deserves -- and accepted -- the blame for the forced throw intended for Rice on a third-and-15 play from the New Orleans 38. It cost the Vikings a chance at a long field goal and the win. Instead, the game went into overtime.
"I probably should have ran it," said Favre.
You mean, limp it. Favre couldn't run. He could barely walk, the result of a high/low hit that could have been called a penalty, but wasn't.
"Did it look bad?" Favre asked Sports Illustrated's Peter King.
King said it did.
"I thought I broke it," Favre said. "The lights went out. I could hear things crunching … Monday or Tuesday I promise the whole foot will be purple."
Favre's second interception -- his 30th postseason INT -- was a killer. It deprived the Vikings of what would have been a 55-yard field goal attempt by Ryan Longwell. That's no chippie, but the long try would have beat the alternative -- another Vikings turnover.
Blame Favre, if you want, but remember that Bernard Berrian's fourth-quarter fumble of a Favre pass at the Saints' 5 was also a killer. So was Harvin's fourth-quarter fumble at the Minnesota 22. So was a botched handoff exchange between Favre and Peterson at the Saints' 4 near the end of the second quarter. So was an inexplicable 12-men-in-the-huddle penalty the play before Favre's final INT.
In short, there aren't enough fingers to point at all the Vikings who screwed up Sunday. And by the way, the Saints and their crowd had a little something to do with the outcome.
If this was the end for Favre, he has zilch to apologize for. The Vikings wouldn't have reached the NFC Championship Game without him. As it was, he completed 28 of 46 passes for 310 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. He was the best player on a really good team. At 40.
"I didn't think I had anything to prove coming in," said Favre, "but if there were doubters out there, maybe I served notice to them."
A few minutes later, he left the makeshift stage and walked slowly, very slowly, down a stadium corridor to meet his family. You got the feeling that it might be the last walk down one of these corridors he ever makes.
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