We are inundated by so much marketing hype in this day and age. Between
internet pop-up advertisements, electronic billboards, late-night
infomercials, not to mention all of the traditional marketing avenues, we
are promised so many things by so many people, yet rarely does it happen
where you purchase a product and get exactly what you were promised. Most
of the time, there’s always some little glitch or unexpected nuance that you
find yourself having to rationalize away just to keep yourself sane.
Along those lines, and this will sound weird, but the Minnesota Vikings
should be happy today. No, really, they should. They bought Brett Favre
and, as best I can tell, got what they paid for. The outside of the
figurative wrapper on the “BRETT FAVRE” they purchased said “Cannon-armed
gunslinger, will make you think you’re just good enough to win the Super
Bowl, but will inevitably melt down at the worst possible time.”
The Vikings knew this right?…RIGHT?
Was he anything but this yesterday, and for that matter, in 2010? You
should be happy Minnesota; you got way more out of the “BRETT FAVRE” product
than the Jets did in 2008, and more than the Packers did for most of the
decade. In many ways, the product outperformed its promises, but
unfortunately it delivered on the one promise you wanted to see least…the
gunslinger slinging his guns at the time they needed to be slung the least.
Folks, this is what Brett Favre’s been for the better part of 11
seasons now, pretty much since Terrell Davis walked into the end zone
uncontested at the end of Super Bowl XXXII. Anyone who says he isn’t is
merely stating an opinion that can’t be substantiated in nearly the plethora
of fact that I have to back up my metaphorical packaging of the “BRETT
FAVRE” product.
Sorry, ESPN. It’s true. Sweep his mindboggling turnovers in this game
under a rug of “he was just so courageous out there” if you wish, Boomer.
Paint his reckless ways as the slinging o’ the gun and his “having fun out
there” if you’d like, Dilfer. The bottom line is the bottom line — Brett
Favre is just not good enough to outrun his own boneheadedness, not if your
team’s goal is to win the Super Bowl.
He is good; hell, at times this year, he was great. (Hell, he was so good
at age forty that if he were a baseball player, we’d expect his name to be
in the Mitchell Report! Just sayin’…) But in the end, he’s playing a
position where every play needs to be treated precisely with unwavering
attention to detail. It requires a neurosurgeon, and while Peyton Manning
is carefully making incisions, Favre is hacking off pig hooves in the back
of Satiriale’s Pork Store with a cleaver.
And if the Vikings didn’t know this going in, then shame on them for handing
the keys to Favre. Shame on Brad Childress for allowing an inexcusable
“twelve men in the huddle penalty” on his watch, which forced the Vikings to
activate the “CHOKE” switch on the Favre doll. In the end, Minnesota, you
got Brett Favre, exactly how he has been, doing what he’s done, whatever he
wants, whenever he wants for the last decade.
You got what you paid for. Be happy with it, because the receipt expired
yesterday when someone named Garrett Hartley kicked a field goal to beat
you.
So now it’s onto the Super Bowl, and despite seeing the previous year’s
conference champion in the divisional round and a 12-4 Viking team in the
conference championship game, the Saints may not be ready for what awaits
them on February 7. I heard Trent Dilfer on ESPN say that “facing Favre has
prepared the Saints for facing Peyton Manning,” which to me is a little like
saying arithmetic has prepared them for trigonometry. In short, Dilfer’s
contention is silly.
Favre was going through his recount of the sequence at the end of the fourth
quarter which culminated in his interception toss, and in doing so couldn’t
recall the distance they needed for a first down or how many yards he needed
to return to Ryan Longwell’s field goal range; my guess is if Peyton Manning
were in a similar situation, he’d recall down, distance, yards needed, and
could give it to you in inches, feet, or yards.
Put it this way — if a football season were a rack of ribs, whereas Brett
Favre would likely attack said rack with his bare hands and eat it as fast
as he could with reckless disregard for cleanliness or manners, Peyton
Manning would surgically remove and eat every piece of meat off the bone
until the bone was completely clean and looking like a discolored piece of
wood. Ultimately, both guys are full, but there’s a real good chance Peyton
probably ended up eating more meat and did so in a much prettier, efficient
fashion than Favre, who in all likelihood wound up with indigestion, polyps
and sauce all over his nicest pair of Wranglers.
So now we have one more game and then we get to the fun part of the off
season — the Brett Favre “Will He or Won’t He?” Watch! Early news coming
out of Camp Favre courtesy of Ed Werder of ESPN is that it is “highly
unlikely” Favre returns, which of
course means he’ll come strolling into camp around Labor Day. It’s all he
knows, and oh by the way, have you been to Mississippi? There’s nothing to
do!
Personally, I hope the ol’ gunslinger comes back. Tarvaris Jackson’s
screwing up the Vikings season isn’t nearly as much fun to write about.
Listen to Sean Pendergast on 1560 The Game from 3-7 p.m. weekdays on the Sean & John Show, and follow him on Twitter at
http://twitter.com/SeanCablinasian.
This article appears in Jan 21-27, 2010.
