Why I Love Brett Favre

My favorite athlete of all time retired this past week. He didn't exactly go out on top, but he very much went out on top of his game. Take away the freak show in New England and Favre would have easily won the MVP this past season. It would have been his fourth. That would have been more MVP awards than all other players combined*. I don't know how many touchdowns he threw, but I know it was the most (and yes, I know that is also true of interceptions). I also know he threw for the equivalent distance of circling the Earth nine times and a round trip to Saturn*. But those aren't the reasons he was my favorite. These are the reasons he was my favorite...

5) He freakin loved to play football. He was out there having a blast, cutting up with teammates, coaches, opponents, refs, anyone that would listen. I think he was really good at realizing that he got paid a lot of money to play a game, a game that he was really good at. It seemed that he never took that for granted.

4) He was tough. I think he started like 1,232 games in a row*. This wasn't injury-free mind you. In 2003 he had a broken thumb on his right hand and still tied for the lead in touchdown passes. One might argue that he played through blindness in the 2006 season... and I couldn't argue that.

3) Monday Night Football Games featuring Favre were a holiday for myself and Bubba Bullock. The last one I remember celebrating ended with him throwing for a 125* yard touhdown on the first play of overtime to win the game. His finest was his performance the day after his father passed away, throwing for 399 and 4 touchdowns, the stuff legends are made of. Honorable mention for his part in Antonio Freeman's incredible sliding on his belly rolling over on his back grabbing the ball and winning the game play. And I know Madden probably got on your nerves with his man-crush on Favre, but Madden just got on my nerves anyway, and since I love Favre the man-crush never really bothered me.

2) He was great. He had great play-making ability. Making plays by scrambling, scraping, throwing off a defender, head-butting a defender, convincing a defender they didn't want to tackle him, underhanding a pass, drop kicking a pass, whatever it took. He had a great arm. They say he's broken five players' hands*. He could throw the deep ball as well as anyone. He could thread a needle with the best of them too. I don't kid myself and think that he's the best quarterback of all time, that's just not the case. I do believe he belongs somewhere in the top ten, but maybe not even the top five. I'm not saying he's the best, just my favorite and mainly for my number one reason...

1) He played the quarterback position exactly like I would. I would have an extremely hard time just throwing the ball away and would probably throw as many interceptions as he did. I too would go long about every third play because going long is awesome, and results in a touchdown so much more than a screen. I would also scramble around and try some crazy flip pass to my running back in the flat. The only thing is, I would never be as good at any of that as he was. Nobody will ever play as crazy, as against the mold as Brett Favre and be nearly as successful as he was.

*Facts not checked