Favre revels in greatest hit Friday, September 18, 1998
BY
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Even Brett Favre can't stand to look at it now.
Favre said he cringed watching replays of Tampa Bay defensive end Regan Upshaw leveling him Sunday with a hit that has to rank as one of the hardest ever put on a quarterback in the NFL.
It's certainly at the top of Favre's list.
"Yeah, it probably is," Favre said. "That was a pretty good hit. I didn't really feel it until (midweek) because I was kind of excited and I didn't want to let them know that it bothered me, and I jumped right up.
"Once I kind of settled down and eased into the couch with the remote control, it was like, "Damn.' I saw the replay and it was pretty scary," Favre said.
Favre, who spun away from Warren Sapp instead of tucking the ball and going down -- only to find himself face-to-face with Upshaw -- was fortunate he didn't suffer a broken jaw or major injury when Upshaw leveled him from the blind side on the dead run.
But Favre, who admitted he was "knocked goofy," bounced right up, tapped Upshaw on the helmet and both players smiled.
"He just screamed and I screamed and we laughed at each other," Upshaw said. "He is a soldier. He's a tough, man."
Two plays later, Favre hit Antonio Freeman with a 38-yard scoring pass.
"Brett's a tough guy," Freeman said. "Nothing he does surprises me. It was a blind shot. He tried to stop and come back and reverse field and there was Upshaw right in his ear hole. It was good to see him get up, though, because that was a heck of a hit.
"It makes me extremely nervous," Freeman conceded. "Brett is the catalyst to this offense and he's a tough competitor."
That's what makes Favre great, his never-say-die attitude, but that's also what gives Coach Mike Holmgren sleepless nights. Holmgren had a word with his swashbuckling quarterback this week.
"I had a little moment with him," Holmgren said. "It's like he wants to win every battle and loses sight of the war at times." Holmgren conceded, however, that the talk will probably do little good.
"He'll tell me what I want to hear at that particular moment," Holmgren said. "We play this little game. I yell at him a little bit, and he says, "Don't worry about it.' It's OK until the next time." Holmgren said he'd prefer Favre duck to avoid the hit or throw the ball away.
Still, Holmgren acknowledged Favre is one tough guy. He said he'd never seen a quarterback respond the way Favre did to such a ferocious hit.
"Usually on a hit like that with most quarterbacks, they're down for a while," Holmgren said. "It's a tribute to his strength that he was able to do that. What that does to his team is positive. There's a little frustration for me."
After all, Holmgren's already without Pro Bowl halfback Dorsey Levens, perhaps for as long as three months with a broken leg and severely sprained right ankle.
If Favre goes down, he takes the Packers' Super Bowl hopes with him.
But Favre has a remarkable streak of 108 consecutive starts, most by an NFL quarterback, a figure made all the more impressive by the rash of injuries to quarterbacks in the season's first two weeks.
What does Favre think about all the quarterback casualties, which include Minnesota's Brad Johnson and Dallas' Troy Aikman?
"I don't," Favre said. "I do my job, and I do it to the best of my ability and play as hard as I can. You take your licks along the way, that's just part of it.
"I'll keep getting up as long as I can do it."
O'Donnell passing with flying colors