Monday, August 26, 2002
Maturing Favre centers the Packers
By Larry Weisman
USA TODAY
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Brett Favre feels the effects of age, of time spent in an unforgiving profession. It's not the aches or twinges that give him pause, though. It's the mental grind that makes him wonder when he should hang it up.
“There are days I come off the practice field and say, "This is it,' meaning today. Honestly, I feel like I could do this five more years, but I've been at it for 12 and this is hard. How do you know?” the Green Bay Packers quarterback muses. “If you start thinking you're not up to it or you can't mentally give the team what it expects, then maybe I would walk away.”
Don't panic. He's not going anywhere any time soon. But his interior monologue, as it unfolds, reveals a veteran player who sees more in his life than just the game he loves, who understands that experience and maturity continue to reshape him.
Playing comes naturally to the NFL's only three-time MVP. It's what he does, but maybe no longer all that he is. He senses a different life somewhere on the calendar, and he wonders how he'll live it if he plays football until he's used up.
“I have really thought about it, what it will be like when I'm 45 years old,” he says, with his 33rd birthday less than two months away. “If I want to get up and cut grass, is it going to be like two-a-days and I'm hobbling? Or if the kids want to go play basketball, am I going to have to take a seat every time I take a shot?
“People say, "Ah, don't worry about that,' but you have to at some point. I see all the old guys that come back, and it's terrible. That's the price you pay, but you can say, "I've had enough. It's time.'
“And I know that whenever I make that decision, and if it is my decision and not because of an injury or because the team cut me, there will be some hesitation and there will be times when I'll wish I was still back there. But to say that in two years I'm going to retire and never look back? That would be stupid. That's not going to happen.”
As long as the Packers can rely on Favre, they have hope and a chance at the NFL title. The glory season was 1996, when the team seemed preordained to win the Super Bowl. Favre even guaranteed the championship during training camp. But the Packers lost to Denver in the Super Bowl the following season, coach Mike Holmgren left soon after and they've not been back since.
In the third year of Mike Sherman's coaching tenure, the Packers made bold moves to build on their 13-5 record. They dumped their top receivers (Antonio Freeman, Bill Schroeder, Corey Bradford) and traded with New England for talented but disappointing Terry Glenn, then drafted Florida State's swift Javon Walker.
Defensively, they jettisoned defensive tackle Santana Dotson, safety LeRoy Butler and linebacker Bernardo Harris, adding New Orleans standout lineman Joe Johnson and 16-year veteran linebacker Hardy Nickerson.
Bold? Not really, Sherman says: “I don't ever want to be behind. I like to be ahead. I think it's easier to make those decisions when you're 13-5 and winning than when you're losing. If you're losing, it means you waited too long to make those decisions and those were some hard decisions to make.”
With Favre still in his prime, the Packers want to be able to make a run for the Super Bowl not just this season but for the quarterback's productive years to come.
“You've got Brett Favre where he is in his career and however long he's going to play, you want to make sure you do everything you can to win there and still keep your team together,” says Mark Hatley, the Packers' vice president of football operations. “I think that's the thing that has most impressed me about Mike. He's got a good picture of everything, not just for the 2002 season. He knows what we need to do to have a chance to win. He's a real bright guy and he looks at everything, he calculates and figures and makes a decision and goes on with it. He's not afraid to take a chance, and I think that's a plus for us.
“Whether it's Terry Glenn, or Joe Johnson or Hardy Nickerson, he'll take those chances and try to get us to where we need to go.”
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Maturing Favre centers the Packers
