Friday, February 13, 2009

Mark Bradley Hates Brett Favre and Thinks Kittens Deserve to Be Run Over If They Run Into Traffic

I saw this on the Big Lead first and of course had to check out the article. Mark Bradley is not unhappy that Brett Favre has retired. What Mark Bradley has written is the very opposite of a puff piece, but its not a vindictive Jay Mariotti type piece either. It is the anti-puff piece, written without anger, but with a sense of calm only insanity can give you...but it doesn't mean he is wrong.

When last Brett Favre retired, he wept. If he unretires again, I’ll weep. I never want to see him throw another interception. I feel like I’ve seen every one of them — all 310, if you’re counting — and yet I feel utterly alone in my opinion.

You are not alone, I feel like I have seen a lot of Brett Favre interceptions and I want him to stay retired. I don't dislike him but he has overstayed his welcome. Brett Favre has put up some great numbers as a quarterback, but he has left us all emotionally drained from his drama.

Which is this: Brett Favre is the most overrated athlete of our time.

Really? Joe Namath will arm wrestle Favre for that crown. Not only is Namath sporting a career completion percentage hardly over 50% but he also has thrown 47 more interceptions than touchdown passes and a career quarterback rating of 65.5. Oh, and he is in the Hall of Fame as one of the greatest players of all time to play football.

Look, Namath is probably lucky he got drunk one night at a Jets game and offered to kiss Suzy Kolber...twice, because he is now known as a guy who got drunk at a football game and made an ass of himself, as opposed to the most overrated quarterback of all time, which is really what he should be known as.

Favre isn’t the greatest quarterback ever. He’s not even in the top 10. He’s 20th all-time in passer rating, 17th in completion percentage.

Now he is cherry picking stats, but they are still very true. Anyone who reads this blog knows I am not the biggest Favre fan in the world and some of the numbers that Mark Bradley puts up are the reason. I don't know if I would take him out of the top 10 quarterbacks of all time. It is pretty close in my mind though.

That’s right. Kurt Warner. Who has won just as many titles as Favre, who has been to more Super Bowls, who has a better career completion percentage and a higher passer rating and a lower interception percentage but who had the misfortune of playing most of his career for the wrong Midwestern team in an unfrozen dome.

This Kurt Warner love is kind of overboard at this point. Warner has had 5 good seasons and Brett Favre has had 8 seasons that are comparable to Warner and those were all outstanding seasons. Favre has had other seasons where he put up good numbers, while Warner has been benched several times so he has seasons with bad numbers.

Warner also had the advantage of playing in warm weather or a dome for most of his career, so his numbers were never negatively affected by the weather.

I think Favre is a little overrated but he has been a better quarterback over his career than Kurt Warner.

And please oh please let him stay gone this time. The sport will somehow survive.

There were times when I wasn't reading a Peter King column that I forgot Favre was still playing, so yes, the league will survive.

Although, typically, a headline on ESPN.com Wednesday informed us “the NFL won’t be the same without him.”

That is a Gene W. column about Favre that goes overboard.

No, it won’t. There’ll be fewer interceptions and much less gushing.

Ouch. I feel very similar, just without the idea that Favre was the most overrated of all time.

Let's sample the Gene Wojciechowski column that made Mark Bradley forget to take his meds.

Maybe it was the cowardly teammate who anonymously ripped him in print. Maybe it was the absence of a game-breaking wide receiver or running back.

These excuses for Favre's performance are crappy. He had Jerricho Cotchery, Coles, Thomas Jones, and Dustin Keller. Those were some weapons.

It wasn't the way he wanted to go out -- an 8-3 Jets start, a 1-4 finish -- but his legacy survived just fine. I think he could have played another year.

Gene was clearly not paying attention to the NFL at the end of this year. If Favre's shoulder was directly affecting him, then he had other accuracy problems to deal with as well.

But to blame Favre for the Jets' collapse would be like blaming Aaron Rodgers for the Packers' collapse.

No, the Packers were not good this year around Rodgers while the Jets were good around Favre. Rodgers played well this year and Brett Favre did not. The Jets collapse was partially Favre's fault.

Five years ago he might have been able to do more, but Favre at 39 was still better than a lot of quarterbacks in this league at 28.

I don't know, check out the stats. They aren't bad, but they are not great either.

Favre threw 464 career touchdown passes to 50 different players. If those 50 guys are smart, they saved each of those footballs.

Knowing Brett Favre, he probably actually took those footballs from the receiver who caught it, then gave it back to the receiver, but later requested the player give it back.

It's a good list, but what I'll remember about Favre isn't so much the games, but the way he played the games. His beard was gray, but his attitude was high school pep rally.

No Brett Favre puff piece is complete without a sentence similar to this one.

The NFL isn't going to be the same without Favre -- and how many players can you say that about? More than each of his records, that's the Favre legacy that counts.

I agree and part of his legacy is his interceptions and the problems he caused the fans, the Jets, the Packers and the NFL his last year with his retirement/non-retirement dance.

I can see how Mark Bradley may go insane after reading too many of these type articles. I am little woozy.

2 comments:

  1. The only thing worse than Brett Favre love is the kind of recent idea that somehow the last 3 years of Favre's career somehow represents him more than the peak of his career, when he was undoubtedly one of the best 10 QB's ever to play the game.

    Or maybe it's the other way around. In any case they're both bad things.

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  2. Yeah, I am very hard on Brett Favre as a person, but I am not sure I could ever try and argue he is not one of the top 10 quarterbacks of all time. I think that is slightly insane.

    I am all for hating a person but you have to do it within reason. Favre may be slightly overrated but he is nowhere near as bad as Mark Bradley presents him to be. I do think Favre is a semi-liar though.

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