Brett Favre is a King Among Men and Anyone Who Wishes to Argue the Point Had Best Be Ready for Violence and Brutality
Those in the business of controversy would call the last week “a high turnover period”. Words, brutal in nature and entirely correct, attacking the belly of the Australian cricket side tended to encourage many to engage in that time honoured act of correspondence.
“Dear Sir…you are nothing but a short-sighted redneck geek who should be flogged on Australia Day…Ricky Ponting is an idol to many and in some Nepalese provinces they stone heretics like you…I hope you like the feel of sandstone, Bitch…”
“Well, hello Fellow Traveler…they were wild words you penned there and the consequences will be heavy…But survive the shit storm and you will be regarded, some day, as a pioneer…as will I…In cricket, Peter”
Said correspondence, as shown above, ranged from the mad ramblings of the wrong to the succinct and I would imagine entirely accurate penmanship of those who are capable of understanding the obvious hypocrisy of the Australian cricket team and their keenness to swim in the swamp. None of this really came as a surprise as emotional correspondence has become a fact of life and at any rate, 2008 was shaping up as a rough year.
Labor in the Lodge. The prospect of many hours spent in court defending the right of free speech. The likes of Watts Ambler and his kind roaming free and cracking heads. The strange and horrible come down from a week of flying high and getting wild, a bombastic finale to 2007, in what most would consider brutal heat. The days weren’t kind and the evenings were downright frightening as the infant hours of 2008 ticked on by like a time bomb waiting to explode. Negativity filled the Officer’s Club, as it is occasionally keen to do, and a heavy wooden croquet mallet was always on hand to welcome uninvited guests.
That negativity, however, evaporated around nine o’clock last Sunday morning.
A long and eventful evening of poker had just finished with an unpleasant scene that involved a female companion of Bob the Train, four jacks and two slightly green Lady Finger bananas. Things had gotten progressively worse for me throughout the night, in both a financial and an emotional sense, and I was keen to be alone. A supposed fixed game of Turkish soccer, a game that I had invested heavily on, turned out to be no such thing and petered out to an infuriating draw that left me in a highly frazzled state. I was well aware that bookmakers would be calling in the very near future demanding payment. Then there were the bad beats and the worse luck at the card table as a decrepit crew of hopeless gamblers and small-time criminals finally got the best of your homespun author. Come the filthy dawn, I was teetering on madness and was firmly in the grip of a somewhat dire financial situation. And the hate mail continued to roll in. Calls were made with demands to wire funds forthwith. The whole scene had gotten a little black.
The only option available to me was overturning the table and demanding solitude. And that is exactly what I did.
It was just me and Brett Favre and the hope of returning to square. I was in desperate need of sleep but in more need of some profitable action. I made a number of calls and invested heavily on the Green Bay Packers. In hindsight, it was a wise move but at the time I was filled with fear. Two minutes into the game and two Ryan Grant fumbles later, Seattle now leading by fourteen points and the Wisconsin snow settling deep on the tundra of Lambeau Field, I was filled with total hatred. For gambling. For professional football. For snow. For life. When Seattle scored touchdown number two, I swore with such bile that even Bob Ellis on an ice binge would have blushed.
I was, seemingly, in a most irrational frame of mind and it would appear that only a true Christmas miracle would see me offering a positive utterance until at least February.
Then, before my eyes and the peepers of many more people across the world, a game that can only be described as truly joyful unfolded. The anger and bitterness and negativity had dissipated. The purity of sport had come to the fore. I did not watch on as a gambler or a fantasy sports manager or as a tipster or in any other role than that of a fan watching his hero play. Brett Favre, through his sheer brilliance, transcended the usual superficiality of sports and sports following. For those three hours, sport was fun. Just like it was when you were six years old and you would sit there watching Terry Lamb or Dean Jones just so you could see Terry Lamb or Dean Jones, watching on without distraction and with your dad and the whole thing was just fun.
Sure, I won significant sums on the game but at the time, that didn’t seem to matter.
Everything came together Sunday morning to make for the perfect football game. Snow as thick as a thesaurus covering the fabled stadium of the last small town team, a setting so amazingly stunning that it would take the Rembrandt of snow globe makers to recreate it. The need for a comeback and that initial sense of disaster, allowing the emotional rollercoaster to attain even greater speed. The inevitability of return, knowing beyond doubt before the event had been completed what would occur. The hero, amazing and tough and smart and victorious and entranced in childlike wonderment.
It is no secret, to those in the many circles I drift in and out of, that Brett Favre is a personal hero of mine and has been for many years. Since the retirement of Tony Grimaldi, there has been no active athlete I have respected more. These days, respect is not a word used too often but it is one of only many superlatives that should be used to describe Favre. It is certainly possible that I have, in the most heterosexual of ways, a man crush on Ol’ Number Four and I dare say I am not alone in such feelings.
This season has been the rejuvenation of a legend, the reaffirmation of faith for all the true believers. The grand gunslinger of Green Bay was back to his amazing best, durable and tough and accurate and flawed and defying Father Time. No thirty-eight year old has ever had an NFL season like it, polling second in MVP voting and being named Sports Illustrated Man of the Year. He claimed innumerable passing titles this season and extended on the many he already possessed, all the while leading the Packers to one of their greatest ever seasons with a roster many described as only fair going into training camp. It was one hell of a year.
On Sunday morning, his brilliance was there for all to see. On their first full drive, Favre was perfect, capping it in driving snow with an unspoken audible that provided the Packers with their first touchdown. In the second quarter, on a crucial third down play, Favre was knocked off balance after an attempted sack. Rather than go down like most quarterbacks would have, Favre stumbled out of the pocket and flipped the ball underhand to his tight end, getting a first down that would soon be converted into seven points. On six consecutive drives, Favre led the Packers offense to six consecutive touchdowns. Anyone who loves professional football just had to love the show Brett Favre put on.
There is no doubt that he is a king among men, the last of a dying breed, a flawed genius who the common man can not only identify with but can genuinely adore. Be it in the city of Green Bay or the state of Mississippi or a dwelling known as The OC, Brett Favre is revered. Women would willingly bear his children and most husbands and boyfriends and fathers would quite happily allow it. That level of love is fairly rare these days, when most athletes generally regarded as dispensable and without depth.
And it isn’t just the greatness that makes Brett Favre an athlete adored. There have been plenty of great quarterbacks and even more great football players yet none have been has loved as Favre. You see, Brett Favre is as loved for his flaws and his childlike love for the game. Football isn’t a profession for Brett. It is a passion. Fans get frustrated at his ability to stink up a game with horrid interceptions yet their love remains untarnished because of their respect for his gunslinger mentality. He has been as addicted to Vicodin as he has been to winning, he has been hung-over as a rodent at game-time when playing college ball and he is always as unkempt as an old prospector. And people love that. For each touchdown pass thrown, Joe Punter feels it was thrown for them. He is the kid done good.
The most relevant sporting comparison to Brett Favre is that mighty galloper Super Impose. In terms of victory, both craved it yet their records show that while they reached the peak, there have been plenty of failures. Favre only has one Super Bowl ring and old Super placed more often than he won. It is in these failings that true character shone through and there is nothing sports fans respect more than heart. Both redefined the boundaries of durability, Brett smashing all consecutive game records while Super raced to his best at an age many would consider old. Both were revered above and beyond those with superior numbers because of the heart they wore on their sleeve. And both Favre and Super, when the stars were aligned and the stakes were high, could perform amazing feats of brilliance.
This has gone on long enough. There could be another thirty pages written on Brett Favre and we would only graze his grandiosity. But we must stop. For reasons of sleep, readability and safety. So in the words of Paul Kelly, let the part tell the whole. Brett Favre is a king among men. And it is going to be most enjoyable watching him rip the heart out of the New York Football Giants this Monday.