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Fri. Mar 07, 2008

Football Departures

Hey, what’s with the photo of a very youthful and vital looking Brett Favre … in a Falcons uniform? Didn’t he just retire? Have the Falcon’s drafted Brett’s son? Has Reid been dipping into the Photoshop again?

No, hard as it may be to believe, before he became a legend, Brett Favre was a Falcon. But since those are somewhat mutually exclusive conditions, he had to leave Atlanta (who drafted him in 1991) before the legend part could begin.

Some say, there are no mistakes, they are directed expressions of sub-conscious thoughts. Perhaps that is why Favre self-sabotaged his career as a rookie Falcon:

Here was a small-town guy from Kiln, Miss., present-day population 2,040 (it has sprawled since Brett was a kid), who had never “been to town” before. Atlanta was the new rage of the South. Temptations on every corner. Open bars. Booze on the hoof. He should have been in Green Bay, larger than Kiln, but his kind of town.

In a book under his byline, he takes the blame. “I drank Atlanta up,” he says. He later spent some time in a center that wrings out drunks.

He missed the sitting for the first team picture. Hung over, he was late.

Furman Bisher: Falcons lost Favre to city night life

After a party-down rookie year, rather than crack the whip on a potential talent, the Falcon’s “brain trust” decided to trade him (they got a draft pick, that resulted in a player who lasted one season).

And that’s when he woke up. Favre has said he finally got the message, if he didn’t buckle down, his career would be over. So he had to make the best of this second chance at the team which traded for him. Green Bay. During the 1992 season, he became their starter.

And then he started 253 straight games for them, an NFL record. 160 of those games when he started, the Packers won. That’s the equivalent of averaging a 10-6 record each year for 15 years straight.

He had 61,655 yards passing and threw for 442 touchdown passes. A Super Bowl along the way, and 3 MVP awards. And the Falcons traded him, just before that run began.

Now he’s going out on a relatively high note, after last season. Not everyone gets to win the Super Bowl and then retire, like John Elway did. Very few have the opportunity, very few have the wisdom. It looks to me like Favre had the wisdom to know it was time. He can be thankful for a long and legendary career, and thankful for that trade back in 1992 that got it all started.

Speaking of the Falcons, I expect that some Sunday morning soon, you’ll be able to tune in on TV and watch some big demolition company blow up their entire complex. They are busting the place up, including the foundation:

The Falcons let [Warrick] Dunn go Monday. The current of the franchise says that was the right thing to [...] But bottom line: the man deserves a better career exit than this. Sports are littered with great athletes who never won championships. The NFL has its share: Barry Sanders, Dan Marino, Dick Butkus, et. al. But nobody of Dunn’s stature deserved to be subjected to the goofiness that was the Falcons the last few seasons.

Jeff Schultz: Dunn deserves better than Falcons

Warrick Dunn is perhaps the classiest player to ever wear a Falcons uniform, a tremendous athlete and a true role model, in the classic sense. I understand this move is necessary, and I hope Dunn can find a good spot to finish out his fine career. But he will be missed, and I hate to see him go.

And I don’t expect the dust around the Falcons reconstruction project to settle for a couple of years.