myopiclunacy.com

So Brett Favre is retiring from the NFL after 17 seasons, eh? What timing:

The news was first reported this morning by Foxsports.com’s Jay Glazer, who said that Favre informed the Packers of his decision over the last couple of days. In recent years, Favre has taken time after the season before deciding whether to return. Coming off one of his most successful seasons in years, you had to think Favre might make one more run at a Super Bowl.

Call me the hater, but when I think of Brett Favre I won’t remember the happy-go-lucky gunslinger of the mid 90’s. I’ll remember the surly standoffish guy who wouldn’t relate to his teammates, who admonished Javon Walker for trying to capitalize on his success and get a new contract, who held the franchise hostage year after year by hinting at retirement hamstringing the team’s plans in free agency and the draft, who criticized the team for not getting Randy Moss, who kept his consecutive games started streak to the detriment of the play of the offense at times.

And as a Dan Marino fan and cynic, it strikes me as odd that Favre didn’t retire when his team sucked last year and they didn’t get Randy Moss, but after a season where he broke all of Marino’s career records he chooses to hang it up when the Packers were a FG away from the Super Bowl and clearly on the up. It’s just like when he gave Michael Strahan the sack that broke Mark Gastineau’s single season record. Plus there’s speculation that there was a connection that he announced this the same day when the Randy Moss re-signed with the Patriots and the Packers again didn’t go after him as a free agent. Bush league. Sportsman of the year, my ass.

I’ve never liked Favre as a person and this just compounds it. Even though he’s a Jeff Tedford product and destined to fail in the NFL, I will now root for Aaron Rogers to take them to the Super Bowl next season. GO PACK GO.

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Finally someone took a pause from the Patriot and Tom Brady lovefest to really examine just how dominant Dan Marino was in 1984, and how dominant he would have been with today’s DB rules:

1. Dan Marino, Miami, 1984: Marino used his second NFL season to terrorize opposing defenses on a weekly basis. Blessed with a quick release and a rocket right arm, he produced a season-long performance that required its own section in the league record books once he was done. Marino set NFL marks for yards (he became the first player to pass for 5,000 yards in a season with 5,084) and touchdown passes (he blew away the old mark of 36 with 48 of his own) and he led the Dolphins to a spot in that year’s Super Bowl. Marino’s Hall of Fame career included many great seasons but nothing ever came close to those feats. In fact, there is one chief reason his performance still ranks better than those produced more recently by Indianapolis’ Peyton Manning and New England’s Tom Brady: The application of the rules was different. Both Manning and Brady benefited from the league’s decision in March 2004 to place a greater emphasis on enforcing the illegal contact rule, which penalizes defenders who touched receivers more than five yards away from the line of scrimmage. If Marino had that advantage going for him, nobody would’ve ever matched the season he produced 24 years ago.

While Marino shattered the single season records that came before him, today’s QBs in pass happy offenses have only inched past in years when they had career seasons. Still no one but Marino has eclipsed 5000 yards passing. And unlike Manning’s and Brady’s one year passing TD spike, Marino’s 1986 season for a long time stood as the #2 passing season of all time with 44 TDs and over 4700 yards.

The author also astutely points out that both Jerry Rice (22 TD catches, then an NFL record) and Reggie White (21 sacks) both had Hall-of-Fame seasons in 1987, playing in only 12 games because of the strike. Time to get a little perspective. Since we can’t put Marino and Brady on the field together, let’s analyze them where we can - their dominance in comparison to their era. Give some love to the old school!

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