WHEN he trotted onto the field last night as the quarterback of the Jets, they stood and roared, and it must have sounded like Lambeau Field to Brett Favre.
No large contingent of mesmerized cheeseheads, but plenty of love, and plenty of No. 4 jerseys in the Giants Stadium stands.
This was a New York-New Jersey celebration of Favre’s arrival as The Messiah of the 4-lorn J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS franchise. A culmination of a sudden, exhilarating honeymoon no one, not even Favre, could have imagined.
No one was expecting Favre to be the land version of Michael Phelps last night against the Redskins. He was throwing his first football in anger since the Giants’ Corey Webster intercepted his latest Super Bowl dream in overtime of last season’s NFC Championship game.
So it didn’t really matter much – except to apoplectic Jets Nation – that Favre, after completing his first three passes, the first one of his vintage darts to a slanting Jerricho Cotchery, held the ball and endured a 10-yard sack on his first series. It didn’t really matter much that Favre led Cotchery beautifully with a 19-yard touch pass on the second and final series to set up his 4-yard TD pass to rookie TE Dustin Keller.
He showed command and that intoxicating rocket right arm and frolicked with his younger head coach and teammates and slapped hands and brought electricity to the stadium and to the field. He finished 5 of 6 for 48 yards and that TD and it wouldn’t have mattered much if he had tossed a pair of interceptions as he began chipping the rust off what had been his shell-shocked 38-year-old arm. They are willing to give you a mulligan, even here, when you are a larger-than-life legend, a Hall-of-Fame icon, riding into town on a green-and-white horse. They are willing to give you a mulligan, even here, when your new playbook may as well have been written in Chinese, because it is Greek to you. They are willing to give you a mulligan, even here, when your new teammates feel compelled to introduce themselves to you in the huddle.
Favre should enjoy this while he can, soak up the adulation of a championship-starved, cursed fan base that forever lusts to go back to the future, when, for one glorious Super Sunday, Broadway Joe Namath was the football Muhammad Ali.
“It worked out better than I thought it would,” Favre said. “It’s like starting all over again. I had some feelings I haven’t felt in 17 years . . . I had a lot of fun.
He should enjoy this while he can because you simply do not get a long honeymoon, not here. This one, in fact, will have a duration of exactly three weeks. It will officially end under a broiling Miami sun, against Chad Pennington, the quarterback he replaced.
Favre could have accepted that $25 million golden parachute from the Packers and retired. He didn’t because he finally woke up and remembered that he loves to play the game. Favre would have preferred to play for the Vikings or Bears or Lions, just to stick it to the Packers. But here is the bottom line: If he didn’t think he could win with the Jets, he would have stayed retired.
“I felt like I threw the ball well, moved around OK . . . ten days ago I was doing yard work,” Favre said. “I knew I’d made the right decision when I was on the field tonight.”
It means he was getting a free pass last night, and for the rest of the preseason. He gets this three-week honeymoon before New York demands he be Brett Favre. Their Hope Diamond.
So far, so good. So very good. His No. 4 jerseys have been flying off the shelves. ESPN continues to stalk him. By the sheer force of his persona, Favre has rendered the Super Bowl Giants the Other Team in town, and Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning the Other Quarterback. Just imagine the mania when Favre starts hitting Cotchery or Laveranues Coles or Keller with some of his improvisational lasers deep downfield.
But Favre knows full well that his mission, now that he has chosen to accept it, is not Mission: Impossible. His mission is to close the gap on Tom Brady and the Patriots and get Eric Mangini and the Jets back into the playoffs. Anything less will be a failure.
Woody Johnson and Mike Tannenbaum spent over $140 million in the offseason to upgrade the offensive line and pass rush. The Jets were going to be a tough out even without Favre. The site of Favre in a No. 4 Jets jersey drove them mad last night. The fearless old gunslinger was now their gunslinger. A surreal sight for sore eyes.
Now bring us the head of Bill Belichick!