The New Brett

Posted on | November 5, 2009 | 3 Comments | by Chris

Where did this version of Brett Favre come from? I’m talking about the one we see this season in Vikings purple, the careful game manager, the guy who has thrown just three INTs through eight games? He certainly looked familiar physically on the field last Sunday in Green Bay, but his style of play appears to have changed notably.

Perhaps the 2009 version of Brett Favre doesn’t feel he needs to take the team on his back in order to win, so gone are the WTF throws, passes wedged into triple coverage, tossed underhand, thrown from his knees, back across his body or to the right side of the field while rolling left. Maybe now, with renewed confidence in his offensive line, he feels more comfortable. It could be that having Adrian Peterson in the backfield eases the burden of being Brett Favre and the expectations that came with it in Green Bay. Or it might be as simple as believing that he doesn’t need to do more than take the safe play because he trusts his defense will give him the ball back later.

After seeing the New Favre play so well against the Packers twice this season, I have come away believing that both the Packers and Favre came out ahead in their divorce: The Packers have found a QB who is capable of providing them above average play for the next seven or more years while Favre has landed with a team that doesn’t require him to be all that had become a burden for him in Green Bay. Now seemingly relaxed and comfortable, Favre can be a different sort of player, the kind of QB that he probably thought he couldn’t be with the perennially young team on the Bay.

Yes, the Packers and Favre probably got what was best for them, and, while it might not seem that way to some, I suspect Packers fans did, too: I doubt that the Favre we are seeing this season in MN would be present had he still been laboring under the burden of being the face of the franchise in GB, under an administration that had the team headed in a direction that he apparently didn’t want to go. Instead of seeing the Old Brett we are now witnesses to the emergence of a new order, one that might be lacking in sentiment for days gone by, but one that signals a change that needed to happen.

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