Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Rodgers or Favre? The Debate Continues
In true parliamentary style, I will immediately declare an interest. The Green Bay Packers are my NFL team and have been ever since I started watching football 25 years ago. How can you not love a historically great team from a small town in the middle of nowhere that doesn't even have some filthy rich old white guy as an owner?
I also loved Brett Favre, through the MVP seasons, the Super Bowls, the single-handed victories, the starting streak and despite the pain-killer drama, the frustrating picks in crucial games, and the fact that he seems to be friendly with the odious Peter King.
But no man, even Favre, is bigger than the team, particularly a team as important to the NFL as the Green Bay Packers. It was time for Favre to retire and he did so with the best wishes and thanks of everyone in Green Bay and football in general. The team rightly moved on to Aaron Rodgers, who had waited patiently and with grace for his time to come.
Predictably, as all great ones do, Favre quickly wanted to unretire and, without any of the grace Rodgers had shown as his deputy, made a complete fool of himself (as did his wife) in the process. The Favre entourage and a lot of his admirers expected the Packers hierarchy to either trade him to the hated Vikings or welcome him back and dump Rodgers and all in the time it takes to throw an overtime playoff interception. When it didn't happen, they threw a collective hissy fit.
The Packers had no obligation to Brett Favre other than he was contracted to the team (which paid him a handsome salary) and he was theirs to play, trade or bench. Quite rightly, they traded him for a fair return and even found an AFC home for him so he didn't immediately have the opportunity to bite them in the ass.
Favre has revitalized a struggling Jets team and that's a great story. He's put up numbers that put him on the fringes of MVP talk and his team will likely make the playoffs.
None of that makes the decision of Packers GM Ted Thompson to go with Rodgers a mistake. The Packers have almost no hope of making the postseason after their recent collapse, but even that shouldn't throw Thompson's decision into question.
Rodgers has been impressive in his first season as a starter, so much so that he owns a QB rating of 91.2, higher than Favre's 90.4. Not that QB rating is the be-all and end-all of measuring a QB, but it illustrates that Rodgers hasn't been the reason why the Packers couldn't win a mediocre NFC North.
The reasons the Packers likely won't make the post season is that they:
- Can't stop the run (27th in the NFL).
- Can't win close games (three of the last four losses have been by four or less points) because of a porous defense and bad coaching decisions — the decision not to go for it on 4th-and-goal in the Carolina game was mind-numbingly stupid.
- Can't generate a decent pass rush, especially late in games.
- The team is young, without an obvious leader, and is unaccustomed to pressure situations. They will improve, but this year is too soon.
None of these issues reflect badly on Aaron Rodgers, who has had a great year in a difficult position. To say Brett Favre would have given them slightly more at QB might be true, but it's a complete stretch to say he would have taken them into the postseason. Rodgers has years ahead of him as a NFL starter; Favre has until the Jets are eliminated, then the whole will-he-won't-he saga starts again.
Anyone who watched, as I did, the MNF telecast of the Packers/Saints game must have got sick of the sound of squeaky-voiced "analyst" Tony Korn(ball)heiser flogging the "would Green Bay be better with Favre?" dirge until even one of his co-hosts could take no more. At one point, I thought Jaws, who was getting increasingly irritated and letting it show, was going to hang a right hook on Kornheiser's cretinous face.
Here lies the basic problem with NFL broadcasts. Men like Jaworski, who can actually analyze football games for an informed and intelligent audience, are sidelined or crushed into submission until they toe the company line and peddle the "storyline" garbage that no one apart from the likes of David Hill at FOX cares about.
Hence we get the "so-and-so comes from a poor family of 76 children and didn't eat a proper meal until he got to college" or "this guy is dating this Z-list celebrity singer having previously dated another equally dismal reality show contestant" or the "will he retire or won't he?" drivel. Joe Buck has made a lucrative career out of grinding out this crap for FOX.
It's an insult to fans that love (and understand) the game and it's almost unheard of in college football broadcasting, where the standard of analysis is much higher.
I thought MNF couldn't sink any lower than Dennis Miller, but sadly, I was proven wrong. At least Miller approached the job as a comedian and had no pretense to being an analyst, though his style wasn't to everyone's taste, including mine.
Kornheiser's laboring under the illusion that he's a bona-fide expert and twitters on endlessly with his inane "observations" and opinions. He's a low-level talking head that's out of his depth — a bald Jim Rome, an old and white Stephen A.S.S. Smith, Jay Mariotti with a jumper and jacket instead of an Armani suit. It's enough to make you yearn for the days of Dan Dierdorf.
According to nfl.fanhouse.com, Kornheiser mentioned Brett Favre 18 times during the Saints/Packers telecast, compared to 16 times for Rodgers and nine times for one of the NFC's best QBs and a likely MVP candidate, Drew Brees. Ridiculous.
Completely passed by in this Green Bay/Jets/Favre triangle is Chad Pennington, who was unceremoniously dumped by the Jets to make room for Favre.
Pennington had a hard time in New Jersey, but always appeared brave and dignified despite the criticism. He has a better QB rating than either Rodgers or Favre at 92.8, he's only thrown 6 picks, and has fumbled the ball just twice, with neither recovered by the opposition. I don't expect Tony Kornheiser has noticed that.
From a comedy journalist to the greatest living NFL writer, Paul Zimmerman, otherwise known as Dr. Z.
Zimmerman was hospitalized last week after suffering two strokes. He is recovering, but so far hasn't been able to communicate, according to hospital sources.
Dr. Z is the perfect example of how to conduct yourself as a professional sports journalist. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of his subject, laces his articles with wit and amusing anecdotes, respects his colleagues and subjects, and offers forthright opinion backed up by facts. He's also an NFL media dinosaur, in as much as he is prepared to take on the suits in the NFL establishment and call them out on what they do wrong. No other NFL writer can even make a half-hearted claim to that.
It was with great sadness that I read of his illness. If we've seen the last of his work, there will be a gaping hole in sports journalism. I'm sure I'm not alone at Sports Central in wishing him a speedy recovery and praying for his family in difficult times.