Down the field, Stuckey, a second-year player of little note, found himself alone and crossing pay dirt. “I wasn’t even in the progression,” Stuckey said. “But I saw him start to scramble, then disappear, then roll out, then throw it as hard as he could. So I just got open. It was an amazing throw, because it wasn’t just an accident. He knew what he was doing.”
Stuckey leapt to catch the ball between three defenders and fell in for the score. It was the first touchdown of his career.
New York triumphed, 20–14, and while it wasn’t Favre’s best career performance, Phil Simms, calling the game for CBS, rightly termed it “borderline magnificent.” He completed 15 of 22 passes for 194 yards and two touchdowns. There were no interceptions, no boneheaded mistakes. Pennington, too, performed capably, but the difference between Favre’s AIM-4 Sidewinder missile and Pennington’s peashooter was clear. The New York Jets were well armed.
Of course, ever since Namath’s heyday the team had a certain Murphy’s Law quality, and here was no exception. Favre Fever gripped the region, and then the team proceeded to lose two straight. The first, a 19–10 setback against rival New England, was painful yet digestible. The second, a 48–29 flogging at San Diego on Monday Night Football, was not. Favre had never lost to the Chargers and, a season earlier, threw for 369 yards and three touchdowns in a Green Bay triumph. But now, for the first time in three games, he looked old and out of sorts. San Diego sacked him three times, intercepted him twice. Mangini had been ripped in the press for an overly conservative game plan. (Wrote the New York Post’s Steve Serby: “Take the shackles off . . . let him wing it, let him sling it, let him bring it.”) He opened it up against the Chargers, and the result was disastrous. After the game Favre was seen limping down a hallway, his left ankle heavily wrapped in an ACE bandage. He had rolled it in the third quarter, and now the consecutive-start streak, 256 strong, seemed to be in jeopardy. “I will be alright,” he said afterward—but nobody could be sure.
That week, Favre limped through much of practice. He spent considerable hours on the sideline, as Clemens took an increased share of reps. Two days before the Sunday kickoff against Arizona he was listed as “questionable” in the injury report, and split his time with the media talking about the ankle and Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner, a two-time league MVP who attended camp with the Packers in 1994 as a free agent out of Northern Iowa. “There are guys that come and go,” Favre recalled. “He was one of them.”
Now Warner was bringing one of the NFL’s top offenses to Giants Stadium. Through three games, the 2-1 Cardinals scored 71 points, and the wide receiver tandem of Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin seemed unstoppable. “It was hard to be overly positive,” said Kerry Rhodes, the Jets’ free safety. “It was like living through an experiment that wasn’t working out.”
Boom!
The first lightning bolt came early in the second quarter. On third and goal from the 12, with 14:50 left, Favre (decked out in the unattractive blue-and-yellow New York Titans throwbacks) dropped back and waited for Coles to sprint down the field and cut through the end zone. The quarterback stepped forward in the pocket, hopped, and threw a strike to the wide receiver, who beat two defenders for the ball. It could not have been thrown any harder.
New York took a 14–0 lead on Darrelle Revis’s 32-yard interception return, then, midway through the second quarter, Favre and Coles hit again. This time, on a first and 10 from the Arizona 34, the quarterback faked a screen, watched defensive back Eric Green bite, and found a wide-open Coles all alone near the end zone. The normally stoic receiver did an electric dance before being hugged and hoisted by Favre. It was now 21–0. A Feely field goal shortly thereafter made it 24–0, and with 10 seconds left in the half, Favre completed yet another touchdown pass to Coles—this one a perfectly thrown 2-yard fade into the corner of the end zone. Score: 31–0.
When they found one another on the sideline, Coles handed the ball to Favre—a small gesture that carried great weight. Even Coles could admit Favre brought an electricity Pennington never had. “He deserved it,” Coles said. “It meant a lot for me to give the football to a legend.”
New York won, 56–35, and Favre’s six touchdown passes marked a career high and tied Namath’s team record. Toward the end of the game, he walked up and down the sideline, shaking hands, extending congratulations. The postgame locker room was a land of giddiness. “I enjoy being here,” Favre said. “I don’t know where we go from here. I hope we continue to go up. But it’s been fun.”
New York’s players were learning what to expect from Favre: strong throws, tons of on-field enthusiasm, limited locker room interaction. Also, to their universal delight, he served as a buffer between the team and Mangini.
Now in his third year with New York, the 37-year-old head coach had begun to wear out his welcome. Back in 2006, when he took over and guided the team to the playoffs, fans and the media nicknamed him “Mangenius.” A longtime assistant to Bill Belichick in New England, Mangini shared his former boss’s rigidity and attention to detail—attributes when you’re winning, liabilities when a team goes 4-12, as the Jets did in 2007. Although it’s a stretch to say Mangini was intimidated by Favre, he never seemed fully comfortable in his presence. He also surely felt some of his authority diminish with the quarterback’s arrival. That dress code Mangini had brought to New York from New England? Gone—thanks to Favre’s hatred of suit and tie, all the players and staffers were presented with travel-appropriate Jets sweat suits. That run-first, ball-control offensive he preferred? Scrapped—Woody Johnson wasn’t paying $12 million to have his quarterback hand off to Thomas Jones and Leon Washington 45 times per Sunday. The cold-weather practices that Mangini felt built character and toughness? Um, no. Favre hated workouts, and he especially hated workouts when the temperature dipped below 50 degrees. The team’s new digs included a 100-yard indoor facility, and Favre insisted it was the best option. What was Mangini supposed to do? Have his prehistoric quarterback live uncomfortably?
Following the Arizona victory, the Jets had their bye week, for most teams a laid-back period of limited hitting. Yet Mangini insisted the Jets practice in pads, which made no one happy. “You don’t want to be doing that stuff during that week,” said Richardson. “It’s unnecessary.” Favre wasn’t feeling it. He practiced lazily, tossed three interceptions, fumbled a few exchanges from Mangold. The coach held another full-pad practice the next day, and before it commenced he called Favre into his office. “Brett, how’d you feel about practice yesterday?” Mangini asked.
“It was fine,” Favre replied.
“No,” said Mangini. “It wasn’t fine. It was bullshit. I don’t know what the hell you thought you were doing, but . . .”
When the brief meeting ended, Mangini spotted Richardson. “Tony, how do you feel?”
“I feel good, Coach,” he said.
“Yeah, you should feel good,” Mangini said. “Because you didn’t fucking block anyone.”
Richardson was in his 14th NFL season, Favre his 18th. Afterward, they sat together and reviewed, in the fullback’s words, “how bullshit that was.”
“It was tone-deafness,” Richardson said. “Eric needed to know better.”
He didn’t, but it mattered little. This was no longer his team. It belonged to Favre, and he behaved as he pleased, practiced when he pleased, approached Sundays as he pleased. After the first four games, he led the NFL with 12 touchdown passes and a 70.2 completion percentage, making him new king of the city. Mangini could bark, yell, curse, swear, and what difference did it make? Favre was still Favre. “It kind of unraveled a little,” said Rhodes. “Because you can’t build yourself as someone who treats everyone equally, then not treat everyone equally. It’s a quick way to lose respect.”
The Jets returned to action with a home game against the woeful Cincinnati Bengals, and one moment spoke volumes. Leading 20–14 late in the fourth quarter, New York found itself on the Bengals 1-yard line. Schottenheimer sent in the
play—a simple handoff to Jones. “So we come out of the huddle, and Brett forgets which way I’m going,” Jones said. “He’s standing behind center and he turns around and points to my left. And I’m thinking, What the fuck are you doing, man?” Jones nodded, and the Cincinnati linebackers shifted toward their right. When the ball was snapped, Favre handed off to the halfback, and he jumped over the linemen to score. On the sideline, Jones grabbed Favre and said with a laugh, “Man, you’re gonna get me killed out there.”
“Nah,” Favre said, grinning, “you’ll be all right.”
“Then he smacked me on the ass,” Jones said. “He didn’t know all the plays. Or probably even most of the plays. And he wasn’t that big, or even that strong. His legs were surprisingly skinny. He was pretty slow. But he was just one of those unique players who makes things happen.”
The Jets topped the Bengals, 26–14, and captured four of the next five, including a thrilling 34–31 overtime win at the hated Patriots. On November 23, in what was billed as the biggest game of the 12-week-old NFL season, New York was scheduled to travel to Tennessee and confront the 10-0 Titans. Led by the resurgent play of quarterback Kerry Collins (who was in rehab with Favre nine years earlier) and a defense that allowed but 13.1 points per game, Tennessee was justifiably favored by 5½ points, and the younger Jets had reason to be uptight.
Favre, however, wouldn’t allow it. That week in practice he was his loosey-goofy self. During one break in the action, he approached Mike Bloomgren, an assistant coach. “Hey, Mike,” he said, “do you have any fillings?”
Bloomgren opened his mouth and the quarterback filled it with a handful of pellets from the field. “With Brett,” Bloomgren said, “you had to always be watching out.”
Eric Barton, one of the team’s better linebackers, ran over a goose with his car, and expressed regret to teammates. The next day, upon arriving at the facility, Barton found a dead wild turkey draped over his locker. Favre snuck an air horn into meetings and blew it randomly—and obnoxiously—during conversations. He had a black rubber snake that he liked to place at the bottom of buckets of equipment. “Whenever someone wasn’t paying attention, he’d throw it at their feet,” said Meghan Gilmore, who worked in media relations. “Throw it in their locker.”
“One day it’s snowing outside, and Eric takes us out to practice,” said Rhodes. “I’m out there early, and I hear someone charging up behind me.” It was Favre, who dumped a pile of snow atop the safety’s head.
His greatest—and worst—takedown was directed toward Jimmy Raye, the team’s 62-year-old running backs coach. A walking football history museum, Raye was one of Division I’s first African American quarterbacks at Michigan State and went on to a distinguished coaching/mentoring career that lasted more than 40 years. Of all the people on New York’s staff, he was the one not to mess with.
One day, during a practice, Raye was standing on the outdoor field. Because he had recently undergone back surgery, he walked slowly and had limited range of motion. Favre either didn’t know or didn’t care, because he approached from behind and yanked Raye’s pants to his ankles. As the entire roster howled, Raye struggled to pull them back up. The laughter failed to conceal the unspeakable meanness of the act. “I wasn’t pissed,” said Raye. “Really, I wasn’t. It was a little bit . . . I don’t know. I didn’t love it, but it was what Brett did. He spared no one.”
The Jets arrived in Nashville as loose as they had been all season. Mangini was marginalized, Favre was rolling, the team was 7–3. What followed was a breezy 34–13 victory, in which Favre threw two more touchdown passes and halfback Leon Washington ran for two scores. New York outgained Tennessee, 409 yards to 281, and the players left the stadium as certifiable favorites to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. “It was our high-water mark,” said Tannenbaum. “To beat that team in Tennessee, and to do it handily. I’d been through a lot of ups and downs, and I knew there was a lot of wood to chop. But was I feeling confident? Yes, I was.”
Then, Brett Favre’s arm fell off.
OK, it didn’t literally detach from his body. There were no reports of Brett Favre’s severed limb. But something was wrong. First notice actually came a few weeks earlier, when an AFC scout anonymously told Steve Serby of the New York Post that Favre was throwing the ball “funny.” The words were largely dismissed, because to the naked eye his passes against Tennessee looked crisp and on point. “He made a throw in practice, and I saw him grab his arm,” said Baker. “I had good relations with our training staff, so I asked. They told me he had a tear, but that he could still do stuff. It’d just come and go.” The following week the Denver Broncos visited Giants Stadium, and their 6-5 record and porous defense suggested another win for football’s hottest team.
In the lead-up to the game, more than a few football writers took a moment to compare Favre and the Jets with Aaron Rodgers and the Packers. Green Bay was 5-6, and their young quarterback had played poorly in back-to-back losses. Tom Oates of the Wisconsin State Journal penned a piece headlined WRONG PLAY, and explained that the Packers would certainly be better with Favre. In the Marshfield (Wis.) News-Herald, D. J. Slater found one fan after another who longed for Favre’s return. “The Jets have a solid chance of making the Super Bowl,” one interviewee wailed. “That should have been us.”
The Jets were favored by 8, but as they warmed up beforehand, Favre didn’t seem quite right. His right arm was a mess. After the season, he would learn the cause: a partially torn biceps tendon. “It was raining, and he was having trouble gripping the ball,” said Bloomgren. “The whole game, he was never really on point.” Favre completed 23 of 43 passes for 247 yards and no touchdowns. He hung tough in the pocket, took a ton of hits, yet passes that soared earlier in the season now merely traveled. “It was obvious,” said Ty Law, a Jets cornerback. “He didn’t have the Favre zing.” New York lost 34–17, fell the next week to San Francisco, somehow snuck past Buffalo (“Honestly, we got lucky,” said Andy Dickerson, an assistant coach) and, on December 21, headed to Seattle for what was suddenly a must-win meeting against Mike Holmgren’s 3-11 Seahawks. In the days leading up to the game, Favre surprised the coaching staff and his teammates by volunteering to run the Jets’ scout team offense. “He felt like he knew Holmgren better than anyone,” said Dickerson, “and that he could show us what they’d do. It was really unselfish.”
The Seahawks started a young backup quarterback named Seneca Wallace, and clearing 20 points tended to be a struggle. They were thin in all areas, ranked last in the league in passing yards allowed (260.9 per game), and projected into an easy win for the Jets.
It was cold (31 degrees) and snowy in Seattle. New York scored first on a 20-yard field goal from Feely—then did nothing. Favre’s arm was gone. Sometimes, he winced. Other times, his follow-through seemed shortened. Mostly, he started looking more like Pennington, less like a legend. Yet for reasons neither man has ever fully explained, neither Schottenheimer nor Mangini altered the offense. In Jones and Washington, the Jets had two explosive running backs. Against Seattle, they combined for only 20 carries. Favre, meanwhile, launched 31 passes, completing 18. “We knew he was hurt,” said Baker. “He was still functioning, but he wasn’t himself.”
“He just couldn’t do it,” said Feely. “He tried. But his balls were going 15 yards wide, 15 yards short. It wasn’t there.”
By Seattle, Favre was experiencing numbness in his fingers and shooting pains up and down his right arm. He never complained. “He’s the toughest guy to ever play the sport,” said Schottenheimer. “I saw him take some hellacious shots that season and get right back up. He had a hard time at some points. But you never had to worry about him not answering the bell.”
New York lost 13–3, as Favre underthrew one pass after another. His 19 interceptions now led the league, and it was the fourth straight game where his passer rating was below 62. The defeat dropped the team to 9-6. “Brett was bad,” said Baker. “Really bad.” Immediately afterward, Favre�
��s hand was noticeably discolored from frostbite. “I don’t have all the answers,” he said with a shrug. He spoke briefly and softly, before dressing and heading with the team to the airport. The Jets spent the ensuing two hours sitting on the runway waiting for the weather to clear.
“If you want a low point,” said Schottenheimer, “there you go.”
By now, Favre had already made up his mind that he would not be spending another year with the Jets. He was annoyed by Mangini, felt disconnected from most of his teammates and generally out of sorts. He was bored and frustrated, and never fully accepted that he could possibly be a long-term Jet. “It wasn’t right for him,” said Bonita Favre. “You had to drive forever to get anywhere. There were no straight roads from one point to another.” When asked about his future, he was noncommittal, and insisted it was possible he’d return. But that was untrue. “He wasn’t really made to play in New York,” said Jeff Favre, his brother. “He’s a small-town guy. That was a bad fit. It wasn’t a bad place. But it wasn’t really him.”
If life is truly a poem, as the writer Steve Maraboli once observed, the final week of the NFL season was Chad Pennington’s sonnet on revenge. The Dolphins were coming to Giants Stadium, and with a 10-5 record not only were they headed toward the playoffs, but stood in position to both clinch the AFC East and knock the Jets out (New York needed a win, plus a loss by either New England or Baltimore). Because his name was Pennington (not Favre) and because he played in South Florida (not New York), Miami’s quarterback reveled as the season’s best-kept secret. His 96.4 passer rating was second in the league to San Diego’s Philip Rivers, and his 17 touchdowns and seven interceptions were far preferable to Favre’s 21–19. Dave Goldberg of the Associated Press even wrote an impassioned piece supporting Pennington’s MVP candidacy. Over the last four games, on the other hand, Favre had one touchdown and six interceptions. He finally admitted the day before Christmas that something was wrong with the arm—“I don’t know,” he said. “Just knowing my body, there may be something.” Interestingly, the drama of the past few seasons (will he or won’t he return?) didn’t dominate headlines in New York—primarily because it didn’t much matter. Favre looked to be shot. Would the Jets even want him to return? Hard to say.
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