Brett Favre- The Beeramid of Pro Football History

Stumbled upon by some great Pabst, or Schlitz enthusiast of our post-industrial past, The Beeramid stands as a testament to hollow accomplishments. A rite of American youth: cheap canned beer stacked like an Egyptian tomb. And like Brett Favre's career, celebrated as historic by unwary individuals.

I never got the whole Favre thing. His "exuberance" never charmed me, and always seemed more like showboating. The media gave him a pass on this. Whatever. I can't help feeling that if Favre were black, he'd be lumped in with T.O. or Michael Irving, as the pampered egotist who smears success in his opponents faces.

Sure Favre's got impressive numbers and holds numerous records but, like, this is football not baseball. The numbers don't tell as complete a story in football as they do in baseball. Big career passing yard Quarterbacks played in offenses that depended on them throwing the ball and didn't play with a great running back most of their careers. Of the top Qb's in career passing yards, you have to drop all the way down to Johnny Unitas at number eleven before you get to another Hall-of-Famer in the back-field (Lenny Moore, who spent half of his career as a receiver and the rest catching balls out of the backfield). So in that light, Favre is the king of the unbalanced offense.

By far Favre's most impressive record is the consecutive games played streak. But the truth is that the only reason any player, in any sport, holds a consecutive games played record is that people like them. You don't let a douche bag play when they're hurt. In this respect, consecutive games played is the opposite of the record for most hits in baseball: it is a collective obsession as opposed to a personal one ( also the Hit Kings, Cobb, and Rose, are first-ballot, hall-of-fame douche bags). If Favre acted like say Jeff George, his coach would be dying to give somebody else a chance to play, if only to stick it to the fucking guy. The Same held true for Ripkin and Gehrig; people liked them, and were willing to help them when they needed it. But unlike Ripkin and Gehrig, Favre's diminished effectiveness as he got older was rarely connected with the lack of rest and recovery the streak created.

But what is the correct criteria for the best QB of all time? If you take it by the numbers, Favre's right there. A closer look, keeping his interceptions in mind, paints a picture of an all or nothing player; a Chris Moneymaker type who kept going all-in no matter what cards he's holding. You can almost hear the inner monologue of the opposing DB's, when Favre threw another ball up for grabs: "Again? This mother-fucker's crazy!"

If you judge by the less empirical aesthetics of football, Favre's case is weaker. There are some "Big Game Wins" but more on Monday night, than in January. There are fewer comebacks with Favre, and far too many important give-aways. He does have the one Super Bowl win, but he also has a Super Bowl loss.

Only a few guys played in multiple Super Bowls and never lost: Starr in the sixties, Bradshaw in the seventies, Montana in the eighties, Aikman in the nineties. Brady was poised to continue this decade trend until he lost this year, putting him in a second tier with Len Dawson, Johnny Unitas, Bob Griese, Roger Staubach, and then after twenty years, Brett Favre, who's loss also enabled John Elway to join the group; a double whammy.

When Favre started piling up the numbers and refusing to retire while playing for bad teams late in his career, it was by then an Old Chestnut. We'd seen this recently in Baseball with Clemens and Bonds, the modern athlete padding his all time stats in plain sight. It became obvious why he was sticking around. So when he finally gets his records, and surprise, surprise, a winning team, what does he do? He retires, because what he'd been really after for five years was Marino.

Favre's magical numbers are a result of people liking him, and enabling him t chuck it down field long after he should have been home cutting the grass. It's like the Beeramid. Sure it's sweet when you top it off with the final crowning empty can. But shouldn't you have stopped drinking four beers ago?