It is impossible to find a photograph that adequately captures just what Brett Favre brought to the Packers, and to football.
The ineffable man-boy joy that lit up his face when the Pack scored.
The insane, impossible, from the back leg, squeezed out from under a looming defender’s hands through two more opponents pass which somehow, unbelievably, made it to his target.
The slippery scramble out from a certain sack to recover and get the ball away.
Stalking the sidelines impatiently when the Pack was on defense.
Brett has been the Packers’ QB about as long as I have lived in Wisconsin. I can’t claim to be one of those Packer fans who stuck with the team through the doldrums of the 1980’s, but I am one of those fans who cannot imagine them without #4 calling out his hoarse audibles, scrambling things up at the line, scooting around certain drive-ending doom. Or without his inevitable interceptions – who can throw that many times into coverage that thick without getting picked off a time or two?
We were with him through his crazy youth, his Vicodin addiction and drinking, his wife’s breast cancer, his broken thumb. We saw him break lifetime record after lifetime record. We watched him nearly single-handedly drive the Pack to wins. Unlike so many NFL teams, there was the reassuring stability of his presence – when you turned on your tv to watch the Packers play, you didn’t even question that Brett would start – and finish – the game. Year after year after year. A kid from Mississippi spending all that time leading a team in the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field. Who’d a thunk it?
And now we say goodbye and thanks for the memories.
Next fall is going to feel weird.
