Dear Brett Favre: Thanks for Visiting Texas Stadium (One Last Time)
Unless you were, say, running a university’s faculty senate meeting for three hours or working on a consulting project until the wee hours of the morning, you know that Brett Favre has retired. It is pretty rare that a team has such great success beating up a future hall-of-famer whenever said hall-of-famer comes to town.
Favre visited Texas Stadium nine times, including a trip to Irving during the 2007 season. He never won. Three of those games during the 1990s were playoff games, and Dallas won the Super Bowl after winning two of those three.
1993: Dallas 36, Green Bay 14.
1993 (Playoffs): Dallas 27, Green Bay 17
1994: Dallas 42, Green Bay 31
1994 (Playoffs): Dallas 35, Green Bay 9
1995: Dallas 34, Green Bay 24
1995 (NFC Championship Game): Dallas 38, Green Bay 27
1996: Dallas 21, Green Bay 6
1999: Dallas 27, Green Bay 13
2007: Dallas 37, Green Bay 27
(Ok, to be fair, the Packers kicked the snot out of Dallas in 1997 and 2004 when the Cowboys traveled to Green Bay).
When the Cowboys played the Packers last November, I put together a video clip of highlights from the 1995 NFC title game. Below is that clip as it appears on YouTube. Note that around 3:15 of the clip, Favre is picked off by defensive tackle Leon Lett. Great play.
I’ve never been a big Brett Favre fan, but he deserves the accolades he’s getting. He isn’t the type of player that the NFL is going to replace, so farewell.
As a Cowboy fan, its hard to dislike Brett Favre, he simply did not beat the Cowboys enough to warrant too much resentment. I went to at least 3 of the Games he lost at Texas Stadium, including the Monday Night game the year the Pack won the Super Bowl. The Cowboys beat both the Pats and the Pack in 1996, both teams who went to the Super Bowl that season. I wonder how many times that has happened before…
The Best Chance Favre had to beat the Cowboys in Texas came in 1994(?) on Thanksgiving when Aikman was out as was backup Rodney Peete, the Cowboys had to go with 3rd String QB Jason Garrett. The Pack had a sizeable lead at half time but the Cowboys took the reigns off of Garrett in the second half and he exploded on the Pack and led the Cowboys to victory. It was Garrett’s best and most memoroable performance as a Pro.
Favre was great, one of the best if not the BEST of all time but I wouldn’t have traded Aikman for him. Perhaps I am biased towards Troy, numbers be damned but Troy was a better QB in my eyes.
March 5th, 2008 at 8:16 amI was at the game that was held the Sunday before Thanksgiving, when both Aikman and Peete were injured. It was an awesome day (we beat Washington), but the news that both QBs were out for Thanksgiving nearly ruined it.
Anyway, I don’t dislike Favre, but I don’t hold him in any higher regard than Montana, Marino, or Elway (not to mention Roger or Troy). He was probably tougher than those guys and perhaps more fun to watch, but if I had my choice of anyone other than a Dallas QB, I’d take Montana any day over Favre and would probably take Elway as well.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:09 pmMontana still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I still have not gotten over ‘The Catch’. Perhaps I never will. I did enjoy his ‘diner’ commercials this past season..
In my opinion, Montana was a product of a system. The West Coast offense. It often takes the league a few years to catch up to a new creative scheme like this. The Run and Shoot excelled well for several years and allowed offenses to put up some impressive numbers. The West Coast did the same and was a better offense than the run and shoot which allowed Montana to excel. He also had the luxury of being on the best team for the better part of a decade.
Montana was great, no doubt but would he have been as great on teams like Denver (Elway), Miami (Marino), Pittsbrugh (Bradshaw) or Dallas (Staubach). I don’t think so. But I do think that any of those QBs would have excelled in San Francisco. I am very confident that the 1970s Steelers would not have won 4 Super Bowls with Montana at the helm instead of Bradshaw.. ditto for the Cowboys. I just don’t see it..
Montana was clutch and if you had two minutes left to win a game, he could do it dinking and dunking all the way down the field. Him and Staubach both had that last minute trait. The difference was Staubach could stike faster with a 50 yard bomb, Montana could not… I don’t recall Montana every hitting a last minute bomb to win the game, he had many 7-10 play drives for a win but not many 1-2 play drives….
Montana is not in MY TOP 5 of all time QBs. He falls somewhere between 5-10. That’s just based on my opinion which is mostly biased by ‘The Catch’.
March 6th, 2008 at 9:34 amGood points, of course, and I should be more biased against Montana. I lived in Missouri in the early 1990s and saw what he was able to do in Kansas City. At that time, a number of teams were running the West Coast offense, but he was still the master of that system.
The reason why I put Staubach over Aikman is similar to your rationale regarding Montana– I think that Staubach had the talent to do well in any system, while Aikman thrived on the timing-based system that took advantage of the talent that the Cowboys had on the field. Aikman was never as successful without Emmitt or Irvin, while Staubach was generally successful with a string of starting running backs (including the lesser talented ones between 1974 and 1976– though, of course, the Cowboys did not make the playoffs in ‘74) and a number of different receiver combinations.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:55 am