Reusse: As Packers arrive in Twin Cities, let’s go through their QB history — Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers. That’ll do for now.

The latest Packers QB, Jordan Love, has three decades of success, staying power and controversy to live up to.

The Minnesota Star Tribune
December 28, 2024 at 1:24AM
Brett Favre, left, and Aaron Rodgers, three decades' worth of Packers quarterbacks. (Minnesota Star Tribune file)

There is a three-part documentary recently posted at Netflix that carries the title “Aaron Rodgers: Enigma.” Clearly, Rodgers had considerable influence on the content, or this three-hour look at his career and life would have contained more than a couple of sentences on his variety of high-profile relationships.

Viewers might have seen Blu of Earth, a friend made as Rodgers was discovering the ayahuasca world of hallucinogens. Miss Blu does join Olivia Munn, Danica Patrick and Shailene Woodley in not getting a formal mention from the Enigmatic One.

Brett Favre, Rodgers’ predecessor as a Green Bay quarterbacking legend, is also currently featured in the second season of “Rich & Shameless” on TNT (also Max). He gets 42 minutes on an episode titled “Brett Favre: Out of Bounds.”

I can offer a 100% guarantee that Favre had no control over this content. This deals with the allegations that welfare funds in his home state of Mississippi have found their way to unrelated projects favored by Favre rather than to poor folks.

Sadly for Brett, the producers also took a few minutes to relive the graphic text that Favre was alleged to have sent to a young woman he had never met. She was doing some media work at his one and only New York Jets training camp in 2008.

A year later, he was landing at Holman Field in downtown St. Paul and being chased by a news helicopter as the vehicle in which he was now traveling headed toward Winter Park. He would be the Vikings’ new, soon-to-be-39 quarterback — with past grudges replaced instantly by adulation.

So you can remember Favre’s almost-glorious first season here, and try to ignore the second, but as the new-age Packers and the newer-age Vikings prepare for Sunday’s epic contest in Zygi’s Universe of Enormous Profit, it is difficult to not be amazed by this:

The incredible quarterbacking legacy that has fallen upon the mind, the right arm and the legs of 26-year-old second-year starter Jordan Love in Green Bay. He only had to wait until Year 3 for his chance, as Rodgers went to the Jets for an unhappy swan song.

The Rodgers documentary provides an amazing reminder of the Favre machinations that took place in 2008. Clearly depressed by playing poorly and losing to the New York Giants in the NFC title game at a frigid Lambeau in January, Favre announced his retirement at an emotional news conference in March.

Rodgers, grabbed by the Packers after he tumbled to 24th overall in the 2005 draft, would be done sitting after three seasons. Then came rumbling from Mississippi that Favre was having second thoughts. Then, here came Brett flying into Green Bay, a crowd at the airport cheering madly, a crowd as Favre approached Packers headquarters, telling the team he wasn’t done.

The shake of the head you get from Rodgers in “Enigma” when asked to look back at Favre creating that disruption — well, he looked like a guy wishing he knew about ayahuasca back then.

The Packers stuck with the Rodgers plan, and Favre was traded to the New York Jets with unhappy results. Fifteen years later, these two all-timers will have that to share when bumping into one another.

There is a brief segment that was taped when Rodgers visited Favre at his home in Mississippi in 2018. Brett tries to explain away the quotes from 2005 about it not being his job to mentor a young quarterback. The smirk on Rodgers’ face sitting across from Favre 13 years later told more than his few words on that subject.

Later, they are seen walking toward some water behind Favre’s house and Brett is saying there haven’t been two quarterbacks to follow one another on a team like them — other than Joe Montana and Steve Young in San Francisco.

You add up the Super Bowl victories, four for Montana as the starter, one for Young … that’s double the one apiece for Favre and Rodgers. Everything else, though, in longevity of greatness, and it’s a blowout for the two Packers.

Montana shared starting duties with Steve DeBerg for a couple of seasons and was the full-time starter with the 49ers from 1981 to 1990. Young was the backup to Montana for four seasons, then was the starter from 1991 to 1998.

That’s 18 seasons for Montana and Young, a part of two others and a phenomenal record of 194-98 in the regular season.

The Favre-Rodgers continuum is completely different. The brilliant Ron Wolf took over as the Packers’ football boss in 1991. The following February, he traded a first-round choice to Atlanta for Favre. He had thrown four passes for the Falcons as a second-round rookie — a pick-six, two incompletions, then another interception.

Don Majkowski was hurt in the 1992 season’s third game; Favre came in, led a rally for a 24-23 victory over Cincinnati in Lambeau — won on a 35-yard touchdown pass to Kitrick Taylor in the final seconds.

Favre started the next 275 games for the Packers. He was 160-93 in the regular season, and 12-10 in the playoffs. Sixteen seasons he was the Green Bay starter.

And then, finally, after the three-year wait, here came Rodgers … not the gunslinger, but more efficient in an NFL where accuracy was becoming the be-all.

Rodgers was the Packers’ starter for 15 seasons. He missed seven games with an injury in 2013, then nine of the last 10 after the Vikings’ Anthony Barr hit him and broke Rodgers’ collarbone in 2017. Rodgers thought it was an unnecessary hit; the Vikings thought it was football.

The Enigma would start 245 games for the Packers — 147-75-1 in the regular season, an identical 12-10 in the playoffs and one Super Bowl victory.

Incomprehensible. Thirty-one consecutive seasons of two legendary quarterbacks: 300-plus victories, 22 playoff seasons.

“But only two Super Bowl wins” … Is that your response here in the world headquarters of anti-Packerdom?

You’ve got a point, although I know some places where two would be fine, starting with Minnesota and Detroit.

about the writer

about the writer

Patrick Reusse

Columnist

Patrick Reusse is a sports columnist who writes three columns per week.

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