| Authored by Andrew Perna - 20th August, 2008 - 2:58 pm
 Ryan Grant takes the football on first down and runs to the left side, gaining two yards against the stiff Giants’ defense. On second down, with eight yards to go, the Packers decide to pass – like they have for the better part of the last sixteen years – with a berth in the Super Bowl on the line.
Brett Favre spots Donald Driver fifteen yards downfield and launches a pass that looked good, if only for a split second. Soon after, before the ball even reached its final destination, it seemed to be a foregone conclusion that Driver wouldn’t be the one catching the spinning orb.
Corey Webster stepped in and caught the pass, setting up New York for a 47-yard field goal that would launch them into a battle with New England for NFL supremacy.
What we didn’t know at the time was that Webster’s interception would drastically alter the landscape of the NFL.
Who knows what may have come about had Webster not grabbed Favre’s pass. Even if the ball hit the turf rather than anyone hands, Green Bay would have at least had one more opportunity to extend their drive.
Taking a look at Favre’s track record, with his recent postseason blunders notwithstanding, there’s a pretty good chance he’d have found someway to lock up a first down. Perhaps he would have even gotten the Packers into field goal range.
Instead of watching the Giants’ famed upset over the undefeated Patriots, perhaps we would have seen Favre lead the Packers to an improbable victory. Or more likely, Tom Brady and New England complete their perfect season with a win over a young, but veteran-led, Green Bay squad.
Either way, we might have avoided the summer-long saga surrounding Favre, the Packers, and the rest of the league.
Maybe a Super Bowl appearance would have quelled Favre’s desire to continue playing, or maybe it would have changed Green Bay’s take on whether or not he was the right quarterback to continue leading their club.
It’s incredibly hard to surmise what’s going on in another human being’s head, especially a competitor like Favre's, but is it possible that a cornerback with four career interceptions like Webster could have set a series of events in motion that changed the face of both the NFC and AFC?
Webster was nine years old when Favre’s career began in Atlanta back in 1991, meaning that Favre had fourteen years of NFL experience under his belt when Webster landed in NFL out of LSU in 2005.
Brett has thrown 288 interceptions in his career, but the one that ended Green Bay’s season last January symbolized his psyche more than any of the 287 came before it.
It seems like Favre has considered retirement for each of the last four or five seasons, which in a way downplayed the drama that surrounded his decision to unretire just weeks after his tear-filled press conference.
I must admit that even after Favre confirmed reports that he did in fact want to take the field once again, I didn’t believe it. There was no way Favre would change teams, right?
Then I remembered something. Favre is only fourteen months from forty, so he’s allowed to be a tad stubborn. That kind of hardheadedness is a trait that brings out the best in athletes like himself, but will annoy the crap out of his kids when he approaches his twilight years.
That’s why he couldn’t quit with his "final" pass having ended up in the arms of Webster. That’s also why Favre couldn’t accept the fact that Green Bay didn’t want him back, and got bitter in the process.
Twenty years from now we probably won’t even remember the summer of 2008, when Favre placed a few black clouds over his sparkling reputation.
Instead, a few decades from now we’ll remember that Corey Webster is the one that kicked this all off.
Andrew Perna is a Senior Writer for RealGM and always welcomes comments via e-mail (Andrew.Perna@RealGM). |
