Favre’s Exemplary Journey

When he takes the field against the visiting St. Louis Rams on Monday night, quarterback Brett Favre will be making his 200th consecutive start for the Green Bay Packers.

Superhuman as that streak is, the most compelling thing about Favre is how human he is.

“The thing that I’m most proud of throughout my career is that, not only myself but my family and the people around them, have been regular people,” Favre said. “I tell people that and then I have to say, ‘We are. Why should we be any different?’ ... At some point the career will be over, the bright lights turn off. And it can come back to haunt you if you’re not just a regular guy.”

As quarterbacks go, of course, Favre is anything but regular. His streak of consecutive starts is believed to be a record for any skill-position player, although early statisticians didn’t universally document starting lineups. According to the NFL, Philadelphia’s Ron Jaworski is second on the quarterback list with 116 starts. Minnesota defensive end Jim Marshall leads all players with 270 starts between 1961 and 1979.

Over the course of his streak, Favre has compiled a 131-68 record, has started in 38 stadiums and has watched 11 of his former backups go on to start for other clubs: Steve Bono, Aaron Brooks, Mark Brunell, Henry Burris, Ty Detmer, Matt Hasselbeck, Don Majkowski, Rick Mirer, Doug Pederson, Kurt Warner and Danny Wuerffel.

“I never thought about 200 games,” Favre said in a national conference call with reporters. “I never thought about 200 straight games, on top of that. Because there’s so many factors that go into playing each week -- injury, business decisions, stuff like that. I’ve been able to outlast all of those, and that to me is as amazing as anything.”

Maybe the most admirable part of Favre’s feat is the way he has endured through personal tragedy, and specifically what has happened in his family during the last year. Ten months after his father, Irv, died of a heart attack at 58, his brother-in-law, Casey Tynes, 24, was killed Oct. 6 in an all-terrain vehicle accident on Favre’s property in Mississippi. A week later, Favre learned his wife, Deanna, Casey’s sister, had breast cancer.

“I’m not going to say it’s easy,” Favre said of dealing with all the hardship. “I’m not going to give you a formula; I’m not going to write a book. I don’t know. You deal with it. My interviews the last couple of weeks have been mostly about that question: ‘How do you deal with it?’ I don’t know.

“Until it happens to you, you don’t know how you’ll deal with it. You always say, ‘Man, that’s terrible, what he’s had to go through,’ or ‘she’s had a lot to go through.’ And you say the same thing that everyone else does: ‘I don’t know how they go through it. That has to be so difficult.’

“But then when it happens to you and your family, you’re faced with the utmost of adversity. But you find a way to deal with it. Life goes on. As difficult as it seems sometimes, it goes on. And you’ll be left in the rearview mirror if you don’t step up to it and deal with it.”

Not only has Favre dealt with it, he’s playing some of the best football of his career. His Packers have to be considered a Super Bowl contender, even though their hopes almost disappeared in the season’s first month. When the Favres found out Deanna had cancer -- a type Favre told Sports Illustrated “is as aggressive a cancer as you can have, but it is very treatable” -- the Packers were 1-4, losers of four straight. Since, they have won five in a row, the last two by three points each.

“Talent-wise, we’re as talented as any team in the league,” Favre said. “We’re as talented as the ’96 Super Bowl team, but we’re inexperienced in a lot of areas.... We dug ourselves a hole that’s very difficult, and history has shown it’s almost impossible to come out of. So we have a long ways to go, but we have kind of fought back to respectability.”

Favre has won the unflagging respect of untold millions of football fans. It was less than a year ago that, a day after his father died, Favre fought through maybe the lowest moment of his life to start against Oakland on “Monday Night Football.” With the help of his inspired receivers who were catching everything in sight, Favre threw for 399 yards and four touchdowns in that tear-filled 41-7 victory. This week, he spent his first Thanksgiving without his dad.

“My father was so instrumental in my career and in my life,” he said. “It didn’t take him dying for me to realize that. I knew it beforehand. But sometimes in passing you sort of reflect on all the ways that a person was important to you.

“He was my coach. He’s my dad. And all I ever did with my two brothers growing up was football and baseball. And he coached us in every one. There’s a lot of players out there whose fathers were an instrumental part of their career and life. And I don’t want to say that my dad was any more than the next guy.

“[Sports were] all we knew. I look back -- and in some ways I wouldn’t trade it for anything -- but it was almost sad that that’s all we talked about. When we’d sit at the table and eat, that’s what we’d talk about. When Saturdays and Sundays would come around -- he coached Friday night football before we went to college -- we’d get up, and after we’d work out in the yard, then we’d all have this big football game or baseball game, whatever was in season. That’s all I knew. And it’s unfortunate that he’s not going to be able to see the end of my career. At least he got to see the better part of it.”

Favre likes to say he is anything but a textbook passer. His form, he said, is about as unsound as it can be. But it also helped him last this long.

“I was never taught mechanics,” he said. “My dad was a running football coach. I’d say, ‘What about throwing, Dad?’ and he’d say, ‘Hey, get your ... in there and worry about blocking right now.’ Those were the coaching points that I got.

“I probably escaped a lot of injuries by throwing with both feet off the ground, by backpedaling when I’m throwing, by leaving the pocket when I’m throwing. I’ve never, ever been concerned about injury. I know that sounds crazy, but if I’m asked to block, I’ll block. There’s times when Ahman [Green] breaks to the backside of something, and I have a split-second decision to make and I’ll block.

“If you play not to get hurt, then there’s a good chance you’ll get hurt. If teams play not to lose, more than likely something bad’s going to happen. I’ve always played the game to win, and the only thing I can control is trying to lead the team to victory. Not, what if I get hit from the backside, or protecting my knees, or whatever.”

So how much longer will he last? When will he walk away from the game? He doesn’t know, and he’s tired of talking about it. The speculation, he said, “has taken on a life of its own.” But he does know how he wants to be remembered.

“In my mind,” he said, “the best way to be remembered is I can see a man and his son sitting in the stands, or anyone saying, ‘If I was able to play the game, that’s the way I would play it.’ Whether you like me or not, whether you’re pulling for my team or the opposing team, they say, ‘I can’t help but appreciate the way that guy plays.’ ”

Superhuman and very human, all at once.

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Better With Age

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In his 13th season as a full-time starter, Brett Favre is on pace to surpass Dan Marino, John Elway and Joe Montana at the same point of their careers in the following categories:

*--* PLAYER COM PCT YDS PG TD/INT RTG Brett Favre* 64.9 262.6 30/18 92.7 Dan Marino 64.1 262.0 24/15 90.8 John Elway 58.3 248.1 26/14 86.4 Joe Montana 60.6 234.4 16/9 83.6

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* Projected statistics Source: STATS, Inc.