No Country for Old Men

Well there goes your dream Super Bowl America. Thanks to Brett Favre, there will be no perfect story of the aging gunslinger against the greatest team of all time. Young Swole is expecting the typical excuses for Favre like the cold weather, the Packers wide receivers being bad or the fact that this one game shouldn't outweight what he's done this year. To that, and every other excuse we'll hear in the upcoming days, the Sweezy says fuck that. Brett Favre choked when it mattered.

As much as it would seem that Favre was the key to the Packers success this year, the real reason was Ryan Grant. We saw this today, with the Packer running game being stifled, Favre's weaknesses were once again exposed. Whether it is the fact that he's lost a little bit on his fastball, or that his massive ego still thinks he can make any throw, Favre made two inexcusable mistakes at crucial points in the game. The first one he got away with, when RW McQuarters promptly fumbled the interception return. But to throw a rainbow out-pattern, to a reciever covered, deep in your own territory in overtime is a mortal mistake. Yet for the second straight playoff game that the Packers have been eliminated in, Favre has forgotten that an incomplete pass is better than an intercepted pass. Young Swole remembers the hail mary pass he threw against the Eagles in the 2003 Divisional Playoffs in overtime that gave them the victory. And Young Swole will remember this mistake much more than all the sob stories you will hear about Favre in the next few days, and how it wasn't his fault and someone else deserves the blame more than him. His Swoleness isn't really surprised by this, because its basically been going on for the last 6 years or so, but he thought he should let it be known why the Packers lost a game Lawrence Tynes desperately tried to let them win.

Maybe this will convince Favre to retire, though Swole doubts it. We'll probably see the cycle repeat itself: Packers start fast, Favre appears to be "reborn", Favre garners all the credit that should be equally spread around such players like Ryan Grant, Greg Jennings, Aaron Kampman and Charles Woodson, and then he makes a huge mistake in an important game that costs them the season. For all his glittery statistics, most from over a decade ago, Favre is quickly becoming a quarterback known for his mistakes instead of his past (and Swole means long in the past) accomplishments. Thank you Corey Webster for reminding us that Favre has rode the coat tails of his teammates all year, and saving us from hearing how great he is for 2 weeks, which is exactly how long it would have been before he cost his team in another important game.