Green Bay Packers, Lambeau Field, NFL, Packers, Uncategorized

A bridge to Favre

by Another Slice

I found the jersey yesterday morning carefully tucked into our bin of Packer paraphernalia. Tiny and faded, the single number on its front side looked worn.

4.

The jersey’s previous outing to Lambeau Field nearly proved to be its final; we hot glued it to poster board and brought it with us to the 2008 NFC Championship game, Brett Favre’s final game as a Packer.

The Jumbo-tron offered an icy view of my then-15-year old son holding the sign, which read “Lifelong Favre fan, born 12-11-92.”

Young Packer fans like my son knew only one quarterback; Favre played for the Packers for 16 years, from 1992 to 2007.

After the disappointing loss to the New York Giants that year, I tucked the Favre jersey away. It sat out all of the controversy surrounding the fiery athlete after the 2007 season — his brief tenure as a New York Jet and, particularly offensive to many fans, his final run in that awful purple and white Viking gear.

I dug our little jersey out yesterday because I think it’s time for Packer fans to welcome Brett Favre back to Lambeau Field.

Favre’s passion for the game of football is what endeared him to Packer fans and his success on the field restored the city of Green Bay to Titletown.

Of course we all, including the athlete himself, would have liked Favre’s playing career to have wrapped up more gracefully.

But we still have an opportunity to write a classier end to this saga. We can afford to be magnanimous here in Green Bay. We’ve had three iconic quarterbacks — Bart Starr, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers.

The next time Brett Favre walks though the Lambeau Field tunnel, let’s meet him halfway.

That’s the No. 4 jersey just a year after we bought it. It has taken me 16 years to figure out what Charlie, Katherine, Vinnie and Elaine are spelling out in this picture but last night it dawned on Molly and me. It’s KCAP! (or PACK, spelled backwards.) Obviously.
This is Vinnie and his Aunt Kathy at the 2007 NFC Title game, Brett Favre’s last as a Packer. Favre first played for the Packers the year Vinnie was born. Until the Aaron Rodgers era, Vinnie had only cheered for one quarterback his entire life.
Here’s my sister Kathy cosied up to a melodramatic Packer/Godfather fan in 2009.
Look closely and you’ll see what Molly and I saw at the grocery store in 2009. This fan was wearing a Brett Favre jersey with a bloody knife sticking out of his back.
It’s held up pretty well after all these years and the undignified hot glue gun incident of 2007. We think it’s time for the Packers to retire this number and end this saga on a classy note.

7 thoughts on “A bridge to Favre”

  2. It’s odd how some people leave the game when the game tells them and others stay until they decide to go. The Packers had an Iron Man in Brett Favre, the sort of player every team dreams of and hardly ever get outside the Manning family.

    I’d like to see Brett take a victory lap at Lambeau for the fans. He could do that for us couldn’t he?

    Reply
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