Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
There was a closer several years back named Armando Benitez. If you hit Armando's fastball, his answer was always "**** you, I'll throw the next one HARDER..."
And it ended up even more straight and centered than the last one.
That's the risk you run with Brett Favre. Get him once and his response will be "Oh yeah, well try to pick THIS" and he'd fire some batshit insane laser into triple coverage that would also get picked. Rinse/repeat.
Favre's problem was that even at his apex, you never knew if he was just going to shit all over the rug. And he wasn't a guy who would self-scout and dial things back. Nor did he have the kind of emotional control you'd like.
He'd get frustrated and as a consequence he'd get stupid. I don't think you can take that over someone like Rodgers who has plenty of spectacular in his game but is capable of being far more measured when he needs to be. This version of him isn't because he's a petulant little twat now. But we're talking peak here and 2011 Aaron Rodgers is as close to Mahomes as anything we've seen. His ability to turn the aggression dial up/down as needed that season really is something you just don't see. 9 yards/attempt, 300+ yards/game and a 45-6 TD/INT ratio? That's just unreal.
Jordy Nelson and Greg Jennings were nice players - but let's not act like Rodgers didn't make those guys more than they made him. I'd take Rodgers over Favre in that game 100 times over 100. Because with peak Rodgers there's just zero chance you're ever out of that game.
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I get all of that. And can't argue any of it. There's always the risk that Favre will go completely dipstick and lose a game for you, while Rodgers usually won't.
Just a gut feeling on my part. Though if we take a little dip into statistics, Favre was tied 13th all-time in 4th quarter comeback Ws, while Rodgers was just 32nd. And I guess that's what I'm weighing in that one got-to-have-it game. Favre generally would show up for that game and somehow find a way, even if he did something dumb early and probably put the team in that situation.
But Rodgers has a tendency to fold for whatever reason in the biggest game under the brightest lights when he struggles early in that game.
Now, one could argue that lack of weapons and lack of top echelon coaching were just as significant factors in those losses, the biggest being the two NFCCGs recently and the final game of the 2022 season just past. And those are valid arguments, imo. But think it's also fair to say that Rodgers just didn't play up to the moment in any of those games. Not saying he didn't try to win, because I think he really did go to the mattresses in those games, but he definitely didn't play up to his abilities either.
On the other hand, I always felt like Favre was still in every big game at the end, even if he did have a bad first half or whatever.