I would take Brett Favre as the Vikings starting quarterback this season. In a second. How could you not? The guy is a Hall of Famer and a gamer and, difficult as it is for some Vikings fans to admit, he’s fun as hell to watch play. Landing Favre would seem like a long shot for the Vikes.
But I’ve been thinking since shortly after this story first broke that Favre could make life so difficult for the Packers that they’d just want to get rid of him. It looks like he’s well on his way to doing that.
Despite the Packers’ insistence that Farve is welcome back at any time, they really don’t mean that because Farve’s behavior has had to have already poisoned the locker room. You gotta think there are plenty of players who are thinking, wait a minute, instead of making a run like we did last year we’re going to break in a new quarterback? Packer’s players are certainly thinking that they’d have a much better chance of getting to the Super Bowl this year with Farve than not, and management doesn’ want Farve. Thus, management doesn’t want to win.
Add to that, that Farve clearly doesn’t want to return to Green Bay; he’s burned that bridge. Farve has to approve any trade so if he really wants to play in Purple (and, the Vikings are the best team for him to unretire to), he could force the Packers’ hand to either release him or make a trade with Minnesota in order to remove the distraction.
But even if we don’t land Favre, we’re still set a quarterback. I think Tarvaris Jackson has enough talent to be a qood quarterback, it’s just a question of his understanding of the game and his ability to keep his cool. If he can understand what defenses are trying to do and if he doesn’t get flustered under pressure, he should be fine because we’re not asking him to do a lot.
All he has to do is burn opposing defenses once or twice a game and then let Adrian Peterson do all the work.
But even if Jackson falters, we’ve still got Gus Frerotte waiting in the wings. Sure, he’s no Brett Favre but he’s no Tarvaris Jackson, either. He’s a veteran quarterback who is capable of taking a talented team far into the playoffs by avoiding mistakes and making a great play here and there. And, by the way, he’s a far better player than Super Bowl quarterback Rex Grossman.
So: We good.
