Ahead of today's National Football Conference (NFC) divisional playoff, Dallas Cowboys coach Wade Phillips was asked about the threat posed by the mobility of the Minnesota Vikings' quarterback Brett Favre. "They do move him around a little bit, surprisingly," said Phillips. "Most quarterbacks at our age don't move around that much but he still moves around well."
Phillips is 62, Favre 40, but everybody present got the joke. Nearly two decades after he threw his first touchdown for the Atlanta Falcons, this is not a time of life when a man is expected to be playing the most important position on the field and leading his team to within two games of the Super Bowl. Even if that sort of experience brings its own perspective.
"I love playing the game, period," said Favre last week. "But believe me, it's a heck of a lot more rewarding and more fun, in my opinion, to play in the playoffs than it is in the first game of the season. It's not like, all of a sudden, 'Boy, I don't know if I can handle the pressure'. When it's a do-or-die situation in the latter part of the season, in the playoffs, to me that's when the game's at its easiest. Getting there is the hardest part."
Favre led Green Bay to ultimate glory in 1997, winning Super Bowl XXXI. Returning to the brink of the game's biggest prize has involved a journey of soap opera proportions. Having flirted with retirement several times towards the end of his legendary 16-year stint as the Green Bay Packers' talisman, Favre finally walked off the stage in March 2008, announcing he "had nothing left to give". When he thought better of that decision three months later, the Packers had already moved on. Cue a messy divorce and a bizarre move to New York Jets that started well and ended badly, culminating in acrimony and yet another tearful retirement speech.
By the time Favre let slip last summer that he fancied one more spin on the merry-go-round, the nation's gridiron fans had come to regard him like one of those boxers who doesn't know the right time to quit. It didn't help his cause that ESPN gave his now annual bout of indecision the sort of blanket coverage usually afforded to presidential elections. Even the most die-hard Favre apologists struggled, too, when the Packers icon signed up with the Vikings in August, the National Football League (NFL) equivalent of leaving Tottenham for Arsenal.
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He has spent the months since disproving the critics, including some of his new teammates, who dismissed the move as one last vanity project by an out-of-control ego. At the end of the regular season, he had thrown 33 touchdowns as the Vikings cantered to 12 wins from 16. Completing almost 70% of his passes and curbing his career-long tendency to try ridiculously audacious passes that end up in opposing hands, he was ranked the second-leading passer in the league. With numbers like that, his new teammates have inevitably been smitten.
"My level of play has skyrocketed," said Minnesota's Birmingham-born tight-end Visanthe Shiancoe. "My confidence has skyrocketed. If I get in the clear now, I know he's going to find me. He just brings a sense of accomplishment, a sense of winning, a sense of confidence which is contagious. You watch him, just like a little kid growing up. You want to watch people that you look up to and get to that same level."
Of course, it wouldn't be a Favre season without some added drama. When Vikings coach Brad Childress tried to bench him during a close game against Carolina Panthers last month, the pair argued very publicly on the sideline. Pointedly, the quarterback ignored the request to sit down and preserve himself for the playoff run. While critics saw this cameo as yet more evidence that Favre regards himself as bigger than the club, his fans point out that he has won more NFL games than any player and has started a record 285 consecutive times.
This incredible feat of endurance and his lasting impact on the sport can be gauged by the fact that today's opposition will be led by Tony Romo, another gun-slinging quarterback who grew up in the hinterland of Green Bay worshipping at the altar of Favre. That was way back in the mid-1990s when Favre led the Packers to his only Super Bowl triumph, and that lone Vince Lombardi trophy doesn't seem like a sufficient return for such an epic career.
"All I want to do is beat Dallas and to even think about next year is doing myself an injustice, and this team," said Favre. "I came here for one reason and that's to hopefully lead this team to the Super Bowl this year. Not next year. I'm going to devote every ounce of energy to this game."
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How much energy does a 40-year-old have? Enough apparently.