Good or bad, Favre is fun to watch- Newsday,Wallace Matthews

Good or bad, Favre is fun to watch- Newsday,Wallace Matthews

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You wouldn't want Brett Favre flying your airplane, removing your gallbladder or doing your income taxes. You don't want a guy taking the kind of chances he does in the course of his daily duties when it is your life, your body, your money on the line.

But when the only thing at stake is three hours of your time, give or take a few minutes, on a Sunday afternoon, you could do worse than to put that time into the right hand and arm of Brett Favre.

The Jets knew this when they picked him up during the preseason to replace the ever-cautious, cerebral and pragmatic Chad Pennington. They knew that at the very least, Favre would sell a few PSLs to the new stadium, throw a few picks - or even 10, as he has in the past five games - and maybe cost them a game or two along the way.

They also knew, if nothing else, that Favre would breathe some life into a franchise that has been a disappointment for as long as many of us can remember, and hoped he might even cause them to look ahead to a Super Bowl for a change, rather than back at the one that took place nearly four decades ago.

That is the ticket the Jets bought when they gambled on Favre. Now they are taking the ride, with all the dips, drops, turns and sudden stops that go along with it.

For nearly 57 minutes yesterday, Favre was no better than the third-best quarterback in Giants Stadium, outplayed by young Tyler Thigpen on the other side of the field and outshined by his predecessor, old Joe Namath, upstairs in the press box for yet another tribute to the only Jets team that truly matters, even 40 years later.

The Jets were trailing the Kansas City Chiefs - if not the worst team in football, then damned close to it - by three points with 3:01 to go, and that was largely the fault of their quarterback.

What happened in the next two minutes is indisputable. The Jets moved the football the requisite 46 yards, got it into the end zone thanks to a one-handed grab by Laveranues Coles, and escaped the ignominy of back-to-back losses to miserable teams with a 28-24 victory - although whether that was because of or despite Favre certainly is open to question.

"Stick a fork in me," an exhausted Favre was overheard muttering to a man in the family group waiting for him outside the Jets' locker room after the game, but whether he is done is open to dispute as well.

What cannot be argued is that whatever fate awaits the Jets this year, good or bad, will trace back to the play of Brett Favre.

"For 39, I don't feel so bad," he said. "I still feel like I can throw with the best of them. I know one thing: I go down swinging, however that may be."

For most of the game, Favre was chasing Thigpen, a second-year player with two career losses and a miserable 44.3 passer rating who got the start only because Herman Edwards had no other healthy body to throw out there against his old team.

And yet with 3:01 to play, it was Thigpen who had played error-free football, with two touchdown passes, and Favre who - with the ball just nine yards from what probably would have been a game-icing score - had committed the usually mortal sin of throwing a Pick Six in the red zone that gave the Chiefs a 24-21 fourth-quarter lead.

The Giants Stadium crowd had been booing Favre intermittently since he bounced a third-down pass to Jerricho Cotchery in the second quarter, and they really let him have it after Brandon Flowers took his careless flip over the middle 91 yards the other way for the go-ahead touchdown.

But Favre, whose final pass as a Green Bay Packer was the interception that ultimately put the Giants in the Super Bowl, has had too many moments like that and too many games like this to begin conceding this one to a team as bad as the Chiefs.

"I'm always concerned about [interceptions]," said Favre, whose next one will be his 300th, adding to his all-time NFL career record. Of course, to that point in the game, he also had 454 touchdown passes, also a career record.

"We all try to reduce mistakes," he said, "but at some point, you gotta cut it loose."

Or as Favre's former Packers teammate and current Jets teammate Bubba Franks told him after the pick, "Just keep slinging it, kid."

So the kid kept slinging it, 18 yards to Chansi Stuckey on second-and-15, five yards to Dustin Keller on first-and-10, eight yards to Washington on second-and-5, and finally, 15 yards to Coles on the kind of pass the Jets brought Brett Favre here to complete, the one that won them a ballgame they nearly lost.

Or, more accurately, a game Brett Favre nearly lost. You might not want to let him near the keys to your car or the PIN to your bank account, but if there's a football game to be won, you could do worse than ask Brett Favre to win it for you.
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