Countdown to Backlash

In the first week of the 2007 NFL season, I took the Shooter Mom to Lambeau (she's a big Eagles fan, and has been since the 1960 championship team) for her birthday. We watched the Eagles gag away a road win against a Packers team that used two critical special teams turnovers and a pretty great defensive effort to get a close win. There were a couple of spectacular Favre escape moments in the game, but for the most part, the Eagles defense bottled him up, but didn't get the big turnover they needed. We also spent most of the game not worried about him, really. It was a lot like the last few years of playing the Pack.

When the starters on offense and defense were introduced, the cheering for Favre where we were -- 50 yard line by accident in the first half, 30 yard line in the second -- was the loudest of any starter... but it wasn't over the top. AJ Hawk and a rookie guard from Wisconsin both both a lot of love as well. And the general feeling in the crowd was that while this was Favre's team, it's not like they were blind to his flaws, and the hundreds of interceptions over the years.

Keep this in mind as you read stuff like Aaron Rodgers already puling in his boots over how he's not here to replace The Legend, or the speculation over how involved Favre might be in retirement.

Because, for better or worse, 17 years is an awfully long time to be an athlete in a town, and over that time, especially when you were as mistake-prone as Favre was... well, even in Nice Places like Green Bay (and the locals are very nice, actually), people develop grudges over athletes that lose games. And Favre lost a lot of them, especially in the playoffs, and especially in the last half of his career.

Now, will the Pack be better with Rodgers next year? Of course not. He's an inexperienced quarterback taking over for a team that got all of the breaks last year; he could play better than Favre and the team could still have a worse record.

But don't assume that he won't have the backing of the locals, because he will. When the other QBs on the roster are Craig Nall, Jerry Babb and Dalton Bell, you're going to get popular support. And maybe a lot more of it than anyone might anticipate. It just won't be from the sports media that has been giving mouth jobs to the Green Bay QB when it was Favre.