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All eyes on Brett Favre's future
Caulton Tudor - Staff writer
The NFL playoffs are heading into week two, but the annual speculation about Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre's future playing status began more than a month ago.
Why?
Why does anyone seriously think Favre won't be playing when the 2010 regular season begins?
<!-- Ads set inactive for this story -->Why, in the second place, should he finally retire?
If the 2009 season has established anything at all – other than that Indianapolis' Peyton Manning apparently has the MVP voters in his back pocket –
it's that a 40-year-old Favre is still a lot better than at least 90 percent of the NFL's quarterbacks.
While Manning easily dominated the Associated Press voting to win his fourth straight MVP award, it's difficult to understand how anyone thinks Favre didn't have the biggest impact on the regular season.
With a new team, one rookie receiver (Percy Harvin) and behind an offensive line primarily built and groomed to provide Adrian Peterson with running room, Favre completed almost 69 percent of his passes for more than 4,200 yards and 33 touchdown passes. He was intercepted seven times.
Manning, 33, had virtually the same completion average for about 300 more yards and the same TD total. The primary difference: Manning threw 16 interceptions.
It can be argued that had the Colts management elected to play Manning and various other starters for the entirety of the final two games, the team might have finished 16-0, rather than 14-2. But if that was a big factor in the MVP voting outcome, it's giving the benefit of the doubt way too much weight.
Favre probably couldn't care less.
After a bad season by his standards with the New York Jets last season, Favre didn't return simply because of his substantial love of the sport. He didn't want to go out with 22 interceptions on a 9-7 team that didn't reach the playoffs.
“I'm still motivated to try to win,” Favre said when he signed with the Vikings.
That motivation, plus Favre's ability to dissect defensive schemes, has made Minnesota a much better team that the one that finished 10-6 with Peterson having to provide the bulk of the offense in 2008.
The ‘08 Vikes also won the National Conference North Division race but were overwhelmed at home in their first playoff outing by Philadelphia.
With Favre, this team should do better Sunday against Dallas.
But even if the Vikings are eliminated, Favre emphatically has made his point this season.
He remains among the best players in the game and he certainly still has a rare gift for leading a team.
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