Friday, January 02, 2009

Was It Worth It?

Even though I never posted about it explicitly, I was always very skeptical about the Jets acquisition of Brett Favre. Hearing from Jets fans after the trade the only phrase that came to mind was the Wolf's classic line from Pulp Fiction, "let's not start sucking each other's dicks quite yet."
Now that the season is over we can look back on a 9-7 season in which Brett Favre threw 22 interceptions (including 9 against 2 touchdowns in the fateful 5-game stretch to end the season) and even the most positive Jet fan would have to say the move didn't work out.
The acquisition of Favre cost the Jets Chad Pennington who was always a good quarterback when healthy. he should have been given a chance to work with the Jets other new additions (Faneca, Woody). Instead he went to the Dolphins had a better year than Brett Favre in every significant category (except TD passes, but only marginally) and led the biggest one-season turnaround in NFL history.
But it wasn't what the Jets lost that makes the Favre move a mistake. It's what they got.
A ticket on the Brett Favre carousel.
The Packers had to cut ties with Favre because going round-and-round with him every offseason was setting back the franchise and it threatens to do the same to the Jets.
The Jets desired coaching replacement for the fired Eric Mangini (who deserves about 25% of the blame for this season's disaster and only for not reining in Favre), Bill Cowher, turned down the job, reportedly because he doesn't want to coach Brett Favre, or spend an offseason waiting for Favre to make up his mind.
Also, Favre may hamper the Jets efforts to get the quarterback they want (maybe Matt Cassel) because who in their right mind would go to a team that Favre may want to come back to).
And the Jets don't really have a quarterback of the future on their roster, so they have to draft one. And if they do he will either have to play before he's ready, or spend a year learning bad habits from Favre.
The Jets need to come out right now, today and say "we don't want Favre back next season."
Riding his carousel, or worse bringing him back next year and hoping for different results, is just going to add to the immeasurable pain Jets fans already feel.

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