EMQB NFL Blogcast

Interview: Brett Favre

by David Kindervater on September 19th, 2007

Blogging the National Football League, Blogging the NFL

Green Bay Packers QB Brett Favre is my favorite NFL player to interview. He’s friendly. He’s courteous. And he always gives very interesting and thorough answers. Brett loves to talk. And he seems to genuinely enjoy his time with the media. I had the opportunity to speak with Brett during a national conference call today (my third time to interview him). Here’s our part of the Q&A.

DAVID: Would you compare this Packers team to others you’ve been on? Do you get a sense this team has a special quality?

BRETT: You know what, I think sometimes being an experienced player, a veteran player, which we don’t have a lot of on this team, and I’m just speaking from experience, you look at things much differently obviously. But I kind of see things for what they are. I told people this at the start of last year. Of course, I got laughed at. I said, “This team is as talented a team as I’ve played on.” Did I say they were the best? Absolutely not. I said talent alone will not win games. And I think I was right. We would not have won eight games had we not been talented. But our inexperience and youth kind of showed itself last year. Now, coming into this year, I was more optimistic than last year. But I realize what we’re up against. You know, when I first came to Green Bay, my first couple years, I didn’t know what a good team was. I didn’t know what I was capable of doing. I thought I did. And as I progressed along in my career, I started seeing what it would take to win. And not just win but win the big game. I saw the chemistry that we started gaining in ‘94, ‘95. We knew we were going to win it in ‘96. As I look at this team, I still say we are talented. We’re banged up and we’re having to kind of slot some guys in there. But I’m not surprised that we’re 2‑0. I know it’s a tough road ahead of us. As we gain chemistry and confidence, which as you’re young, you get beat, something happens, it puts a dent in you, but we’ve got to be able to overcome that and continue to not only handle adversity but probably more importantly handle success. I think the good teams are the ones that are able to do that and go on to the next play. You’ve got to do it during the bad times, but in the good ones, too. This team has some potential, very, very much so, and I hope I’m around when it happens. I mean, I’m having a lot of fun right now playing with these guys.

DAVID: What do you enjoy most about playing the game now and has that changed over the years?

BRETT: I don’t think anything has changed really, aside from physical appearance and maybe mentally gaining experience from all the games I played. You know what, the game itself is what it’s all about. I tell guys, young guys, I tell people here all the time. People ask me all the time, “Why do you keep coming back? I bet you get tired of meetings. I bet you get tired. My response is, “Yes, I do.” I get tired of sitting in meetings. I get tired of practicing sometimes. It is a grind. But for three hours during the week, right now when I decided to come back, you know, that was really the only thing that really mattered when I really got down to the meat of it. I said, “I still love to play.” The downside of football, unlike baseball and basketball, is you spend all this time, and you cover football, you spend all this time in meetings, in preparation, practice, off‑season, all this stuff, for only three hours a week. Unlike baseball and basketball, which they play every day. We practice, we meet, we practice, we meet. If you lose, you got to wait another week for three hours. To me it easily outweighed the grind part of it. That’s what I love about it. I love to compete. I love to try to beat the opponent. I think when people watch me play, they see that. I go down swinging. I still have that fire within me.

DAVID: With the constant talk of your retirement over the past so many years, does that wear at you or do you just get so tired of hearing about it?

BRETT: I do get tired of hearing about it. To be honest with you, I don’t bring it up. For whatever reason it took a life of its own several years ago. I know all these experts and people out there, they’re saying, “Well, he keeps talking about it.” No, I don’t. And we’re talking about it right now (laughs). Watch me play. You’ll see the passion for the game. I’ve always had that. And that hasn’t changed. When it comes, it comes. People say, “What’s going to be the deciding factor?” I don’t know, I haven’t retired yet. They still want me to play. I want to play. I still feel I can play at a high level. Until they tell me otherwise or until I wake up and say, “You know what, I’m done,” then I’m going to continue to do that.

Share This

Related Stories

Brett Favre Rewrites NFL History Books
Brett Favre Ties All-Time TD Record
Madden NFL 09 Cover: Brett Favre
Brett Favre Bomb Beats Broncos in Overtime
Brett Favre and Madden NFL 09

POSTED IN: Green Bay Packers, Interviews