In the closing seconds of Sunday night’s NFC Championship, as Garrett Hartley walked onto the field to attempt to send the Saints to their first Super Bowl ever with a 40-yard field goal attempt, I had two thoughts: 1) Exactly how long will it take for Brett Favre to announce his retirement and 2) Adrian Peterson sure fumbles a lot. The first thought is a running joke in the NFL and the second is such an apparent fact that my girlfriend, who still needs to be told how many downs there are, had the same reaction.
Brett Favre waited the entire trip to the Superdome’s locker room (as prescribed by the diva handbook) to put his and the Minnesota Vikings future in doubt. I suspect he must have been prepared, perhaps already having a written statement prepared by his publicist. He has retired immediately after two seasons prior, why would he not follow the same script (waffling sponsored by Sears Blue Electronics Crew).
The Vikings signed on for this rollercoaster ride because they believed Favre gave the team a better chance to reach the Super Bowl than Tavaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels. The signing came at a risk, if the team failed to reach the Super Bowl just as the Packers and Jets had the two seasons before, then he had the right to hold the team’s future hostage.
Now, the Vikings have $12.5 million in limbo as Favre decides whether or not the opportunity to tease the public with every wistful smile, farced grimace, and Wrangler jeans commercial with the good ole boys (who plays football in jeans?) is worth the emotional and physical toll of falling short as an NFL quarterback.
I expect Brett will not make intentions clear until after the NFL draft and the best of the free agent class are signed. Sure he will lean heavily toward retirement, but he will not confirm it until the last possible second and until every last publication has turned against him, casting him as an egomaniacal celebrity hell bent on inspiring a Betty Davis wing of at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Obviously I have a bit of animosity for the quarterback, but I grew up watching him defile the Bears and saw him take countless fantasy points from my first round draft pick, Adrian Peterson. Then again, perhaps I am blaming him for Peterson failings on that second note simply because I need a scapegoat to blame and do not want to admit that…
Adrian Peterson is a fumble machine. Adrian Peterson nearly negated his 122 yards and three touchdowns with two fumbles. Luckily, he has plenty of experience scrambling for the football after letting it by pried or popped from his grip. Peterson has fumbled the football 20 times over the course of his three-year career and lost 13 of those gaffes.
His inability to hold on to the ball has become such an issue, that Troy Aikman took it upon himself to answer the same question every diehard football fan had after that second fumble on Sunday: Do you still want Peterson running the football even though he is a major risk to kill a drive on every carry?
Joe Buck and Aikman were sure that he is worth the risk. I am not. I must begrudgingly admit that Brett Favre proved that Peterson’s best use in today’s game is not as a running back that busts through the line and runs over the linebacker on his way to a big gain of 20 or more yards, but as a threat to do so. Every team has to stuff the box to account for AP, opening up the big throw down the field. This only works if the team has a quarterback that can consistently make that throw though.
That is why I, again begrudgingly, must watch this Brett Favre saga unfold despite my acrimonious Favre passage above. Without a quarterback like Favre that can make those deep throws and exploit the holes in the middle of the field after the safety bites on the hand off, a team relying on Peterson must live with the chance that even the longest drive, most time-consuming drive could end on a fumble inside the red zone.
No team that has one real weapon that also happens to have a huge flaw is going to be a championship caliber team (look at the Bears this season). They may make the playoffs, but they will never go far because as the Buck and Aikman also noted, Super Bowl -bound teams no how to score in different ways.