BY JEFF PEARLMAN
OCTOBER 14, 2016
http://thelab.bleacherreport.com/gunslinger-brett-favre-aaron-rodgers-feud-jeff-pearlman-excerpt
EDITOR'S NOTE: In this excerpt from Jeff Pearlman's upcoming release, GUNSLINGER: The Remarkable, Improbable, Iconic Life of Brett Favre, the story picks up as the legendary Packers quarterback has finished a disappointing 10-6 regular season and a Wild Card Game loss to the division-rival Minnesota Vikings. Green Bay has the 24th overall pick in the upcoming NFL Draft, but Favre isn't quite ready to welcome their first-round selection, a quarterback from Cal, to the team.
Throughout Brett Favre's 13 seasons in Green Bay, an endless stream of quarterbacks had come and gone. Once, when Mark Brunell rose from the bench in 1994, there was a (relatively slim) possibility of Favre being replaced. Otherwise, every signal caller brought to town was there solely to provide support. Through the years, the men signed to back Favre had been a mixed bag of seasoned veterans (Ken O’Brien, Jim McMahon, David Klingler, Steve Bono, Tim Couch) and unspectacular-yet-useful youngsters (Ty Detmer, Doug Pederson, Craig Nall). Some, like Detmer and Pederson, turned into lifelong friends. Others, like O’Brien and Couch, arrived and departed with barely a shadow. “When you signed with Green Bay, there was no false illusion you were there to fight Brett for a job,” said Akili Smith, the Bengals’ first-round pick in 1999 who attended camp with the Packers four years later. “He wasn’t just the team and he wasn’t just the city. He was the state. You just wanted to hang on and hold a clipboard.”
Favre was 35 by the time the season concluded on Jan. 9, 2005, with the Wild Card defeat to the Vikings (he played terribly, throwing four interceptions). After the game, he was asked about retirement and again hemmed and hawed. Maybe. Possibly. I’ll pray on it. I think so. I think no. Michael Hunt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel became the first local scribe to push for Favre to hang it up, noting that the league’s oldest starting quarterback had to ask himself, “what motivation would have to play a 14th season with a slipping organization?” Donald Driver, the veteran wide receiver and Favre’s friend, told the Arizona Republic, “I think he’s had enough. I really do.”
Favre felt the call of retirement. The team wasn’t the same anymore. He was, by now, the oldest Packer by two years, and he struggled to relate with the modern era of me-me-me football players. Where was Reggie White? Where was Jim McMahon? LeRoy Butler? Frank Winters? The new kids were largely about highlights, headlines, attention. The locker room had once been a place of laughter and jokes and farts and stink bombs. Over the years, everything quieted. The younger Packers spent their time with headphones in their ears, listening to their own tunes while drowning out the world. No one went out after games. There was Xbox to play.
As a greener man Favre loved bounding from one corner of the room to the other, absorbing the flavors, the lingo. Now, fed up and no longer fully engaged, he chose to change with the coaching staff, in their private dressing area to the side. If he drove to the stadium, Favre parked his Ford F-150 in its own private area, and walked in through a back entrance. When Mike Sherman came to Green Bay before the 2000 season, he envisioned working with Favre in the way Bill Walsh and Joe Montana did in San Francisco—a two-headed offensive football juggernaut. But Sherman lacked Walsh’s strength, and over the years he granted Favre increased liberties. If he wanted to miss a practice? OK. Arrive a bit late for a meeting? Fine. Dress away from the teammates? No biggie. This was hardly new terrain for veteran superstars, but Favre was thought to be different.
Perhaps that’s why, when the Packers hired Ted Thompson as the new general manager that January, more than a few Green Bay executives hoped he would start by encouraging Favre to fade into the Mississippi sunset. A former linebacker with the Houston Oilers in the late-1970s and early 80s, Thompson was a humorless man who had spent five seasons as Seattle’s vice president of operations and, before that, six years in Green Bay heading the pro personnel department. Bob Harlan, the team president, initially promoted Sherman to coach and general manager when Ron Wolf left before the 2001 season. “I wanted cohesion for the franchise,” he said. Harlan was, however, never comfortable with such a consolidation of power, and grew increasingly concerned as Sherman blew high draft picks on busts and floundered in drawing free agents. “The burden changed him as a person,” Harlan said. “He became very quiet, he ignored everybody. He would get on the airplane on Saturdays, put on earphones and not talk to anybody. I made a mistake in giving Mike both jobs. It was too much.” So now Thompson was the GM, Sherman back to serving merely as the head coach.
With the (admittedly large) exception of Thompson’s presence, the leadup to the 2005 Draft was similar to a year earlier. Once again Green Bay wanted a quarterback, but knew the two best available players (Utah’s Alex Smith and California’s Aaron Rodgers) would be distant memories once their slot (24th overall) arrived. Much of the attention turned to Charlie Frye, the Akron quarterback who gained national respect (and more than a few Favre comparisons) by starting nine games with a broken thumb on his throwing hand in 2002. Were he still available at No. 24, the Packers were likely to pounce.
The Draft unfolded unpredictably. Smith and Rodgers were widely considered a coin flip. One quarterback would go first, the other shortly thereafter. Both were big, strong, accurate, smart. Smith was quiet. Rodgers, confident. When the day arrived and the Utah junior was selected No. 1 overall, nobody was particularly shocked. ESPN’s Ron Jaworski said the 49ers made the right call; that “the delta” between Smith and Rodgers was “significant.”
But what followed—strange. Three running backs, three wide receivers and three cornerbacks rounded out the Top 10. Sitting behind the stage in the green room at the Javits Center in New York City, Rodgers waited … waited … waited. He wore a blue pinstriped suit, a maroon tie and a closely cropped haircut. At times the ESPN cameras caught his face drooping to the ground, almost as if he were about to weep. While waiting for San Diego to use its 12th pick, ESPN’s Suzy Kolber sat alongside Rodgers and asked, “A couple of weeks ago, Aaron, you were the clear-cut No. 1. What’s changed over that time?” Forcing a smile, Rodgers said, “I wish I could tell you.” He was embarrassed, and the grin failed to mask depression. “You start questioning everything,” he later said. “From where you worked out to how hard you worked.” The Dolphins had lacked a standout starting quarterback since Dan Marino’s retirement in 1999—and they took a running back, Auburn’s Ronnie Brown, second. Tampa Bay’s starting quarterback was the mediocre Brian Griese—and they selected a halfback, Auburn’s Cadillac Williams, fifth. Arizona’s starting quarterback was the forgettable Josh McCown—and they selected a cornerback, Miami’s Antrel Rolle, eighth. One by one, franchises thought to need a quarterback let Rodgers sit and wait. In hindsight, much of it had to do with a cold-footed reaction to negative scouting reports. Shortly before the draft, for example, a scout for an NFC team told Pete Dougherty of the Green Bay Press-Gazette that he would pass on Rodgers. “I just think Aaron's the product of being on a good team,” the scout said. “He's got a good running back who takes a lot of the pressure off him, they throw a lot of screens and dump balls. I see Utah winning because of Alex Smith, he's the one that does it. I don't think Cal was winning because of Aaron Rodgers.” Jaworski repeatedly cited Rodgers’ “blemishes,” and said he did not project well to the NFL. There was also the matter of finances. First-round draft choices are expensive, and first-round quarterbacks tend to be very expensive. Of the 21 teams picking ahead of Green Bay,12 were about to take a quarterback salary cap hit in excess of $2.4 million for 2005.
So Aaron Rodgers dropped.
And dropped.
And dropped.
A decade earlier Tom Rossley, the Packers offensive coordinator, had been the head coach at Southern Methodist. His quarterback coach was George Cortez, who now held the same position at Cal. One day, weeks before the draft, Cortez called Rossley and begged him to come and watch Rodgers throw. “You need to see this guy,” he said. Rossley hadn’t planned on scouting Rodgers, because he was certain he wouldn’t be available for the Packers. But, out of friendship, he made the trip. “He worked out for an hour, and every ball he threw was caught,” Rossley said. “I watched [former Ravens quarterback] Kyle Boller’s Cal workout, and he got on his knees at the 50 and threw one over the goalpost. It was amazing—and Aaron’s workout eclipsed that. I told Ted, 'This guy Rodgers is special.'”
When the Oakland Raiders grabbed a Nebraska cornerback named Fabian Washington with the 23rd selection, Thompson knew immediately who the Packers would take. “About three or four days before the draft,” he said, “I was convinced that the best thing to do, if he got to us, was draft Aaron Rodgers.” Finally, approximately five hours after Smith went No. 1, Rodgers’ phone rang. It was Thompson—“How do you feel about coming to Green Bay?”
“I DON'T THINK YOU CAN EVER REPLACE A LEGEND.”
— AARON RODGERS
Before rising to shake Tagliabue’s hand, Rodgers was grabbed by Merton Hanks, a former Pro Bowl cornerback now employed by the NFL. Back in 1991 he lasted into the fifth round before being picked by San Francisco. “I played my whole career with a chip on my shoulder,” Hanks whispered. “You should do the same.”
Indeed.
“It wasn’t the easiest day,” Rodgers said. “But I’m just so excited about being able to go to a team that wants me, and to learn from the greatest quarterback of our day right now. And I couldn’t be happier with what next year, and the years to come, will look like. Being a Packer.”
Later that day, Rodgers spoke via conference call with the Green Bay media. He handled himself perfectly, especially when asked about the incumbent.
“You know,” he said, “I don’t think you can ever replace a legend.”
✦ ✦ ✦
A couple of weeks after the draft, Dylan Tomlinson of Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers was sent 90 miles northeast of Sacramento to Chico, California, to visit with Aaron Rodgers for a profile.
Tomlinson had been on the Packer beat since 2003, and Brett Favre was far from his favorite player. He found the quarterback to be phony, arrogant, thin-skinned. He hated how the team’s notoriously protective PR staff served as his personal brick wall, and laughed as rival journalists left offerings at the shrine of Brett. Through the years Tomlinson had heard dozens of rumors about Favre’s infidelity and drunkenness, yet felt constrained by the bonds of local Packer love to write anything. “People felt loyal to Brett, because in Green Bay he was a football God,” Tomlinson said. “But, just being honest, I couldn’t stand him.”
Rodgers, on the other hand, immediately impressed the scribe. Though but 21, he was clearly more intelligent and probing than Favre. Rodgers scored a 1310 on the SATs and graduated Pleasant Valley High with an A- average.
Because he played quarterback for an off-the-map school in an off-the-map corner of California, Rodgers—who threw for 4,421 yards in two seasons as a prep starter—received no Division I scholarship offers. The University of Illinois invited him for a visit, but merely extended a walk-on opportunity. He enrolled at Butte College in nearby Oroville, California, starred on the football field (“No one on the team understood why he was there,” said Shaun Bodiford, a Butte wide receiver) and finished with two spectacular years at Cal. After the Golden Bears lost to Texas Tech in the Holiday Bowl, Rodgers declared himself eligible for the NFL Draft.
OCTOBER 14, 2016
http://thelab.bleacherreport.com/gunslinger-brett-favre-aaron-rodgers-feud-jeff-pearlman-excerpt
EDITOR'S NOTE: In this excerpt from Jeff Pearlman's upcoming release, GUNSLINGER: The Remarkable, Improbable, Iconic Life of Brett Favre, the story picks up as the legendary Packers quarterback has finished a disappointing 10-6 regular season and a Wild Card Game loss to the division-rival Minnesota Vikings. Green Bay has the 24th overall pick in the upcoming NFL Draft, but Favre isn't quite ready to welcome their first-round selection, a quarterback from Cal, to the team.
Throughout Brett Favre's 13 seasons in Green Bay, an endless stream of quarterbacks had come and gone. Once, when Mark Brunell rose from the bench in 1994, there was a (relatively slim) possibility of Favre being replaced. Otherwise, every signal caller brought to town was there solely to provide support. Through the years, the men signed to back Favre had been a mixed bag of seasoned veterans (Ken O’Brien, Jim McMahon, David Klingler, Steve Bono, Tim Couch) and unspectacular-yet-useful youngsters (Ty Detmer, Doug Pederson, Craig Nall). Some, like Detmer and Pederson, turned into lifelong friends. Others, like O’Brien and Couch, arrived and departed with barely a shadow. “When you signed with Green Bay, there was no false illusion you were there to fight Brett for a job,” said Akili Smith, the Bengals’ first-round pick in 1999 who attended camp with the Packers four years later. “He wasn’t just the team and he wasn’t just the city. He was the state. You just wanted to hang on and hold a clipboard.”
Favre was 35 by the time the season concluded on Jan. 9, 2005, with the Wild Card defeat to the Vikings (he played terribly, throwing four interceptions). After the game, he was asked about retirement and again hemmed and hawed. Maybe. Possibly. I’ll pray on it. I think so. I think no. Michael Hunt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel became the first local scribe to push for Favre to hang it up, noting that the league’s oldest starting quarterback had to ask himself, “what motivation would have to play a 14th season with a slipping organization?” Donald Driver, the veteran wide receiver and Favre’s friend, told the Arizona Republic, “I think he’s had enough. I really do.”
Favre felt the call of retirement. The team wasn’t the same anymore. He was, by now, the oldest Packer by two years, and he struggled to relate with the modern era of me-me-me football players. Where was Reggie White? Where was Jim McMahon? LeRoy Butler? Frank Winters? The new kids were largely about highlights, headlines, attention. The locker room had once been a place of laughter and jokes and farts and stink bombs. Over the years, everything quieted. The younger Packers spent their time with headphones in their ears, listening to their own tunes while drowning out the world. No one went out after games. There was Xbox to play.
As a greener man Favre loved bounding from one corner of the room to the other, absorbing the flavors, the lingo. Now, fed up and no longer fully engaged, he chose to change with the coaching staff, in their private dressing area to the side. If he drove to the stadium, Favre parked his Ford F-150 in its own private area, and walked in through a back entrance. When Mike Sherman came to Green Bay before the 2000 season, he envisioned working with Favre in the way Bill Walsh and Joe Montana did in San Francisco—a two-headed offensive football juggernaut. But Sherman lacked Walsh’s strength, and over the years he granted Favre increased liberties. If he wanted to miss a practice? OK. Arrive a bit late for a meeting? Fine. Dress away from the teammates? No biggie. This was hardly new terrain for veteran superstars, but Favre was thought to be different.
Perhaps that’s why, when the Packers hired Ted Thompson as the new general manager that January, more than a few Green Bay executives hoped he would start by encouraging Favre to fade into the Mississippi sunset. A former linebacker with the Houston Oilers in the late-1970s and early 80s, Thompson was a humorless man who had spent five seasons as Seattle’s vice president of operations and, before that, six years in Green Bay heading the pro personnel department. Bob Harlan, the team president, initially promoted Sherman to coach and general manager when Ron Wolf left before the 2001 season. “I wanted cohesion for the franchise,” he said. Harlan was, however, never comfortable with such a consolidation of power, and grew increasingly concerned as Sherman blew high draft picks on busts and floundered in drawing free agents. “The burden changed him as a person,” Harlan said. “He became very quiet, he ignored everybody. He would get on the airplane on Saturdays, put on earphones and not talk to anybody. I made a mistake in giving Mike both jobs. It was too much.” So now Thompson was the GM, Sherman back to serving merely as the head coach.
With the (admittedly large) exception of Thompson’s presence, the leadup to the 2005 Draft was similar to a year earlier. Once again Green Bay wanted a quarterback, but knew the two best available players (Utah’s Alex Smith and California’s Aaron Rodgers) would be distant memories once their slot (24th overall) arrived. Much of the attention turned to Charlie Frye, the Akron quarterback who gained national respect (and more than a few Favre comparisons) by starting nine games with a broken thumb on his throwing hand in 2002. Were he still available at No. 24, the Packers were likely to pounce.
The Draft unfolded unpredictably. Smith and Rodgers were widely considered a coin flip. One quarterback would go first, the other shortly thereafter. Both were big, strong, accurate, smart. Smith was quiet. Rodgers, confident. When the day arrived and the Utah junior was selected No. 1 overall, nobody was particularly shocked. ESPN’s Ron Jaworski said the 49ers made the right call; that “the delta” between Smith and Rodgers was “significant.”
But what followed—strange. Three running backs, three wide receivers and three cornerbacks rounded out the Top 10. Sitting behind the stage in the green room at the Javits Center in New York City, Rodgers waited … waited … waited. He wore a blue pinstriped suit, a maroon tie and a closely cropped haircut. At times the ESPN cameras caught his face drooping to the ground, almost as if he were about to weep. While waiting for San Diego to use its 12th pick, ESPN’s Suzy Kolber sat alongside Rodgers and asked, “A couple of weeks ago, Aaron, you were the clear-cut No. 1. What’s changed over that time?” Forcing a smile, Rodgers said, “I wish I could tell you.” He was embarrassed, and the grin failed to mask depression. “You start questioning everything,” he later said. “From where you worked out to how hard you worked.” The Dolphins had lacked a standout starting quarterback since Dan Marino’s retirement in 1999—and they took a running back, Auburn’s Ronnie Brown, second. Tampa Bay’s starting quarterback was the mediocre Brian Griese—and they selected a halfback, Auburn’s Cadillac Williams, fifth. Arizona’s starting quarterback was the forgettable Josh McCown—and they selected a cornerback, Miami’s Antrel Rolle, eighth. One by one, franchises thought to need a quarterback let Rodgers sit and wait. In hindsight, much of it had to do with a cold-footed reaction to negative scouting reports. Shortly before the draft, for example, a scout for an NFC team told Pete Dougherty of the Green Bay Press-Gazette that he would pass on Rodgers. “I just think Aaron's the product of being on a good team,” the scout said. “He's got a good running back who takes a lot of the pressure off him, they throw a lot of screens and dump balls. I see Utah winning because of Alex Smith, he's the one that does it. I don't think Cal was winning because of Aaron Rodgers.” Jaworski repeatedly cited Rodgers’ “blemishes,” and said he did not project well to the NFL. There was also the matter of finances. First-round draft choices are expensive, and first-round quarterbacks tend to be very expensive. Of the 21 teams picking ahead of Green Bay,12 were about to take a quarterback salary cap hit in excess of $2.4 million for 2005.
So Aaron Rodgers dropped.
And dropped.
And dropped.
A decade earlier Tom Rossley, the Packers offensive coordinator, had been the head coach at Southern Methodist. His quarterback coach was George Cortez, who now held the same position at Cal. One day, weeks before the draft, Cortez called Rossley and begged him to come and watch Rodgers throw. “You need to see this guy,” he said. Rossley hadn’t planned on scouting Rodgers, because he was certain he wouldn’t be available for the Packers. But, out of friendship, he made the trip. “He worked out for an hour, and every ball he threw was caught,” Rossley said. “I watched [former Ravens quarterback] Kyle Boller’s Cal workout, and he got on his knees at the 50 and threw one over the goalpost. It was amazing—and Aaron’s workout eclipsed that. I told Ted, 'This guy Rodgers is special.'”
When the Oakland Raiders grabbed a Nebraska cornerback named Fabian Washington with the 23rd selection, Thompson knew immediately who the Packers would take. “About three or four days before the draft,” he said, “I was convinced that the best thing to do, if he got to us, was draft Aaron Rodgers.” Finally, approximately five hours after Smith went No. 1, Rodgers’ phone rang. It was Thompson—“How do you feel about coming to Green Bay?”
“I DON'T THINK YOU CAN EVER REPLACE A LEGEND.”
— AARON RODGERS
Before rising to shake Tagliabue’s hand, Rodgers was grabbed by Merton Hanks, a former Pro Bowl cornerback now employed by the NFL. Back in 1991 he lasted into the fifth round before being picked by San Francisco. “I played my whole career with a chip on my shoulder,” Hanks whispered. “You should do the same.”
Indeed.
“It wasn’t the easiest day,” Rodgers said. “But I’m just so excited about being able to go to a team that wants me, and to learn from the greatest quarterback of our day right now. And I couldn’t be happier with what next year, and the years to come, will look like. Being a Packer.”
Later that day, Rodgers spoke via conference call with the Green Bay media. He handled himself perfectly, especially when asked about the incumbent.
“You know,” he said, “I don’t think you can ever replace a legend.”
✦ ✦ ✦
A couple of weeks after the draft, Dylan Tomlinson of Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers was sent 90 miles northeast of Sacramento to Chico, California, to visit with Aaron Rodgers for a profile.
Tomlinson had been on the Packer beat since 2003, and Brett Favre was far from his favorite player. He found the quarterback to be phony, arrogant, thin-skinned. He hated how the team’s notoriously protective PR staff served as his personal brick wall, and laughed as rival journalists left offerings at the shrine of Brett. Through the years Tomlinson had heard dozens of rumors about Favre’s infidelity and drunkenness, yet felt constrained by the bonds of local Packer love to write anything. “People felt loyal to Brett, because in Green Bay he was a football God,” Tomlinson said. “But, just being honest, I couldn’t stand him.”
Rodgers, on the other hand, immediately impressed the scribe. Though but 21, he was clearly more intelligent and probing than Favre. Rodgers scored a 1310 on the SATs and graduated Pleasant Valley High with an A- average.
Because he played quarterback for an off-the-map school in an off-the-map corner of California, Rodgers—who threw for 4,421 yards in two seasons as a prep starter—received no Division I scholarship offers. The University of Illinois invited him for a visit, but merely extended a walk-on opportunity. He enrolled at Butte College in nearby Oroville, California, starred on the football field (“No one on the team understood why he was there,” said Shaun Bodiford, a Butte wide receiver) and finished with two spectacular years at Cal. After the Golden Bears lost to Texas Tech in the Holiday Bowl, Rodgers declared himself eligible for the NFL Draft.