He’s from Mississippi (you have to make the sound effects) em-eye-ess-ess-eye-ess-ess-eye-pee-pee-eye. Gets drafted by the Falcons, sits the bench behind some other QB, gets late games with big leads, &c. He leaves after a couple years, gets picked up by Green Bay, behind “Magic Man” Majkowski (sic), the starter. Magic Man gets injured maybe? and Favre starts.
OK, at this point, I’m actually going to look it up. OK, Google. Brett Favre consecutive start record…
He starts. at QB. At Green Bay. *Forever*. 297 consecutive games. He continued the streak when he left GB and went to the Vikings for a bit. But. Two hundred ninety-seven. games. in a row. In a word, 😮
He wears the #4 jersey for his whole career. He says “That’s the difference between having me on your team or not. 4 points, the difference between a field goal and a touchdown.
He was really, Really Good at football.
Brett Favre was so much fun to watch play. He just enjoyed the game so much, and he’s one of those rare breed of quarterbacks who just fits into the “West Coast” Offense (Bill Walsh made it famous, but he learned from Paul Brown, and I digress.), and in many ways, he’s the Best of All Time.
I just loved to watch him play. He had so much fun out there, and his teams really worked well together. Sportscasters would refer to him as a “gun slinger”; you never quite knew what Brett was gonna do during a given play. Might run, might pitch short, toss medium, or air one out, on the run, zing, like it’s on a rope, right on the numbers. He was so good.
The offense is pretty simple, at its core, with only a few route types and running plays. But it excelled at leaving many options open for the QB at a time.
Sprint Right Option is one of the few football plays that I can recognize when I see it, because it looks so dramatic. I’ll get right back to this, but first,
A Short Explanation of the West Coast Passing Offense, as I understand it.
This passing offense works best when you have a mobile QB and a receiving back and/or tight end. You can throw one of 3, 4, 5 routes, depending on the number of skill players, and the QB’s ability to find them. The routes are all timed, three steps then this, then five more, then this, &c. And the QB knows that, at three steps, he has receivers at points a, b, c, d, and e. A quick read of the field leaves at least one in single coverage, or in lopsided coverage, and if not, then there’s running room in the middle of the field (count the LBs and secondary, you know who’s left).
The routes themselves can change a bit, but it’s all about timing. At this point, *this* is the open guy. Tic tic, *there’s* another one. They could do stuff with the QB making a short, 3-step drop back into the pocket, fire a short pass to a wide open receiver, who could then do all that receiver magic *swoon* 😐
Oh, yes. The West Coast Offense as played by both Bill Walsh and Mike Holmgren also liked to have one tall, fast receiver, and one “possession” receiver, count on him to get to the first down marker and sit on it. The tall, fast receiver could outreach the usually much shorter cornerbacks, and racked up a lot of yards-after-catch with touchdown after touchdown.
Joe Montana had Jerry Rice. (then Jerry Rice had Steve Young)
Brett Favre had Sterling Sharpe. Man, oh man. They did some work together. I only caught the last bit of that; Sterling got hurt bad and retired, but I saw a few games, and they were good together. I was there for the Antonio Freeman years. It was fun.
He sometimes had a “downhill” running back, but all the backs were also considered receivers.
A couple of his TEs became household names.
And in later years, they had a dominating defense, anchored by The Minister of Defense, Reggie White.
The team was just amazing for years, and years. And years.
And Brett Favre started every one of those games, and it felt like he was playing on the sandlot back at home. He’d fake over that way, run over this way, fake throw it again, then run for 15 yards. Or he’d take 3 steps and hurl it, and you’d say to yourself, no way is anybody down field that fa– and it plops right into that receiver’s hands. He’s already 5 yards further downfield than the nearest defender, and is at full speed towards the goal line. How did he know, three steps in, that dude was gonna be *that* open?!
Because, he’s Brett.
…
No, really. That’s why. He played every game like it was going to be his last, and he just had a great time doing it; we could tell. 🙂
So, Sprint Right Option.
It’s designed to look like a broken play, the QB is sweeping to his right, out of the pocket, is he trying to run it? Better have a DB in there, Brett’s faster than some LBs.
The TE (or, play it further downfield, the slot receiver, or, play it closer, the RB) is on a short crossing route, also to the right. Did someone pick him up as he passed in front of the secondary?
The WR (or… you’re the armchair coach, you go write an offense) is on a deeper crossing route, also to the right.
You have 4 options; throw deep, throw short, QB run, or throw it away. (The offense is designed to care less about a single play, and more about the overall strategy of the game and clock &c. So “throw it away” is actually a valid option, try again next down; but let’s move on to the fun ones, shall we? 🙂 )
So, what looks like a “chase the QB and get a sack, w00t” turns into a simple equation for the QB.
Because you have at least 1 (and sometimes 2) receivers on the left, you’ve taken up, call it 3 defenders, a CB, an LB, and a S (standard 4-3). That leaves 2 LB, one S, and one CB on this side (assume for now the OL are keeping the DL busy, but without holding). Two quick reads. Deep (CB and probably picks up S), then short (might have these backwards, bear with me) (picked up at least one LB). That leaves Brett in space, with either one LB nearby, which means either find the guy in single coverage, or run it short, or throw it away; or if the short crossing route picked up double coverage (or he’d blitzed), then there’s nobody to cover you, so run, Brett, run!
If they start jumping the QB run, whoever they bring forward leaves a receiver open. If they start leaving the left hand side guys open, you take a 3 step and fire it over there.
A lot of famous football catches are made on this play. The Catch is one of them. The commentators often get this play wrong; “Oh, watch out; he’s been flushed out of the pocket, pursued by X. He pump fakes to freeze the safeties, tucks it in for the run, *how did that guy get open in the end zone*?! Touchdown Packers!
Sprint Right Option. It’s one of the original basic plays from Paul Brown’s offense in the 1950s. It is beautiful in its simplicity (three receivers to the right means run, pass, or pass, just check the defenders and go), but so hard to defend, and can be run with so many different personnel (RB, WR, TE, the occasional HB) that it’s been a staple in the “West Coast” Offense ever since.
The West Coast Offense can make a great QB shine. And Brett Favre played it as well as anyone I’ve ever seen. I watched Joe Montana do his thing. That was magic. Joe Cool was a very disciplined QB. He could run, but he never had the je ne sais quoi that Brett did. It was a different time, and I understood the game at a different level, for sure.
Brett ended up with a bunch of NFL records under his belt, yards, TDs, &c. But he’s most proud of the consecutive starts. And I loved to watch him play.
Thanks, number 4.