Thoughts on the Brief Favre Era in Minnesota

It's official.  Brett Favre has filed his retirement papers with the NFL.  So while the purple and gold begin their search for a new quarterback, I'm starting to wonder, "was the Favre experiment a success?"  I think so.  Here's why:

Allen, Pat and Kevin Williams

For the Vikings, it rejuvenated a franchise that hadn't been remotely relevant since the 2001 season.  The Vikings weren't going to win with Tarvaris Jackson under center, and everyone (except maybe Brad Childress) knew it.  They had to do something big, and with Brett Favre available, they'd have been stupid not to take a chance.  Yes, signing a 39 year old quarterback who had lead your arch-rival for 18 years was a risk.  Paying a quarterback coming off bicep surgery $13 million is a risk, too.  But something needed to be done, and Zygi Wilf was willing to make his first big splash as an owner.  The simple fact was the Vikings had a championship caliber team just about everywhere but quarterback.  They had Adrian Peterson in the prime of his career, one of the best run defenses in the league with a dominante (yet aging) line featuring Pat Williams, Kevin Williams, and Jared Allen.  Simply put, the Vikings had a small window to win a championship, and they needed to find that last piece of the puzzle.



As we all know, that gamble paid off immediately.  Season ticket sales boomed, the media couldn't get enough of the Vikings and once again they were considered true contenders in the NFC.  Favre posted his best season ever with a career high 68.4 completion percentage, 4,202 passing yards, 33 TDs and only 7 interceptions.  The Vikings, wildcard losers the year before, went 12-4, going 3-1 against division rivals Green Bay and Chicago, won the NFC North and made it to the NFC Championship before losing a heartbreaker to the Saints.  Yet even with the loss, the Vikings were again considered an eilte talent in the NFL.

When the Vikings went all out recruiting Favre to return for one last season in 2010, things began to look questionable.  But if you think about it, why shouldn't they have? Yes they ended up paying him upwards of $15 million, but the man just came off of his best statistical season ever, and the Vikings had no other options in free agency or the draft.  Jackson wasn't going to take this team, so close tasting the super bowl, back to an elite level.  So the choice became easy, once Favre decided he'd play, the Vikings were more than happy to have him - and they should have been.

Now as we all know, the season went nothing like it was projected to.  The former NFC North champions stumbled to a disheartening 6-10 record, greatly due to poor quarterback play and a plethora of injuries.  Although the Vikings weren't going to make the playoffs, they still sold tickets (well, except for two games after the Metrodome collapsed), and had media coverage they hadn't seen since the good ol' Randy Moss days of the late 90's.  In all likelihood, neither of these things happen without Favre drawing so much attention to the team.  More importantly, this increased attention and revenue will play huge roles in the Vikings getting a new stadium in the next few years.  If they don't get that stadium, we may just be looking at the Los Angeles Vikings down the road.

So, even though the Vikings efforts and Zygi's money wasn't enough to bring them a Super Bowl championship, to say the experiment was not a success is flat out wrong.  Even with the frustration that happened this year, Favre got the franchise closer than they could have believed, and put on quite a hell of a show while doing it.  Favre went from public enemy no. 1 to beloved leader to Vikings fans.  He made them important, intimidating and flat out a better team.  Often overlooked are the records that Favre has broken in a Vikings uniform.  His game streak continued to a probably unsurpassable length, and then came to an end in purple and gold.  By beating the Packers in Lambeau, he had finally won at every stadium in the NFL.  He increased his TD total and yards total, also making them even more unbreakable.

In the end, the Vikings still don't have that championship ring, but the experiment definitely paid out.  More importantly, Favre left the team still in good shape.  Favre is leaving at the perfect time, as the Vikings will be hitting a market and draft that features Ryan Mallett, Donovan McNabb, Kevin Kolb, Marc Bulger and others.  With one of these quarterbacks, and a few tweaks here and there, this team is right where it wants to be... contending in the NFC.