Some professional sports milestones have a certain ring to them, like 500 home runs for a baseball player or 10,000 points for a basketball player.
Four hundred career touchdown passes doesn't resonate in quite the same way, but that doesn't take away from the significance of it.
With three TD passes last week against New Orleans, Brett Favre reached 399 in his career. His next one, which hopefully will come this Sunday in Detroit, will make Favre only the second player in NFL history to reach the mark.
The other is Dan Marino, who retired as the NFL's all-time leader with 420. Favre moved ahead of Fran Tarkenton (342) and into second place way back in 2003 and has been closing in on 400, and Marino, ever since.
Favre said Wednesday during his bi-weekly news conference that he's not sure if the number 400 means anything more to him, but hearing numbers like that simply reminds him how fortunate he's been to have such a long and productive career.
"I always dreamed of playing, always dreamed of throwing touchdown passes in the National Football League, but I never dreamed of throwing 400, never dreamed of playing 200 straight games," he said.
"It's still a privilege and an honor to be able to play at this level. Every time I get to throw a pass is something a lot of people would love to do. Being able to throw touchdown passes in Lambeau Field is a great honor. To be able to throw 400 is icing on the cake."
Favre's love of the game and the competition hasn't diminished any. Head Coach Mike McCarthy noted he sees Favre staying late to study film, or coming back to the film room at night after spending some time at home.
His preparation for games remains diligent, perhaps even moreso now because he has two first-year receivers in Greg Jennings and Ruvell Martin as well as newcomer Koren Robinson with whom to develop familiarity.
For Favre, that was the one upside to the 55 pass attempts against New Orleans last Sunday. The Packers know they can't throw the ball that much and expect to win often, but getting that much work in a live game early in the season could help the passing attack down the road.
"The only way you get on the same page is by doing it, moreso than in practice, by doing it in games," Favre said.
Favre pointed out an example from Sunday's game that he hopes will help synchronize thoughts with Jennings. On the final drive, Favre rifled a pass to the left that sailed past Jennings almost before he turned his head.
Favre was reading the coverage and saw an opening he knew from experience would be there. Jennings was running the route that was called and didn't improvise in the same way Favre did based on the defensive set.
"It was nothing he did," Favre said of the missed pass. "I was just anticipating by coverage that hole, and there was a hole there, but by route and by doing what he was coached to do, he was right. So maybe the next time ..."
That's the sort of connection Favre has with Donald Driver, and why Driver leads the team with 15 receptions through two games. Driver just played his 100th career game last Sunday, all with Favre as his quarterback, and Favre knows it will just take time for him to reach the same level of communication with the rest of the receiving corps.
"You have two guys that are definitely on the same page," McCarthy said. "He has a great feel for Donald, particularly in the middle of the field, so we would just like to get him on the same page with the other receivers. That comes with reps."
Despite the team's early struggles this season, Favre reiterated he has no interest in finishing his career anywhere else, and he's by no means giving up on the 2006 Packers.
When asked if he'd want to go to a slow-starting playoff contender like Tampa Bay or Washington were either of them to inquire about trading for him, Favre responded by saying he didn't expect that to happen and that he wouldn't want to go.
"It sounds great, but to learn a new system, to basically start over, the expectations would be so great," he said. "People may say, 'Well, your season is not going the way you'd like it here, at least you could go somewhere else and take a chance at winning.' Well, I'm taking that chance now.
"There's still some juice left in me here. Just because we're struggling right now, I'm not going to bail just like that."
Favre added that it's difficult for him to see so many young players not bothered as much by the 0-2 record as he is, but at the same time he forces himself to remember what things were like in his first season here in 1992.
That year the Packers started 3-6 before ripping off six wins in a row to give themselves a shot at a playoff spot in the season's final game.
"It's hard for me to come in here on Monday and act like everything's OK and we're going on to the next game, even though I know we have to do that, and guys are joking around like no big deal," he said. "But I'm hoping that's a good thing, because I'm assuming in '92 I was sort of the same way.
"So be resilient and keep playing the way we played last week. We didn't make enough plays, but we did make some and we had a chance to win that game. I felt we should have won it, and if we keep doing that and continue to get better week in and week out, we will win them and maybe we get on a little streak, so anything can happen."
