Brett Favre
After 11 years in the NFL, Brett Favre isn't so sure what, if anything, he takes away from being at mini-camp this week. But the more important question may be what his teammates take from him.
With Robert Ferguson who are likely to see their opportunities for playing time dramatically increase.
Yet a mere two practices into mini-camp Favre already likes what he sees, calling this year's class the most talented group of receivers with which he's shared a uniform, including the years in which his targets were guys named Sterling Sharpe, Robert Brooks and Keith Jackson.
"Some of these guys are unproven, but they have tremendous talent, so I'm probably more pleased with the talent now than I was then," Favre said. "But talent alone doesn't win championships and doesn't get you in the end zone. It's a big factor, but experience, there's no substitute for experience."
True, but there's little substitute for talent either, as Favre himself pointed out, using Minnesota's Randy Moss as an example.
"How many times have we all seen 3rd-and-30 and they just throw it up and he's covered by five guys and just comes down (with the ball) and scores?" Favre said. "As a quarterback, I think after a while I'd be throwing 30 passes a game to him. You figure at least 20 of them are going to be touchdowns."
Besides, Farve has every reason to believe that his vast in-game knowledge will shorten the learning curve for Green Bay's young pups, who not only have to match-up against pro corners, but more importantly have to learn volumes of new terminology.
"I know this offense is difficult to learn, the most important thing is dissolving the terminology and knowing where to go after the huddle," Favre said. "I don't mind pointing where to go . . . If they have confidence in me and believe in what I'm doing, we're fine."
Entering his 12th NFL season, Favre admitted that it was tough to motivate himself for yet another mini-camp, but promised that his love and spirit for the game hadn't died.
"I haven't survived this long because I'm the most talented and the smartest, I survived because I have a lot of desire to do whatever it takes to win and that hasn't faded one bit," he said. "We played well last year and we went a lot further than we had gone the previous two years, but we're not satisfied with that and we addressed that this morning.
"I thought that was important. We want the Super Bowl and we want it now. There's no time to waste and no reason why we shouldn't contend for it."
But even if he's on the downward slope, Favre isn't counting the days until the end of his career. It wasn't something he did before and he's not about to start now.
"I do know that this is 12 years and I don't know that I have 12 left," Favre said. "I don't know that I have six left. I don't know that I have a game left.
"I've never been concerned about that and I never will be. If it ends today, it's been a great ride."
While pleased with the result, Favre also stopped short of saying that the Packers' aggressive move to acquire Walker in last weekend's NFL Draft was made with designs on his remaining glory days.
"I like the moves that we're making, but to say that it's for me, I doubt that," Favre said. "I think it's the best moves for this team.
"You know, at some point there's going to be another quarterback starting for the Green Bay Packers and I'm aware of that. I'm going to do whatever I can for whatever amount of time that I'm here and with whatever talent's around me."
The talent around him has no doubt increased. Time will tell how quickly Favre can parlay that into a run at the Super Bowl.
