Yesterday’s Super Bowl victory by the Green Bay Packers put an exclamation point on the following sentence: Brett Favre played one season too many. He lost an opportunity to go out on top, retiring after his best statistical season. He returned only to go 6-10, throw more interceptions than touchdowns, end his “Iron Man” streak, and be engulfed in a “sexting” scandal that may never have graced Deadspin‘s website if he’d hung up his helmet. Now his one-time understudy, Aaron Rodgers, has exactly as many rings as Favre does. (I say all this as somebody who wanted to see Favre come back for a 20th season — I was wrong.)
Rodgers is now an elite quarterback. He, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and the just-defeated Big Ben probably round out the top five in the NFL. Even with Favre’s nasty break with the storied franchise, No. 4 probably did too much for the Packers to be overshadowed by Rodgers as completely as Brady has overshadowed Drew Bledsoe in New England. But we’ll see.
