Madden ’08 – Favre & the Cover Curse
I’m staring at good old Brett Favre on the cover of Madden ’09,- mercifully still in a Packer uniform (thankfully the trade came late). Brett Favre and the Packers haven’t graced a video game cover since NFL QB Club ’98 featured Favre. 10 years. I’ve enjoyed 16 years of Brett as a Packer and yeah, I really wish things had turned out differently. Seems to me the bumpkin butted against a couple of Poker players who then – misunderestimating the man – overplayed their hand. Favre should be competing for the starting job against Aaron Rodgers and that’s all there is to it. It was his job to lose. Now he’s a Jet and I’ve heard that when you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way. So many Packer fans are now in the position to hope that Rodgers wins, Favre has a mediocre and unremarkable season, and that the coming roster patch doesn’t take Favre from the Pack.
Then there’s the curse. Maybe this year the famous Madden curse claimed Favre by putting him on a losing team. The equivalent of Raul Julia’s and Orson Welles’ final ignominous roles. I don’t want him to get hurt. I like Favre too much for that. Also painful, and well known to any Madden fan who also loves a local team, is the idea that on years when your team surprises everyone and wins – like the Pack last year – you’re stuck with the ratings EA Sports gave your team and players. I remember a friend trouncing the Packers with the Lions, the ratings turned out to be that wrong compared to real life. The upshot is that the next year your team will probably be stronger in Madden than it ever will be on the real gridiron. Rodgers is too unknown, with him at QB the Pack aren’t going to play realistically. Based on last year however, man I’d like to take THOSE Packers and that QB out for a spin. Especially after last year.
Maybe I won’t download the roster updates.
Good luck in NY Brett. Just finish below the Pack in the standings. As far as the video game goes? I have some thinking to do. I think in my NFL, the Packers couldn’t trade Favre because in my NFL … I wouldn’t let them.
August 12th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Ahhh! The joke is on me it seems. Favre is not in the Packers depth chart. I haven’t dared check the Jets roster. (And it looks like you can print out a Jets cover if you like. If you do, please don’t show it to me.)
The victim of the Madden curse in ’09?
Packer fans. Looks like it’s Packer fans.
August 12th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
He won’t be anywhere in the system until EA Sports releases a roster update. The included rosters probably had to be finalized a couple of months ago (when Brett was still retired) in order to get the game on shelves today. I wrote about Brett and the Madden curse on papagamer.com about 2 weeks ago. IMO, Brett wanted out of Green Bay; but, didn’t want to just demand a trade so the whole retirement business was a ploy to get released so he could play for the Vikings. Too bad he ended up on the Jets. There goes his career. I also like Gregg Easterbrook’s interpretation in today’s TMQ.
August 12th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
It’s a videogame and I know realism matters but it seems silly to not offer your cover athelete up for play – at least somewhere in the roster. As an option. You know, because of fans.
You’re right about Favre’s intentions but I don’t particularly care one way or another. In my mind Brett should have had the right – no matter what – to try out for the number 1 QB spot. He’d earned it. He earned it again last year. He was still on the roster. If Aaron could have won the job, then the Pack should consider trading Favre.
So, we either have two idiots in GB.
Or we don’t know some really bad things about Favre in GB
Or we have two smart people who gambled poorly and didn’t realize that beyond Minnesota, Favre was serious.
Either way living in Packerland – a place where Football is the only topic of conversation for much of the year – is going to be HELL if:
A. Rodgers does bad
B. Favre does GREAT
Which means I can’t root for my favorite player. (I’m just thanking god I made it to a game last year with the telephoto and caught about 15 wonderful action shots of the man.)
August 12th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
See, this is why I like NCAA football rather than the NFL types. The game tries to be all simulation-y by giving stats to teams, etc… but then those stats have little real-world relavance to anything. They’re a mish-mash of how the team did last year and how people expect them to perform this year….
With NCAA, sure there’s even less realism, but with no names tied to players you can mix and match people around somewhat and it tends to be more of the long-term playing…
Give me a bunch of balanced teams (perhaps with different specialties) and I’d be a much happier person. Like to play a passing game? Pick a time that passes a lot, like running go for a running team, etc…
August 12th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
GD, I agree on your assessment of the Favre situation. Management did a poor job, as Favre seemed to have earned some respect from them and they just don’t seem to have given it. OTOH, I htink they also made a mistake in letting Holmgren go.
August 12th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Agreed on that Steve. At the time it seemed like “Holmgren or Ron Wolfe?” Ron stayed, all seemed okay, then Ron left. Ted Thompson seems like an SOB and this weighs heavily on him (Rodgers better be amazing) but to give the former SF guy his due – he built a HELL of a team of rookies over the past few years and injected hoped in a declining franchise. AJ Hawk, Barnett, etc., lots of cap space, etc.,
I can see why going with Rodgers is a good long term move.
But Favre played sooo good last year. Seems weird the team management gave up on him. Makes me wonder if he was becoming really hard to work with or something.
August 12th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
First, Favre is in the game on the All Madden team or something like that. You can Google a way to “trade” him to whatever team you want him to be on. Or you can wait for roster updates and play with him on the Jets.
Hehe
I disagree that Favre “earned” a right to compete for a roster spot. The NFL is a business–a wacky business; but, still a business–and there is no business in the world where you can retire, be replaced and then come scratching around a few months later wanting your old job back. I know GB still owned Favre’s rights; but, if he wanted to play he should have a) stayed in GB or b) demanded a trade. A) apparently didn’t suit him and B) would have made him look petulant; so, instead, he screws around with the entire organization and the fans and is, basically, given a free pass to do this by the adoring media.
It’s a disgrace. The only thing Favre is going to prove this year is why he also holds one all-time NFL record he probably doesn’t want…most interceptions thrown in a career.
August 13th, 2008 at 6:18 am
Yep, when he did the whole tearful goodbye quickly followed up by ham-handed maneuvering … he showed himself for the slimebag he is. His career earned him much, but his recent actions showed that he would gladly screw over GB team, owners, and fans. And that pretty much flushed all of those earnings. He has joined that wonderful group of scumbag athletes … and deserves to finish out a grand career by falling flat on his face … but even still it will be unlikely that his failure would serve as warning to others doing the same thing, just as others in the past did little to help Favre end up as a completely idiotic tool to all but the most rosy-eyed apologists 😉
August 13th, 2008 at 6:35 am
I’ve played about six games so far. Hilariously, in the very first game Aaron Rodgers went down with a broken leg. Hooo-boy!
August 13th, 2008 at 6:50 am
As far as the other stuff guys, Jeez, have you two just tuned in to sports for the first time?
In Brief: Papa, the NFL also has that funny thing where you can retire yet still be considered to be “owned” by your team. Favre coming out of retirement is not unprecedented – even for Favre – and given that Favre might be old but he’s hardly playing poorly and he’s still inarguably one of the best QBs in a league desperate for QBs. Not inviting him warmly back to his job OR not welcoming him back to COMPETE for the job is as insane to me as it would have been when that awful vile human being Michael Jordan wanted to come to back to the Bulls after his selfish minor league baseball adventure or when he unretired AGAIN to lead his awful Wizards team. Not an exact parallel sure, but imagine if the Bulls hadn’t wanted him back. Who would the fans and the adoring press (who have been, imo, awful to Favre) blame then?
Yet Jordan’s legacy seems unblemished. And no one faults him for or his rose-colored glasses wearing idiotic tool fans or whatever.
Looking at Favre’s record – even with the interceptions – and given the info we have I think it’s absurd to knee-jerk side with management here and even crazier to blame Favre for maybe being a bit irrational when the prospect of actually never playing again hit and he suddenly found the team he’d consequetively started for for 16 years wanted him to hold a clipboard from now on. Or to just go away.
Yeah, the press conference was embarrassing. Yeah it looks like Favre is in for a bad year and maybe a bad capper to his career but his legacy is assured. I don’t think he’s a slimebag at all.
As far as Farve going to the Jets? Well, it stung when Montana left SF for the Chiefs back when I was in College. Hope it works out that good in GB. At least Favre doesn’t seem as bitter and angry leaving as Bradshaw did in Pittsburgh.
August 13th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I know, I know … but if you ever wanted a stark reminder that the era of the everyman sports hero is long since over and that the players are every bit as bad as the corporate suits … here it is. It is wrong for the Packer organization to not get slammed, true enough.
August 13th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Maybe, I think almost every other scandal I can think of is a bigger deal. TO for example. Favre retired, asked to unretire, was told no, asked to be traded, was told no, asked to be reinstated, was told no. Went to the NFL front office and asked to be reinstated, was told to wait. Favre waited, Packers tendered that ridiculous “do not play paycheck” deal, Favre rejected it, Goodell and NFL reinstated Favre.
Packers now had Favre in camp and told him to not play. Favre asked for a trade. Trade happened.
Aside from tears at the press conference and some called bluffing – I’m not sure what’s shameful. Unfortunate? Sure. But 38 year olds with rocket arms who show no signs of slowing down are probably entitled to unretire if they want. I’ll concede that. Midlife crisis are a real pain!
August 13th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I’ll allow Mike that I’ve seen a lot more Favre than you and I never really saw him as more than a stoic, talented, dim country bumpkin. I love him for the kid he is on the field and it’s in character for that kid to retire and then unretire. The tears were 100% real. This guy may be a rube, but he’s a sincere one.
You saw the more mythological figure. So for you he’s slipped a bit in stature. I’m aware that what this really is a delay of the inevitable mixed with a midlife crisis. His future is mowing his giant lawn and hunting on his Kiln Miss,. compound. He wants some razzle dazzle.
New York is going to be a shocking change from Green Bay, I think. He’s never really had to deal with the media on that scale.