HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. (AP) -Is it any surprise that after Brett Favre’s first practice as a New York Jet he was still wondering whether he made the right decision coming here?
You really can’t blame Favre for his confusion.
In 48 hours he was whisked from Mississippi to New Jersey, where he viewed the facilities into which the Jets will move next month. Then on to Cleveland, for his introductory news conference before his new team played its first exhibition game. Next he headed to New York to meet Mayor Michael Bloomberg as part of the “Broadway Brett” hysteria that’s been fanned by the New York media.
And finally, on Saturday, his first practice in a new system with new teammates, most of whose names he still doesn’t know.
In fact, he didn’t even know how badly his Jets played in 2007. After the obligatory tribute to his teammates (“a very talented mix of veterans and youngsters”) he acknowledged: “I didn’t know they were 4-12 last year.”
The adjustment problem is real, even for a 38-year-old who played in two Super Bowls and has been exposed to the national media on a regular basis.
Remember that he grew up in rural Mississippi and played 16 of his 17 NFL seasons in Green Bay, the smallest market of any North American major-league sport. Suddenly he was thrown into the largest market, hailed as the savior of a recently downtrodden team. A team that is trying to find an identity in a region with two big-spending, superstar-filled baseball teams and another NFL franchise that just happened to win the Super Bowl last season.
From the Jets’ standpoint, it has worked so far.
Right now, Brett is bigger than A-Rod and Derek and Eli among the local sports megastars – 20,000 No. 4 Jets jerseys sold in the first 48 hours after his trade to New York was announced. If David Beckham, a soccer superstar, was imported to the United States to try to save a sport with only a cult following, this was bigger – a certified American who has starred in a certifiably American sport arriving to bring an identity to a team with a serious inferiority complex.
“This is where the action is,” one of the more than 7,000 fans at Saturday’s practice yelled. “It’s not in Albany.”
Albany, 150 miles to the north, is where the Giants train. And the team in Albany would beg to differ, as would the fans who support them: The Vince Lombardi Trophy is the biggest prize in the game, one that the aging superstar the Jets just acquired won when he was 26.
Jets fans can dream about him winning it again at the age of 39, which is what he will be when the 2009 game is played in Tampa next February. Favre himself was not about to go there when he met the media hordes Saturday.
In fact, when he was asked about his goals, he replied: “I just hope at the end of the season, I feel like I made the right decision.”
The truth is, he would probably be a lot closer to the Super Bowl if he had not decided in March to retire then decided again in June to unretire. That would have allowed him to remain with the Packers and try again to get to the stage they were so close to last season – losing to the Giants when Favre threw an interception in overtime of the NFC championship game that led to New York’s winning field goal.
He will play against the Giants again in two weeks in an exhibition that is sure to be hyped as a “revenge game.” In four weeks, the season starts for real in Miami, which is far more important and where Favre’s trade to the Jets will come full circle – the Dolphins just signed Chad Pennington, the quarterback the Jets released to make room for Favre.
Favre is worried about none of that right now.
He’s worried about learning a new system and new terminology. Because Favre likes to do crossword puzzles, coach Eric Mangini is teaching him in crossword puzzle form – “I like to do things in formats that my players are familiar with,” Mangini said.
Just as important, he has to get familiar with 79 teammates – tight end Bubba Franks, who played with him for nine years in Green Bay, is the only Jet he really knows right now.
His teammates also have to get used to him.
After they get by the same sort of awe with which Jet fans are regarding him.
Nick Mangold, Favre’s new center, was 12 when Brett won his Super Bowl in 1996, the middle year of a stretch in which he was the NFL’s MVP for three straight seasons.
Asked how he was working out the center-quarterback exchange, Mangold replied: “How do you tell Brett Favre to adapt to you?”
Yes, the superstar has awed New York.
He also awes his teammates.
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