According to the latest report from Fox’s Jay Glazer, Brett Favre has been traded to the New York Jets.

Consider: From 1968 to 1991, the Packers had a total of five winning seasons. The lack of star talent and terrible facilities kept them in the bottom rung of team earnings. But Ron Wolf and Favre changed that fundamentally – his jersey was a top seller every year, and many people became Packers fans nationally simply because of his style of play (they don’t have a footprint rivaling the Steelers, Cowboys, Redskins, or Patriots, but it’s still huge). This is one of the most public breakups in history, rejecting the runner up in MVP voting from the previous year who threw for 4000+ yards and led his team to an improbable 13-3 record. In the minds of many Packers fans, you just were given an enormous gift – the opportunity to shed an untested, injury-prone young QB (who only your GM ever wanted anyway) in favor of one last run at another championship with a Hall of Famer – and the Packers management was too wedded to the idea of creating their own form of victory to suck up their egoes and welcome him. The only comparison I can think of off the top of my head in terms of having one individual divorce have such a massive effect on an entire state’s attitude toward a team is if the Rangers or Astros had given the public finger to Nolan Ryan when he offered to be team president.

One of the key things that Green Bay has gone through since Favre’s decision in March is a rising shedding of jobs. The ticket market has collapsed. The announcers who had stayed in Green Bay hoping to call one more Super Bowl have retired. I think this could end up having enormous ramifications in terms of lost money for the franchise – and exactly the kind of financial decision you would expect from the only publicly owned franchise in professional sports, with 111,000+ shareholders.

This season ought to be very interesting for Green Bay, particularly after Aaron Rodgers inevitably goes down to injury this season (if we learned anything last season, it’s that the NFL still has karma, people). Get ready for the Brian Brohm show.

One of the interesting dynamics of the slow car accident of the Brett Favre unretirement saga is the unique yet unremarked upon status of General Manager Ted Thompson. As Peter King noted in a surprisingly astute point in his most recent column, Thompson, unlike every other GM and head of player personnel in the NFL, does not work for a sole owner. He and the team’s board of directors instead report to a small sample of the thousands of stakeholders who own the Packers franchise. Because the shareholder meetings aren’t exactly daily activities and not everyone is included, Thompson gets to fend for himself on most decisions without any significant input from an owner – there’s no Jerry Jones, no Robert Kraft, and certainly no Dan Snyder looking over his shoulder. And since Thompson picked the current Packers head coach, Mike McCarthy, for the team (McCarthy, a former coordinator with the lackluster Saints and 49ers offenses, wasn’t getting any serious looks for head coaching gigs from other teams at the time he was hired), he’s not going to get any guff from the HC’s office, either.

So unlike every other GM, when it comes to the personnel moves of the Packers franchise, the buck really does stop at Thompson’s desk and no one else’s. Which is why I think it’s safe to say that, lacking any excuse of owner bias or a powerful coach, Ted Thompson is quite possibly the worst General Manager in pro football.

Yes, I know that’s an extreme statement. But I believe it’s Thompson’s moves – and his mangling of his 34 draft picks, the most of any GM in the NFL over the past three years – that provoked the current status, where the Packers are embarrassing themselves to a ridiculous degree by offering a Hall of Fame Quarterback $20+ million to stay retired.

Consider the following facts, arranged chronologically:

2005

Thompson was hired in 2005 after a rather brief front office run under the tutelage of Mike Holmgren in Seattle, and wasted no time putting his mark on the team. While the Packers were only slightly over the salary cap, and were at that point a veteran team (winners of three straight division championships), built around Brett Favre, with Ahman Green and Javon Walker as their chief playmakers, and one of the best offensive lines in the NFL, Thompson declined to resign or sufficiently replace several key members of the team.

-Thompson outright released safety and defensive leader Darren Sharper, who promptly defected to the Minnesota Vikings (and has had two Pro Bowl seasons, including leading the league in interceptions from his position, since being released).

-Thompson declined to resign either of the Packers Pro Bowl Guards, Mike Wahle and Marco Rivera. As any veteran QB knows, not resigning two of your primary protectors has to be a bad sign for your health. A worse sign? Thompson did not draft a single Offensive Lineman to replace Wahle or Rivera in the first day of the draft, and instead signed low priced guards – and, most considered, career backups – Matt O’Dwyer and Adrian Klemm. At the time, Thompson praised both to high heaven, saying that they had solved the offensive line problems and saved money at the same time.

In what would become a pattern for the players Thompson singles out for praise, O’Dwyer was cut in training camp, and Klemm was eventually benched. Thompson’s other free agent pickups included RB Samkon Gado, TE Donald Lee and WR Rod Gardner. Today, all but one of these free agents Thompson acquired in 2005 are “out of football” – including Gado, O’Dwyer, Klemm, and Gardner. In other words: they couldn’t even cut it in the league for another two seasons.

Instead of drafting O-line help, Thompson chose QB Aaron Rodgers with his first pick overall. Rodgers was a controversial choice: he had been expected to go as high as first overall, but dropped to the bottom of the first round, as many teams viewed him as a product of a college system with a bad reputation in pro football (having also produced Joey Harrington and Kyle Boller, two first round busts at the pro level), and had injury concerns as well. But Thompson’s choice to pass on O-line help to draft Rodgers after so many other teams had passed on him, and the nature of the contract he signed as a first round pick, clearly showed that the GM did not anticipate Brett Favre being the quarterback for the Packers beyond one or two more seasons.

Thompson did attempt to bolster the defense after letting go of Sharper, choosing safety Nick Collins and linebacker Brady Poppinga on the first day. Both Collins, a small school safety considered a huge reach even at the time, and Poppinga are now in danger of losing their starting jobs after two full seasons in the league. Both have also had injury issues.

2006

The 2005 season was an incredibly rough one for the Packers. They lost several key players to injury, including Walker, Green, TE Bubba Franks, and backup RB Najeh Davenport. They finished 4-12, their worst showing since 1991. Usually, in a season this injury plagued and his first with a losing record, a coach with as much success as Packers HC Mike Sherman would get a pass, especially after re-signing a contract at the beginning of the season. Sherman’s offense was extremely successful and consistent prior to the decimation of injuries. Under his leadership, the Packers had won three consecutive division titles for only the fourth time in team history (Lombardi and Holmgren were the only other coaches to do it). Sherman’s Packers teams had been 2-4 in the playoffs, yes – but it was still a surprise to many that Sherman was summarily fired.

It’s interesting to read that linked story considering the current crashing disaster of Favre v. Thompson – in it, Thompson notes the following:

Thompson said Sherman, who signed a two-year contract extension in August, was surprised and disappointed when he learned of the decision early Monday morning…Thompson also spoke to the players Monday morning, calling the meeting “very quiet and somber.” But Thompson said he had not discussed the decision with Favre. The three-time MVP is mulling retirement and has said he might be less willing to return if he had to learn a new offensive system and work with a new coaching staff.

Thompson said he wants Favre back, but he needs a coach who will bring the team long-term success. “Eventually Brett Favre’s going to retire and go back to Mississippi,” Thompson said. “But that didn’t have any sway in this particular decision.”

Thompson brushed off Favre’s concerns about learning a new offense: “He’s a pretty bright guy.”

Thanks to Thompson’s el cheapo decisions from the prior year, the Packers entered the 2006 offseason with more money available under the salary cap than any other team: a full $32 million, a king’s ransom in NFL terms. But to amazement of the entire league, Thompson refused to spend a significant amount of money. He was content to go low-dollar, and again ditched veteran players in favor of amassing young, cheap draft picks.

Thompson passed on re-signing Pro Bowl kicker Ryan Longwell (who’d kicked more clutch field goals in windy Lambeau than anyone since the era of Starr, and followed Sharper to Minnesota) in favor of the erratic Dave Rayner, and also ditched All-Pro center Mike Flanagan and reliable LB Na’il Diggs.

Thompson did re-sign Pro Bowl DE Aaron Kampman and RB Ahman Green (in a move that raised eyebrows coming off an injured season), as well as guard Kevin Barry (another questionable move) and FB William Henderson. He also signed Marquand Manuel away from the Seattle Seahawks, brought over DT Ryan Pickett from the St. Louis Rams, LB Ben Taylor from the Cleveland Browns, and cornerback Charles Woodson from the Oakland Raiders. Of Thompson’s free agent acquisitions from 2006, only Pickett and Woodson have played well – Manuel was an unmitigated disaster, and several others (Barry, Henderson, Taylor, and several other minor players) are today, less than two seasons later, all listed as “out of football.”

In the 2006 draft, Thompson made 12 picks, including LBs A.J. Hawk and Abdul Hodge, WR Greg Jennings, and (perhaps overcorrecting for his mistake the previous year) guards Jason Spitz and Daryn Colledge. Hawk, a much studied pick, has been steady if not a game changer; Jennings has had flashes of brilliance, but also caught the injury bug and has failed to consistently produce for a second round pick; the rest have been fair at best, with Colledge being benched for poor play and Hodge, a third rounder, never getting close to winning a starting job (he has 10 tackles after two seasons).

After opening the season with a 26-0 loss at home to Chicago, the first time in 15 years the Packers had been shut out, Thompson signed troubled WR/KR Koren Robinson, who had been released by the Vikings after his second DUI in two years. He spent most of his time with the Packers bouncing in and out of league suspensions, and was released at the end of the following season.

2007

So what do you do, as Packers GM Ted Thompson, after an 8-8 season under rookie coach McCarthy in 2006, missing out on the tiebreak and the playoffs on the last day of the season? What do you do when you’re in need of those handful of critical free agent moves to put you over the top, with a veteran quarterback who’d thrown for close to 4,000 yards in the prior year, ripped off four straight wins to close the season, saddling up for one more run at a championship?

Well, if you’re Ted Thompson, you take your hands, put them on your chair, and then sit your ass firmly on top of them.

For the second year in a row, the Packers led the league in available money under the salary cap – a full $21 million. With this money, the Packers targeted and obtained exactly one free agent prior to the start of the season: NY Giants DB Frank Walker, a career backup. Walker would finish the year with one (1) pass defensed.

Despite all the available cash, and a plethora of mid round draft picks, Thompson declined to part with a fourth rounder for disgruntled yet immensely talented Oakland WR Randy Moss, who greatly admires Favre. Favre personally lobbied Thompson to make the move, but Thompson told the press that the team had no need of another WR (though he would later draft not one but two WRs). Moss instead went to the New England Patriots for a fourth rounder, setting up a record-setting tandem with Tom Brady that propelled the Pats to an incredible offensive season.

In the 2007 draft, Thompson chose Tennessee DT Justin Harrell with the #16 overall selection. The choice was met with shock and dismay; Harrell was widely viewed as a reach, and not a position of need for the Packers. Thompson was loudly booed by the fans at the Packers Draft Day party, and again when the choice of WR James Jones was made in the third round (though Jones turned out to be a decent selection, but how his 676 yards for a third rounder beat Moss’s 1,493 for a fourth, I don’t know). Harrell was coming off of an injured bicep, and ultimately contributed very little. Nebraska RB Brandon Jackson, Thompson’s second round selection, was intended to be the team’s starter and replacement for Green – but Jackson never seemed capable of owning the position, and ultimately finished the year with only 267 yards rushing. Ultimately, out of the long list of choices, Thompson’s best selection turned out to be kicker Mason Crosby, a solid choice who replaced the skipping-stones style of Rayner.

In September, Thompson made one more move: he traded a 6th round pick in the 2008 NFL Draft for New York Giants’ running back Ryan Grant. Thompson had no idea of Grant’s ability, and in fact chose the player because of his size and special teams experience – he was merely looking for another back to fill in following injuries to other backups. But luckily for the Packers, the Giants didn’t know either: to Thompson’s good fortune, Grant exploded in Green Bay, developing into an incredible player and propelling the Packers to an incredible 13-3 regular season record.

The Packers ultimately made it all the way to the NFC Championship game, losing 23-20 in Overtime to the eventual Super Bowl champion Giants.

So what does this all add up to?

Consider this for a moment: exactly four players out of Thompson’s ridiculously high number of draft selections (more than any other team over the same period) in any of the three years he’s been Packers GM have contributed anything significant to the success of the team. This is: Jennings, Jones, Hawk, and kicker Mason Crosby. An equivalent number of his most high profile picks – first rounder Rodgers, second rounder Collins, second rounder Colledge, and first rounder Harrell – have all proven to be fragile underperformers. Collins, Colledge, and Harrell have all been benched and missed games with injuries in their young careers, and Rodgers is a total question mark – not just because he’s been Favre’s backup to this point, but because of fears that he may be the most injury prone of all of Thompson’s selections.

Even in very limited regular season action, Rodgers has had his left foot broken and torn a hamstring, in both cases missing the remainder of the season. Rodgers gets testy when he’s asked about this, but the point is that the Packers are coming off of a QB who’s been, let’s just say, hard to kill. With Rodgers, the reverse may be true. It seems that the Packers are eager to find out if Rodgers can take them beyond the 13-3 Favre delivered last year – hard to do if Rodgers turns out to be, like so many other QBs, mortal.

With Rodgers at the helm, Thompson’s strategy for the Packers will be complete: he’ll have total ownership of the season to come, whatever happens. The GM decided, in almost every area, to go for the cheap, injury-prone player over the tested, higher-dollar veteran. He chose to adopt a long term strategy in an increasingly short term league. And now, he chose to pass up on the desire of a Hall of Fame QB to play one more season in favor of an untested young QB (but one he’s personally invested in).

Thompson’s up to his old tricks again in other areas, though – despite plenty of room under the cap, Thompson is currently low-balling Ryan Grant, leading to the RB holding out and skipping training camp. For all the sound and fury about Favre, this may turn out to be the decision that seriously impacts the team this year (Note that the Packers have complained regularly that Favre’s decision affected their offseason moves – but an examination of their draft shows that really only one pick, that of QB Brian Brohm in the 2nd round, was changed – and Brohm is still a great developmental prospect who will almost certainly end up the 3rd QB, with 7th Rounder Matt Flynn on the Practice Squad).

I can’t tell you what’s going on in Brett Favre’s head, or how this whole thing is going to end. But I can tell you this: we’re all about to find out if Ted Thompson is as horrible a GM as I suspect. Packers fans should hope I’m wrong.

>> Some things change, some things change the same: Sal Paolantonio is still a brating fool (we eagerly await your paean to Donovan McNabb, greatest QB evah!), and Aaron Schatz is brilliant and accurate.  What really comes into perspective with Favre’s retirement is the poor choices the Packers made as a franchise over the past few years – GM Ted Thompson has drafted well, for the most part, but consider what the Packers offense would’ve looked like this year with underperforming rookie RB Brandon Jackson as the central contributor (Thompson’s second round choice), as opposed to the diamond-in-the-rough Ryan Grant, who they got purely for depth.  For a team that has the money to spend and a QB with the juice to get them to the playoffs consistently, their Free Agent choices are just batty at points: in 2001, 2002, and 2004, they signed one free agent or less, all while letting Favre’s all-pro line walk with less than adequate replacements (Favre lost three out of five linemen, the entire center of his line, to free agency in his last three years in the league). Don’t get me wrong – they have a good young team in Green Bay, and the potential to be successful this year (Aaron Rodgers walks in as the second best starting QB in the division compared to Grossman and Jackson, maybe the best if Kitna comes back to earth), but with a great like Favre, a dominant o-line, and cap room to make some moves, you’d have thought they’d choose to load up for a run before #4 retired.  Making a run doesn’t mean you have to break the bank, but it does mean you should invest in a bit more (and more wisely) on defense than DE Joe Johnson and S Mark Roman over the course of three years, neither of whom is still with the team. If they’d made moves like they did in 2006 to get CB Charles Woodson and DT Ryan Pickett a few years earlier, the Packers might’ve made it to a few more NFC championship games in that time.

They are lies, I tell you. Those words you heard ten thousand times from ESPN and Peter King and the NFL Network and everyone else over the past two days, I’m here to tell you it’s just not true.

Brett Favre did not play the game like a kid.

It’s hard to believe he’s gone. Some part of me believed he’d be in Green Bay forever, that he’d throw those passes that could make you shriek in joy or curse in frustration. I felt kinship with him, being from Mississippi, coming from SMU. I whooped with joy when he won his Super Bowl, and I wasn’t even a Packer fan. I know I wasn’t alone.

As I got older, I came to appreciate Favre for the figure he was in the larger sense: an underrated (yes, underrated) quarterback who matured as a player, rebuilt one of the greatest franchises in American history, and beat the odds over and over again to achieve incredible success. You’ve heard the truth-become-legend by now: he received only one scholarship offer after high school; he wrecked his car and almost died; he failed the physical for his trade to the Packers – doctors said he had the same degenerative hip condition that ended Bo Jackson’s career, that he would only play 2 or 3 years. Ron Wolf thought 2 or 3 years was worth it, and got 14 more bonus years on top of it. And now, his number itself is iconic.

The effect Favre had on people was powerful. We’ve all heard about the kid who’s worn his jersey every day since 2003. My heart sank when I heard on the radio that he was leaving, when I should be glad that there’s one less team in the NFC with a lock on a playoff berth (yeah, good luck with that, Aaron Rodgers). You can’t say that about every athlete. You can’t really say that about almost any athlete any more, not really – where the guy came to symbolize something that was a lot greater than the humble roots, rabble-rousing beer-swilling redneck days of his youth, and a father who drove him like an old school SOB (“So you had three feet of intestine pulled out of ya – I still think you can play”), something that spoke to young Americans across the country as real and authentic in an area focused on entertainment and glitz. Forget the supermodels and the New York City lifestyle – forget asking for a trade away from the smallest town with an NFL team to a place that had a bigger nightlife or an owner who’d spend millions on free agents.

He beat alcoholism and addiction. He had a kid out of wedlock with his high school sweetheart when she was just 19 – she was a year older than him. She kept the baby – she was Catholic. And instead of chasing after the pretty young things or heading out to California, Favre got married to her, bought a house back home for her, and loved her, and had another daughter with her, and now is helping her, as best he can, beat the disease that threatens her. We all know what Brett Favre did when this happened. And we know what Tom Brady does when life happens.

Brett Favre did not play the game like a kid. A kid plays a game without understanding; they think the game matters, and assume it matters to everyone else. They don’t care what goes on outside the game. They don’t think it costs anything to play the game. They take the game for granted. A guy like Reggie Bush plays the game like a kid – blessed with amazing talents, he squanders his time, his money and his days with trashy TV stars and hangers on. Someday he’ll look back and say, “I wish I knew what I had then. I wish I’d shared it with people who loved me, not my money or fame or ending up on internet sites with me.” Or maybe he’ll never reach that day, never grow up … never know that life is hard, that it only gets harder, but that if you’re tough, and ready, you stay cool under fire and roll with the punches – you can still win through, and do it smiling.

No – Brett Favre played the game like a man. He played it like other men should play it, and so few do. He played it like someone who came through the dark days of life knowing the value of every moment, knowing that the end would come someday, and he wasn’t going to miss enjoying a moment of it along the way. He played like he was grateful to be there, knowing what a blessing it is to be one of the fortunate ones, fortunate to don this silly modern armor, the colors of a town, and run through a tunnel into a snowy night to the raucous cheers of young and old.

Today, the football world seems smaller. One of the last larger-than-life figures of the game I grew up with and watched every Sunday afternoon strides out the door, reluctant but proud, victorious. His choice, because he knew it was time. I can’t help but think of John Wayne at the end of The Searchers, striding off into the wilderness, tears in his eyes, leaving behind those he loved, but knowing that this part of his life was over, truly over, and no power in the world could bring it back.

I saw him play once, in person. I will never lose that, and I count myself lucky. I’d seen Jordan too, and Gretzky, and Ripken. But this one was more special than that. The Redskins needed the game, and I was rooting against Favre, and doing it loudly. It was a tight game, and it swayed back and forth. And sure enough, he pulled out a victory at the end – making one more play, rolling away from one more tackle, arm cocked back as his eyes focused downfield, looking for his open man, finding him one more time, and winning.

I swear to you, he smiled while he was doing it. He smiled til the end.

We’ll miss you, gunslinger.

It sounds ludicrous, I know. How can a quarterback as lauded as Brett Favre – ESPN darling, king of the endorsement scene (well, til Manning came along), John Madden’s numero uno mancrush – actually be an underrated quarterback?

Well, that’s easy. With Favre about to set the all-time touchdown passing record, every talking head is getting into the ranking game, and other than the eloquent piece by Len Pasquarelli, few are giving Favre the credit he deserves for his career. The other day, Ron Jaworski stopped stroking Donovan McNabb’s ego long enough to tell ESPN viewers that Brett Favre isn’t even in his top six, and Dan Marino isn’t in his top eight. And even those experts at Yahoo and Fox Sports who rank Favre highly put him barely in their top five, if at all.

As if their bias toward the present – instead of ranking a career – could be any clearer, many are putting Favre below Tom Brady. Let’s nip this in the bud: Brady has won three Super Bowls, each time on a team with a fantastic defense (Favre hasn’t had a top five defense since 1998), each time with a lead achieved by a Hall of Fame clutch kicker, each time under a coach who – cheater or not – is certainly in the top tier of NFL coaches, something which can’t be said of Favre’s signal callers (let’s be honest: together, Rhodes, Sherman, and McCarthy couldn’t hold Belichick’s jock). Brady has the rings, yes – but are you really going to say Trent Dilfer, Mark Rypien, and Brad Johnson are better quarterbacks than Marino? Or if the number of rings matter, that Aikman and Bradshaw are better than Favre or Elway? That’s just not an argument you can make with a straight face, or unless you’re a total homer for your team of choice.

Placing Favre out of the top five quarterbacks of all time club ignores his consistent statistical success when compared to others. I’m fed up with it. So maybe it’s time for a little refresher course, culled from the wonderful folks at Pro Football Reference.

Brett Favre: Top Five Quarterback

• Favre is the all time leader in wins, with 150, despite playing one fewer year than Elway and two fewer than Marino. The only active QB with a shot to catch him is Peyton Manning, with 94 regular season wins, which should allow him to pass Favre when Manning is 37. Adding postseason wins allows Tom Brady (82 regular and postseason wins) a hope of catching Favre, but as it also increases Favre’s total to 161 wins, Brady would likely have to play until he is 38 or 39 to match it.
• Favre is the all time leader in completions, and the only QB in NFL history to pass the 5,000 completion mark. The only active QB with a shot to catch him is Peyton Manning. If Favre retired tomorrow, and Manning’s average completions per season doesn’t dip at all, Peyton would still have to play until he was 38 to catch Favre, and 37 to match his consecutive 300+ completion seasons (Favre has 15).
• Eight of Favre’s single season completion totals rank in the top 50 all time in terms of completions per season, higher than any other QB and stretching from 1994 to 2005.
• Favre is second in the all time list of passing yards, exactly 3,000 yards behind Dan Marino. If Favre returns for a 17th season – remembering that Marino played 18 – he will pass Marino. Again, the only active QB with a shot to catch him is Peyton Manning. If Favre retired tomorrow, and Manning maintains his average for yards per season with no drop off, he’d still have to play until he was 37 to catch Favre.
• Favre has scored more points than any other Quarterback in NFL history (2,598 at the start of the season). While Manning will almost certainly catch this, he will almost certainly not match Favre in consecutive seasons with 30 or more touchdown passes – Favre has five, while only 5 Quarterbacks in NFL history have even managed two. Manning has never had back to back seasons with 30 or more touchdowns.
• As an iron-man quarterback, Favre is unmatched, with 241 consecutive starts this Sunday (261 including the postseason). Only one player in NFL history, defensive end Jim Marshall, has more – and it’s much easier to get that record at a position other than QB. Favre will pass Marshall’s total later this year, assuming he stays healthy. He will also pass Fran Tarkenton (244) for most career games as a quarterback.
• Finally, as we all know, Favre is one touchdown away from passing Dan Marino on the all time list for touchdown passes. But in terms of total touchdowns, he’s already four ahead of Marino – including rushing touchdowns and quarterback sneaks.

For what it’s worth, here’s my personal list:

1. Johnny Unitas
2. Joe Montana
3. Brett Favre
4. Dan Marino
5. John Elway

I feel pretty confident about this, as it dovetails well with the Sporting News list from a few years back that was Unitas, Montana, Elway, Favre. And yes, Manning will move up this list, and deserves to. But he isn’t yet in this tier statistically, and while we all know how consistent he is, we can’t put him there yet.

Assuming Manning has as long a career as these fellows had, he will eventually pass Elway, Marino, and Favre, though the top two will be hard to break through – Unitas because he accomplished so much in an era when the forward pass was a newfangled invention, and even moreso because he played in the era of shortened seasons, and has fewer games played than any others on this list, Montana because he has come to symbolize the ideal clutch QB in NFL history. Brady will have to keep up the pace of the first three games of the 2007 season from here on out if he’s ever going to have the statistics to be considered in this company.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this: As this season began, since the moment when Brett Favre took the field replacing Don Majkowski on September 20, 1992, no NFL team has won more games than the Green Bay Packers. Considering the era we’re in, when franchises rise and fall quickly, and the talent pool Favre has had to work with for the past several years, that’s simply astounding, and it’s the mark of a truly exceptional leader.