We’ve now seen, and heard, everything.
On Tuesday, Brett Favre appeared on 790 the Zone in Atlanta, on a show co-hosted by the guy with whom Brett worked the Rice-Southern Miss game over the weekend. And, during the interview, Favre said some things about the Green Bay Packers and quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
The folks at SportsRadioInterviews.com transcribed a portion of the comments. PFT and others focused on Favre’s expression of surprise that it took Rodgers three years to win a Super Bowl, given the quality of the team that Aaron inherited.
Now, the folks at 790 the Zone are going out of their way to claim that everyone else heard the statements incorrectly.
“Several websites including NFL.com have taken Brett’s comments made to Mike Morgan and Hans Heiserer of 790 The Zone out of context,” the station said in a message posted at its website. “A headline that reads, ‘Favre to Rodgers: what took you so long?’ — in reference to Green Bay’s Super Bowl victory earlier this year — is a complete mischaracterization of his comments and is a classic example of not letting the facts get in the way of a good story!
“Bob Richards, 790 The Zone’s Program Director, refutes such sensationalism by asserting, ‘the NFL.com and those countless other websites running with that story line should be ashamed of themselves.'”
Look, we understand what the folks at the station are doing. Perhaps they’re trying to hire Brett to do a football show. Perhaps he simply called up and complained. Either way, they’ve got a relationship with Brett that they want to maintain and/or expand.
Regardless of what the station is now claiming, here’s the full text and context of the question and Brett’s answer.
Host: “Brett, talk a little bit as far as what was going through your mind when you saw Aaron Rodgers and the Packers go on their Super Bowl run last season.”
Favre: “I’m going to be quite honest, I was not surprised. The biggest surprise to me would be that he didn’t do it sooner. Because it’s funny how people forget over time, my last year in Green Bay prior to the first game, really at the start of training camp, I made the remark that this was probably the most talented team I’ve ever played on. And of course everyone kinda looked up and [was] like, ‘You know, this guy’s off his rocker.’ We were very, very young, aside from me. You take me out of the mix and we were by far the youngest team in the league. But I could see the talent pool across the board was outstanding. Now, our season kind of ended up being a reflection of that. We came close, and I think we took a lot of people by surprise, but we were — you know, guys emerged rather quickly. Aaron had a chance, you know, even though the last couple years it’s seemed like he’s almost a rookie, he’s been around for a while. And I’d like to think that, you know, he watched, he learned, and then when he got a chance to play, he brought in his, you know, his ability which obviously is very good or they wouldn’t have drafted him in the first round. He’s got tremendous talent, he’s very bright, and he got a chance to sit and watch and he saw a successful team do it right. And so he just kind of fell into a good situation. On top of that, he’s a good player. I don’t think anyone would question now the talent around him is even better than when I was there. So I’m really surprised that it just kind of took him so long. And really, the early part of last year season, again it’s surprising to me ’cause I’m like, you know, it just hadn’t quite — it hadn’t clicked yet and I didn’t know if it would. Last year, I just figured when they hit their stride, they’re going to be hard to beat. And that’s what happened.”
Though reasonable minds may differ on the meaning of Brett’s words, reasonable mind without some reason to throw Brett a bone will be more inclined to believe that Brett was taking a backhanded slap at Rodgers for not winning a Super Bowl sooner, given that he “just kind of fell into a good situation.”
Bottom line? No one should be ashamed for applying a fair interpretation to the words that came out of Brett’s mouth. Indeed, the root cause of the radio station’s effort to minimize the message could be that Brett is now ashamed that he uttered them.