Make no mistake, Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre still thinks the Packers made a mistake by drafting quarterback Jordan Love.
At the same time, he can acknowledge that the Packers did the right thing by drafting Aaron Rodgers when he was still there, and enough time has passed for him to admit he could have handled it better.
During an interview with ESPN Wisconsin, Favre said then-Packers General Manager Ted Thompson did the right thing in 2005 by picking his eventual replacement, and that he wished he hadn’t announced his retirement in March 2008, setting the stage for his messy departure. It was shortly after an overtime loss to the Giants in the NFC Championship Game, and the emotions of the moment were still burning a little too hot, obviously, and he’d eventually un-retire, want his old job back, only to be dealt to the Jets as the Packers moved on.
“If I could go back and do things differently, I certainly would,” Favre said. “When I made the decision to tell Mike McCarthy that I would retire, I was probably a month, month-and-a-half removed [from the season]. It was before the draft. I always make this [comparison] — and maybe it makes sense to me and not to others — but if you think back to when you were in grade school, you couldn’t wait to get out of school for the summer. But by the end of the summer, you were kind of ready to go back to school. And that is kind of the way it was with football. And the older I got, the tougher it got to get re-invigorated and excited about it.
“I would much rather have not said anything and just bought a little time. Of course, everyone knew by that time I couldn’t make up my mind two months removed from the season anyway. We had been down that road before. But I knew, and I have no ill feelings about this, but I knew they were sort of ready to go in a different direction. And at some point you’ve got to make that transition, and Ted felt like that was probably the best time. It turned out to be a great move. And I’d tell Ted that to his face right now.
“It was a great move drafting Aaron Rodgers, and it was a great time to make that transition. And it’s worked out well for them. The jury is out whether or not the same will happen with Jordan and his transition. We will see.”
Favre still thinks taking an eventual quarterback was a mistake for the current Packers, since Rodgers had them a game away from the Super Bowl last season. And if Love becomes for the Packers what Rodgers was, Favre has the right to revisit that opinion later too.