Throughout this entire "will-he-or-won't-he-play" week, the one quote that stands out to me as the hardest to believe is this one by Brett Favre:
"I know I'll keep an open mind about it and be smart about it."
That was Favre pushing for input on whether he gets to extend his NFL record for starts to 292 Sunday at New England.
C'mon. Does anyone really expect Brett Favre to get to Sunday and look Brad Childress in the eye and go, "Sorry, Skip, just can't go on that broken ankle today."?
I was talking to Tony Dungy earlier today about another story I'm working on about Bill Belichick. But I asked him what he'd do in this situation if he were Brad Childress. He said:
"I don't think you worry about the streak or if guys want to play or not," Dungy said. "You look at the situation and you have to judge as a coach whether they're going to be effective. And Brett has shown in the past that he's a guy that's been able to play without a whole lot of practice. So Brad has some history in knowing how effective he can be.
"But that's your only decision as a head coach. I never had a hard-and-fast rule that you have to practice `X' amount days to play. And I never listened to the player because they all say they can play. Only if a guy says he can't play do you know it. Most of the time they all say they can play even if they can't. You have to make the decision. You have to watch them practice. You have to watch them warm up and make a decision of whether they're going to be productive for us or not."
The streak is legendary. And it will stay legendary if it ends at 291. And it should. The guy broke his ankle, for gosh sakes. Just start Tarvaris Jackson and hope that he's progressed after five years of being groomed in the same system by the same head coach, offensive coordinator and position coach.
