Brett Favre threw for 269 yards in the second half and overtime. He kicked a lifeless Vikings team in the head and made it wake up and play when it was 17 points down on the road. He dragged his teammates to not one, but two game-tying drives in the fourth quarter. After the first game-tying drive was ruined by more horrendous kickoff coverage, Favre bounced back and threw a perfect pass to Sidney Rice for a touchdown on fouth-and-goal from the six with 17 seconds left.
Then, after Adrian Peterson's fumble led to the Bears' game-winning field goal in overtime, Favre was asked to explain why he lost a "cold-weather" game for the eighth consecutive time. I'm usually a big fan of asking a player anything and everything, but if Favre had strangled the person who asked the question and I were on the jury, I'd have voted "not guilty."
Some stats are bogus. Attaching wins and losses to the quarterback and no other player is one of the worst. I believe it was last year when Jake Delhomme had a horrible game and a 20-something passer rating, yet got the win because the Panthers won a low-scoring defensive game.
Favre's cold-weather stat also is ridiculous. It was ridiculous back when he was winning all the time in Green Bay. And it's ridiculous now. That should be obvious after watching Monday night's game. Favre couldn't have played much better than he did.
There are about a zillion variables in football. Injuries, Adrian Peterson's fumbles, etc. To say Favre is the reason his teams have lost all eight of those cold-weather games doesn't make sense.
Some other thoughts from last night ...
. I can't join the anti-Childress crowd. Not when they've won 11 games and back-to-back division titles for the first time since Bud Grant was still in his prime. But I will admit that I found myself thinking throughout that second half that the coaching staff needed to get the heck out of Favre's way and let him operate. Favre wanted to play up tempo and shake some life into the team, and it seemed like the coaching staff was smothering him with some slow thinking, if that makes any sense.
The one point where it was obvious came after that long gain to near the goal line. Favre wanted to hurry up and run a play with the same package he had on the field at the time. But the coaching staff slowed him down and ran some new personnel onto the field. Favre was ticked. The next play, I believe, was a run by Peterson that was stopped behind the line of scrimmage. Favre came back and threw the TD to Shiancoe after that.
