Post by Funkytown on Sept 12, 2019 15:30:44 GMT -6
So many gems in this piece!
THROWBACK THURSDAY!
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Read the whole piece. It's a good one!
THROWBACK THURSDAY!
Aug. 18, 2009: mayhem
CHILDRESS: If my recollection serves, I think I ended up driving out to the airport, one of the private aviation places, I just kind of sat and waited because I had an idea from the pilot — it was Zygi’s pilot [owner Zygi Wilf] — what time they were going to hit the ground. I have to go on the record and say this. I was kind of demonized for driving out and picking him up from the airport. I’m from the Midwest, and when somebody comes to the airport and you want to make them feel at home, you pick them up. It’s not like I was a valet service or something, but I knew he was coming with [his wife] Deanna. And you don’t get a second chance at an impression. And we were getting to know each other at the same time as well. I didn’t know it would be like the O.J. Bronco deal, you know, with the helicopters hovering and following you every step of the way.
LONGWELL: I was texting him as we were watching the O.J. thing, the helicopter with the Suburban or whatever it was. Chilly had told us beforehand that he was going to pick him up, that we got him. We were excited. I was excited to have a friend back.
ROSENFELS: We’re at practice, and I really hadn’t thought about or heard any rumors that we might sign Brett or anything like that. I don’t want to say it’s a shock because it’s the NFL and nothing’s a shock, but it was news to me when the rumors that we were signing Brett Favre happened that day. The moment itself, I remember being in a meeting that morning and Brad Childress pulled Tarvaris and I and John David Booty out of the meeting, brought us into another room and told us we were signing Brett Favre.
SCOGGINS: We found out not really early but maybe 9ish it was being reported that they were flying down to get him. At that point, it’s like it’s on now. For all the ‘is he, is he not,’ he’s not flying up here if he’s not playing. At Winter Park, the media room was in a building across the street from there. It started getting filled with reporters. Then we thought, let’s go wait on the street, and TV trucks used to park on the street. We’re out there, and the plane lands, and one of the TV stations had a TV monitor and so you can see the helicopter chasing him. People started coming. Fans, there must have been 200. The Vikings sent out their security people and a police car came. And there’s reporters, fans, we look down the street and there’s a guy in a full parrot costume from some restaurant. He stood on the corner in a parrot costume holding a sign above his head. We always joke that it was us and a parrot waiting on Favre.
CHILDRESS: We had a good conversation [on the drive]. Me pointing out hey, there’s the Mall of America. We’re driving down the road, trying to give him some bearings, but who knows what’s sticking and not sticking. We go out to Winter Park, pretty easy ride. And then I remember you could hear the helicopter and either [Favre] or Deanna looked up above and had seen it, and I said yeah, it’s kind of a big deal today for Minnesota Vikings fans. Little did we know that when we pulled into Winter Park people would be hanging over the sides of roads trying to get a peek like the president was coming in. Then we came in and made a left to get away from the fanfare and went down around the back way to enter the building. We walked up the back steps, and as luck would have it here comes Percy Harvin from the cafeteria, and that was the first person Brett met. Brett said to him, ‘Hey, I heard great things about you. Make me look good.’ Big smile on Percy’s face, of course. He was spoiled playing anywhere in his first year in the NFL with Brett Favre as his quarterback. He ended up being offensive rookie of the year.
SCOGGINS: The players were all there because they had practice that day. Talking to them later, they were all in the cafeteria having lunch when he got there, and they were watching the O.J. chase on the TV. Visanthe Shiancoe called it Favre-a-palooza. You see Childress picking him up, and you see them coming up the street and the fans storm the car. Cars are stopping in the middle of the road, Childress had to stop because fans were swarming his car. Police are like, ‘Get back! Get back!’ Favre is just waving and smiling that smile. It was berserk. I mean, the whole thing of Favre playing for the Vikings and fans storming the car.
ROSENFELS: I remember being at lunch that day in the cafeteria, sitting at the same table as [Ben] Leber, Jared Allen, and all of us watching TV as the Bronco, whatever, very much like the O.J.-esque scenario, helicopter following a car and all you can see is the arm of a mysterious person inside. It was one of those situations that could have been super awkward but I guess it wasn’t awkward for me as I sat and talked to Leber and Chad Greenway about it. I said, ‘This guy is coming. There goes my chance to be a starter’ — super awkward, right? But it wasn’t. Because I could see why they would do that. We have a Super Bowl-caliber team. He’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer, still has a lot left in the tank. If I was in their situation, I would do the same thing. Not to say Tarvaris or I couldn’t have led that team to the playoffs, but this guy had been there and done that so many times. It was the best play on their end so I wasn’t upset that they made that signing.
LONGWELL: I had been around [Steve Hutchinson] and Jared [Allen] and those guys, and I knew how well Brett would add to the locker room. I knew they’d love him. I knew it would be instant. We just kind of watched it on TV. It was kind of the circus had come to town. But more than that, we had an ally in the locker room. It was instant change.
SCOGGINS: Favre comes out a couple hours later. He didn’t have a purple [jersey] because quarterbacks wear red at practice. And you’re thinking wow here we go, this is something you thought you’d never see.
CHILDRESS: I’ll take you to the first practice — him signing his contract and walking out there and seamlessly knowing our language. Having spoken, let’s say, English in Green Bay, he goes to New York and he’s speaking French. I talked to [former Vikings and Jets fullback] Tony Richardson about it and said, ‘Does he still have it, Tony?’ And he said, ‘Oh, Coach, there’s no doubt about it.’ I’m not sure he ever really took time to learn the playbook [with the Jets] or anything like that, which I don’t think he did, but to be coming back speaking English was big. I said, ‘Do you know X-Y hook, that’s the first play on the script?’ Yeah, that’s no problem. He jumps right in the huddle, command voice comes on. And he puts on a hard count. When everybody gets up there the first time and he barks out the first signals everyone is kind of looking at each other like, ‘Wow, that’s what that’s supposed to sound like, huh?’ Then he zips a pass and everybody goes: Baby, we’re in business.
CHILDRESS: If my recollection serves, I think I ended up driving out to the airport, one of the private aviation places, I just kind of sat and waited because I had an idea from the pilot — it was Zygi’s pilot [owner Zygi Wilf] — what time they were going to hit the ground. I have to go on the record and say this. I was kind of demonized for driving out and picking him up from the airport. I’m from the Midwest, and when somebody comes to the airport and you want to make them feel at home, you pick them up. It’s not like I was a valet service or something, but I knew he was coming with [his wife] Deanna. And you don’t get a second chance at an impression. And we were getting to know each other at the same time as well. I didn’t know it would be like the O.J. Bronco deal, you know, with the helicopters hovering and following you every step of the way.
LONGWELL: I was texting him as we were watching the O.J. thing, the helicopter with the Suburban or whatever it was. Chilly had told us beforehand that he was going to pick him up, that we got him. We were excited. I was excited to have a friend back.
ROSENFELS: We’re at practice, and I really hadn’t thought about or heard any rumors that we might sign Brett or anything like that. I don’t want to say it’s a shock because it’s the NFL and nothing’s a shock, but it was news to me when the rumors that we were signing Brett Favre happened that day. The moment itself, I remember being in a meeting that morning and Brad Childress pulled Tarvaris and I and John David Booty out of the meeting, brought us into another room and told us we were signing Brett Favre.
SCOGGINS: We found out not really early but maybe 9ish it was being reported that they were flying down to get him. At that point, it’s like it’s on now. For all the ‘is he, is he not,’ he’s not flying up here if he’s not playing. At Winter Park, the media room was in a building across the street from there. It started getting filled with reporters. Then we thought, let’s go wait on the street, and TV trucks used to park on the street. We’re out there, and the plane lands, and one of the TV stations had a TV monitor and so you can see the helicopter chasing him. People started coming. Fans, there must have been 200. The Vikings sent out their security people and a police car came. And there’s reporters, fans, we look down the street and there’s a guy in a full parrot costume from some restaurant. He stood on the corner in a parrot costume holding a sign above his head. We always joke that it was us and a parrot waiting on Favre.
CHILDRESS: We had a good conversation [on the drive]. Me pointing out hey, there’s the Mall of America. We’re driving down the road, trying to give him some bearings, but who knows what’s sticking and not sticking. We go out to Winter Park, pretty easy ride. And then I remember you could hear the helicopter and either [Favre] or Deanna looked up above and had seen it, and I said yeah, it’s kind of a big deal today for Minnesota Vikings fans. Little did we know that when we pulled into Winter Park people would be hanging over the sides of roads trying to get a peek like the president was coming in. Then we came in and made a left to get away from the fanfare and went down around the back way to enter the building. We walked up the back steps, and as luck would have it here comes Percy Harvin from the cafeteria, and that was the first person Brett met. Brett said to him, ‘Hey, I heard great things about you. Make me look good.’ Big smile on Percy’s face, of course. He was spoiled playing anywhere in his first year in the NFL with Brett Favre as his quarterback. He ended up being offensive rookie of the year.
SCOGGINS: The players were all there because they had practice that day. Talking to them later, they were all in the cafeteria having lunch when he got there, and they were watching the O.J. chase on the TV. Visanthe Shiancoe called it Favre-a-palooza. You see Childress picking him up, and you see them coming up the street and the fans storm the car. Cars are stopping in the middle of the road, Childress had to stop because fans were swarming his car. Police are like, ‘Get back! Get back!’ Favre is just waving and smiling that smile. It was berserk. I mean, the whole thing of Favre playing for the Vikings and fans storming the car.
ROSENFELS: I remember being at lunch that day in the cafeteria, sitting at the same table as [Ben] Leber, Jared Allen, and all of us watching TV as the Bronco, whatever, very much like the O.J.-esque scenario, helicopter following a car and all you can see is the arm of a mysterious person inside. It was one of those situations that could have been super awkward but I guess it wasn’t awkward for me as I sat and talked to Leber and Chad Greenway about it. I said, ‘This guy is coming. There goes my chance to be a starter’ — super awkward, right? But it wasn’t. Because I could see why they would do that. We have a Super Bowl-caliber team. He’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer, still has a lot left in the tank. If I was in their situation, I would do the same thing. Not to say Tarvaris or I couldn’t have led that team to the playoffs, but this guy had been there and done that so many times. It was the best play on their end so I wasn’t upset that they made that signing.
LONGWELL: I had been around [Steve Hutchinson] and Jared [Allen] and those guys, and I knew how well Brett would add to the locker room. I knew they’d love him. I knew it would be instant. We just kind of watched it on TV. It was kind of the circus had come to town. But more than that, we had an ally in the locker room. It was instant change.
SCOGGINS: Favre comes out a couple hours later. He didn’t have a purple [jersey] because quarterbacks wear red at practice. And you’re thinking wow here we go, this is something you thought you’d never see.
CHILDRESS: I’ll take you to the first practice — him signing his contract and walking out there and seamlessly knowing our language. Having spoken, let’s say, English in Green Bay, he goes to New York and he’s speaking French. I talked to [former Vikings and Jets fullback] Tony Richardson about it and said, ‘Does he still have it, Tony?’ And he said, ‘Oh, Coach, there’s no doubt about it.’ I’m not sure he ever really took time to learn the playbook [with the Jets] or anything like that, which I don’t think he did, but to be coming back speaking English was big. I said, ‘Do you know X-Y hook, that’s the first play on the script?’ Yeah, that’s no problem. He jumps right in the huddle, command voice comes on. And he puts on a hard count. When everybody gets up there the first time and he barks out the first signals everyone is kind of looking at each other like, ‘Wow, that’s what that’s supposed to sound like, huh?’ Then he zips a pass and everybody goes: Baby, we’re in business.
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DAVE SINYKIN, longtime Packers fan and host of Packer Preview on KFAN: Oh man, I can say with complete sincerity that the 2009 season was the most difficult season for me to watch as a fan. I don’t think that could ever be usurped. … Packers fans really split. There were Packers fans and Favre fans. And those that identified as Favre fans cheered for him and wanted success for him. I was not in that group. I was a Packer fan, and I was unhappy he gleefully chose the rival to end his career with. Years have passed and I’ve mellowed a bit. I more than appreciate what he did for the Packers organization. But man, that 2009 season was excruciating.
LONGWELL: I don’t have a lot of my awards or game balls on display. But one of the few pictures I have on my wall is Favre and I in Lambeau in our Vikings uniforms on the ‘G’ in the middle of the field for the coin toss, just the two of us in the photo. I had him sign it to me and I signed it to him, so we both have this photo. You can see just the two of us looking at each other, and in the background is Lambeau and all the fans. We were there for the coin toss, but the Packers captains weren’t out yet and it was literally 72,000 boos at full voice. It was so loud, the boos. Mostly for him because they had already gotten them out on me the previous years. But I looked at him and said, ‘Think about how many guys would love to be in our shoes right now.’ And he said, ‘You ain’t kidding.’ That’s why he came back. That’s why he asked all the questions — for that moment right there. That win solidified everything that 2009 season was all about.
SCOGGINS: Green Bay, the loudest boos I’ve ever heard. Team starts running out, and there are some boos and I’m thinking oh that’s not that bad. Then Favre runs out and it’s like a jet engine. Holy that was loud. I think that wounded him a little bit, how loud it was. He even acknowledged after the game he was a little taken aback. There was no doubt about it.
FAVRE: Ryan and I were very close friends while with both teams, and at that moment we knew what it was like on both sides and only two people in that stadium knew what that was like. That is a special bond. My fondest memories of that game were of my teammates rising to the occasion and to a man coming over and telling me they had my back!
LONGWELL: I don’t have a lot of my awards or game balls on display. But one of the few pictures I have on my wall is Favre and I in Lambeau in our Vikings uniforms on the ‘G’ in the middle of the field for the coin toss, just the two of us in the photo. I had him sign it to me and I signed it to him, so we both have this photo. You can see just the two of us looking at each other, and in the background is Lambeau and all the fans. We were there for the coin toss, but the Packers captains weren’t out yet and it was literally 72,000 boos at full voice. It was so loud, the boos. Mostly for him because they had already gotten them out on me the previous years. But I looked at him and said, ‘Think about how many guys would love to be in our shoes right now.’ And he said, ‘You ain’t kidding.’ That’s why he came back. That’s why he asked all the questions — for that moment right there. That win solidified everything that 2009 season was all about.
SCOGGINS: Green Bay, the loudest boos I’ve ever heard. Team starts running out, and there are some boos and I’m thinking oh that’s not that bad. Then Favre runs out and it’s like a jet engine. Holy that was loud. I think that wounded him a little bit, how loud it was. He even acknowledged after the game he was a little taken aback. There was no doubt about it.
FAVRE: Ryan and I were very close friends while with both teams, and at that moment we knew what it was like on both sides and only two people in that stadium knew what that was like. That is a special bond. My fondest memories of that game were of my teammates rising to the occasion and to a man coming over and telling me they had my back!
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FAVRE: I have not watched [the NFC title game] nor do I plan to. It is still a painful memory. I feel very guilty for not leading us to a victory.
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ROSENFELS: What if Brett never comes? This is a chapter in my book, my unwritten book. I never threw a regular-season pass after I got to Minnesota. So I mean there are a thousand what-ifs if that doesn’t happen for me.
FAVRE: I would have retired 100 percent [had the Vikings won the Super Bowl in 2009]. … I’m glad I came back. At least I know it wasn’t [meant] to be. I would always wonder otherwise.
LONGWELL: [In 2009] we had good breaks and we’re riding high, no locker loom issues, we had no quarrels, everyone was on the same page. That couldn’t have been more opposite in 2010. We lost games we should have won. Guys got dinged and hurt. It was far more of a weird — I wouldn’t say toxic — but just a weird locker room atmosphere. The year before had made guys stars, and that changes. The coaching was more ego-driven. It just wasn’t the same. On top of that, the roof caves in, the starting streak ends, the coach is fired, Randy Moss comes in for [four] weeks, we’re stuck in Philly for four days on a snowstorm that never comes, we play a Monday night game on Ford Field with our logo on it, a Tuesday game in Philly. … You don’t expect your coach on a Saturday night pregame team meeting to lead with ‘We think the roof might cave in.’ You know? We’re like what? No way. And lo and behold the roof caved in. That was just one of a thousand things that were so weird that year. Anything that could go wrong went wrong. It made 2009 even more special, to be honest.
FAVRE: I would have retired 100 percent [had the Vikings won the Super Bowl in 2009]. … I’m glad I came back. At least I know it wasn’t [meant] to be. I would always wonder otherwise.
LONGWELL: [In 2009] we had good breaks and we’re riding high, no locker loom issues, we had no quarrels, everyone was on the same page. That couldn’t have been more opposite in 2010. We lost games we should have won. Guys got dinged and hurt. It was far more of a weird — I wouldn’t say toxic — but just a weird locker room atmosphere. The year before had made guys stars, and that changes. The coaching was more ego-driven. It just wasn’t the same. On top of that, the roof caves in, the starting streak ends, the coach is fired, Randy Moss comes in for [four] weeks, we’re stuck in Philly for four days on a snowstorm that never comes, we play a Monday night game on Ford Field with our logo on it, a Tuesday game in Philly. … You don’t expect your coach on a Saturday night pregame team meeting to lead with ‘We think the roof might cave in.’ You know? We’re like what? No way. And lo and behold the roof caved in. That was just one of a thousand things that were so weird that year. Anything that could go wrong went wrong. It made 2009 even more special, to be honest.
... and neither is this Chris guy.