Great.

By now you’ve all heard the news. You’re probably sick of the news. As KFAN’s Dan Cole brilliantly put it, “The Ego has landed.” It’s been a whirlwind couple of days with both local and national media fawning over the Vikings’ newest quarterback. The consensus opinion seems to be that a) this is the biggest signing in the history of the NFL, and b) the Vikings are now the favorites to win the Super Bowl.

The second statement is, of course, preposterous. The whole circus surrounding #4 is ridiculous in and of itself, but the hype Vikings fans have talked themselves into is insane. Everyone seems to believe that a 40 year old man who recently had his bicep detached and has a tear in his rotator cuff is going to be the savior of the franchise. That a guy who almost single-handedly played the Jets out of a playoff spot last year is going to send the Purple to Miami in February.

My favorite part of the argument for Captain Wrangler is that “he’s better than Sage or T Jack.” Well my little brother is a better quarterback than Tarvaris, so that argument holds no weight. The question I have: is The One That Shall Not Be Mentioned really better than Sage Rosenfels? Think about this seriously for a second. Forget about the name, the MVP’s, the Super Bowls, the records—everything from the past. Can the BrettBackers honestly say that the player #4 is right now is truly better than Sage? If you ask me, it’s pretty much a draw. Both guys will make the occasional amazing pass. Both guys will have the occasional brilliant game. Both guys are prone to forcing passes when they’re not there. Both guys are very apt at throwing interceptions, especially late in games.


Nice kick, dork

The Purple colored glasses that Vikes fans have put on since Tuesday morning is hindering their ability to rationalize and admit to themselves the truth: this Minnesota Vikings team, with Sage or #4, is likely to win the Central and has an outside chance to make a run in the playoffs. The crazy part to me is that most people understood these expectations up until two days ago. Now we add Brett from Mississippi and all of a sudden we go from a playoff team to a Super Bowl team. Why? Consider the following stats from Gray Beard in recent years:

--In 2001, he threw six interceptions (three for TDs) in a 45-17 playoff loss to the Rams.
--In 2002, his heavily favored Packers team lost to Mike Vick’s wild-card Falcons (Favre had three turnovers).
--In 2003, he basically gave a playoff game away to the Eagles with a classic Brett Favre here-you-go interception.
--In 2004, Favre threw four picks to the eight-win Vikings in a wild-card game loss.
--In 2005 he was the 31st-rated QB in the NFL and missed the playoffs.
--In 2006 he improved, to the 26th-rated QB in the league.
--In his 2007 “bounce-back” season (an anomaly compared to everything surrounding it) he ended the Packers season with an interception in OT against the Giants at home.
--In 2008, his Jets team went 1-4 in the final 5 games to miss the playoffs.

That, my friends, is an ugly playoff résumé from the previous eight seasons. Yet the rubes in this town think that this guy is going to be the final piece of the puzzle for playoff success in Minnesota? C’mon. In the past four seasons, Favre has thrown 88 TDs and 84 INTs. Take out his ‘07 “bounce-back” season and those numbers dwindle to 60 TDs and 69 interceptions. In fact, '07 is the only year in the past four where Favre threw more TDs than picks. He led the league in interceptions in ‘05 and ‘08, while being in the top 5 in ’04 and ’06.


Yeah, he's great in the clutch...

This is the guy that everyone rushed to Winter Park to see get out of a car and was followed by local news helicopters. Keep these stats in mind when YOUR new favorite quarterback fails to deliver once again and the Purple are at home wondering what happened.

*Special thanks to friend of TKOT Nate Baraga (and the website he used) for the statistics used in this article.*