Brett Farve to be Completely Covered!
In preparation for Week 8 of the NFL season, let’s ponder a few burning questions involving the league’s movers, shakers and touchdown maker...
In preparation for Week 8 of the NFL season, let’s ponder a few burning questions involving the league’s movers, shakers and touchdown makers.
How huge is Brett Favre’s return to Lambeau Field?
Off the charts.
It immediately rates as the most compelling matchup of the season with the former Green Bay Packers quarterback returning to Wisconsin as a member of the rival Minnesota Vikings on Fox’s 4:15 p.m. national telecast.
Fox Sports, telecast home of the NFC, is so pumped about the matchup that it is showing it in 91 percent of U.S. television markets, including Michigan. The only other Fox doubleheader game scheduled in the late-afternoon time slot features the Carolina Panthers at the Arizona Cardinals.
It won’t miss a split-second of the homecoming.
Fox has positioned a camera high on the 50-yard line that will be isolated on Favre “from the second he takes the field against his former team until the moment he runs back into the locker room.” A constant video streaming of this select angle is available to fans logging onto Foxsports.com and NFL.com.
“I think it will be a much more emotional experience for him than anything he experienced on Monday night in Minneapolis,” Fox analyst Troy Aikman said of Favre’s initial confrontation against his former team on Oct. 5.
“The first time these two teams played, he talked about how nervous he was. I’m sure that experience was very emotional, but different, because of where that game was played,” he added. “This will bring about a different set of emotions.”
From the moment he steps off the team’s charter bus.
“The strange thing will be that he’s going to be dressing in the visitors’ locker room. My guess is that he’ll -- without even thinking about it -- walk into the Packers’ locker room because that’s what he did for all those years,” Aikman said.
If that happened, there might not be a lot of hugging.
The circumstances surrounding Favre’s unceremonious departure from the Packers still remain the subject of endless debate among NFL fans. All of that drama gets repackaged and regurgitated on the network and cable pregame shows.
NFL Network commentator Steve Mariucci, former coach of the Detroit Lions, who is a longtime friend of Favre’s, chat about the Lambeau homecoming on “NFL GameDay Morning,” airing from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m.
“It’s going to be like the Beatles going on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show,’ ” Mariucci said.
Fox’s Terry Bradshaw, an outspoken Favre critic, also has an exclusive interview with the 40-year-old passer on “Fox NFL Sunday” at noon.
Is the NFL serious about sending more games to London?
Yes, unfortunately.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has stated the league plans to begin playing at least two games at Wembley Stadium on an annual basis, perhaps beginning next year. He also said the league might send at least one team to London for a period of four consecutive seasons so that it has a chance to better establish a loyal fan following on the other side of the pond.
I think ESPN commentator and former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka got it right on “Sunday NFL Countdown” when he called it a “stupid” idea.
“I thought the question was, is it the right thing to do? It’s not the right thing to do. Football doesn’t belong over there,” Ditka complained. “It’s a stupid thing to say, period. It’s an American game, not a European game.”
No argument there.