Nuggets at Suns

Well, I'm glad I watched that. The Denver Nuggets just lost to the Phoenix Suns 132-117. What's weird is I'm not even sure how they did it. The Nuggets absolutely blew the Suns out in the first half, leading by fourteen after one quarter and nineteen at the half. And it looked easy for them, in an up-and-down game that gave Denver plenty of wide-open shots.

The Suns won by fifteen, so I guess however good Denver's run was in the first half, theirs was that much better. But they didn't seem that impressive, which I suppose they'll take with a 15-point victory. My thoughts on the game:

1. My favorite part of the game had to be the complete contempt in which the Altitude accouncers (Chris Marlowe and Scott Hastings) held Suns point guard Steve Nash. At one point late in the first half, Nash was on Iverson, one of them pointed out how Iverson knows he can score on Nash whenever he wants. While that's true, don't they know they're supposed to couch white players' deficiencies using meaningless statements like, say, "Nash is actually a very solid team defender"?

2. Going in, I was excited to see how Shaq has changed the Suns. I don't know if he has or not. He didn't seem all that central to Phoenix's game plan. On the other hand, he had 20 and 12.

3. A couple weeks ago I was waiting for a haircut inside Great Clips, which helps explain why I'm single. Anyway, some guy was chatting up the haircutress about how Carmelo Anthony's the reason the Nuggets struggle, and how he doesn't make his teammates any better.

Look, I understand Carmelo hasn't won a major championship in a few years, but what games was that guy watching? Anthony has improved tremendously this year, and he forces a lot fewer shots than he used to. He has the best field-goal percentage of his career, he's finally rebounding at a respectable rate (7.3 per game), and though he has his lowest scoring average in three years, it's still the fourth-best in the NBA. There's room for improvement, but he plays hard, shoots well in the clutch, and has jelled with Allen Iverson better than almost every oberserver thought possible. Plus he's friggin' 23. Give the guy a break.

4. I don't know what it is, but I like what I've seen from Kenyon Martin lately. He doesn't have all his explosiveness back (and at 30, he may never have it), but he hustles and seems to do a better job fitting in now. For example, I didn't see him jack up a bunch of 18-footers tonight like he used to. Man, I hated that. For now, he's accepting his role and playing to his strengths.

5. J.R. Smith is awesome, and I love how he fits in on the team as a third or fourth scoring option. He made three circus shots he was fouled on on his way to 23 points.

6. It's good to see Nene healthy and back on the floor, but he's still a ways off from truly contributing. He did look good in his brief stint, though.

7. Question for you guys: should both teams usually get the same number of free throws in a game? I had a roommate in college who reffed intramural games and told me about that principle as though I should have known it already. To me it makes no sense: whoever gets fouled while shooting should take free throws, and let's just leave it at that.

Phoenix shot 36 free throws to Denver's 27, and made a ton of them (33 makes for the Suns vs. 16 for Denver). But the refs gave the Nuggets a fair shake for the most part. (Of course, it wouldn't be an NBA game without a few calls that make you say, "whaaaaaaaaaat?") Anyway, I thought it was interesting considering how the Altitude crew bemoaned Phoenix's edge at the stripe.

8. Nash (36 points, eight assists) and Amare Stoudemire (41 ponts, 14 boards) absolutely lit it up for Phoenix, but I was disappointed to see how much the beastly Stoudemire flops these days. Come on, man.

Very Short Rockies Preview

Holy cow, it's opening day. How did I not know that? Anyway, the Rockies begin their season today with a game against the Cardinals in St. Louis.

I haven't studied the National League much, but I thought the Rockies were legitimately the best team in it last year. Since they kept their young roster together, I expect them to be very good again. (Sounds good, right?)

I think the playoffs are mostly a crapshoot, so I won't make any predictions there. But I do expect the Rockies to win the N.L. West.

It's Four Ones

With victories by Kansas and Memphis today, this is officially the worst NCAA tournament of all-time, as every single No. 1 seed has made the Final Four.

It could just be a statistical blip, but I think there are two reasons the tournament has played out this way. First, I think that despite the age limit enforced by the NBA in recent years, pro basketball continues to take most of the best players. And as the talent pool gets smaller and smaller, the talent gap between the haves and have-nots gets wider and wider. It's like Reaganomics, but for basketball.

And the second reason is that Davidson can't pick an end-of-game play to save its life. What the FREAK was that? Let's throw the ball to Curry, give him no help (screens, cutters, whatever), and see what kind of shot the one scorer on our team can saunter up the court and create for himself. Come on! What did they think he was gonna do?

UCLA, UNC in the Final Four

I didn't see the UCLA game, though, so no words on it. (No one's going to see this post until Monday, but what the heck: how wrong would it be if all the No. 1 seeds make the Final Four?)

I did see the fourth quarter (last ten minutes or so) of North Carolina's win over Louisville, and saw both encouraging and worrisome signs, but mostly encouraging. (UNC is my favorite team and my pick to win it all.) I was worried because at around the ten-minute mark, the game was tied and the Cardinals seemed to be out-hustling the Tar Heels. Indeed, Louisville's defense appeared to force a few travels, though they weren't called. But North Carolina slowly pulled away, figured out the pressure, and hit the shots down the stretch. The Tar Heels took complete control of the game and won.

Also, the game reminded me why I can't stand watching college basketball on TV. Because apparently Tyler Hansbrough is not only the hardest-working AND best player in college basketball, but dominates both categories by such a wide margin that it must be mentioned every 2.3 seconds. Hansbrough hit a few jumpers, including two key ones right near the end of the game. One was dead-on from about 17 feet. He dribbled into it and hit it with a guy coming up to defend, but it still didn't look like that tough of a shot. The second involved a fake three, and then a quick pull-up off a move to his left. Two solid shots for a 6'9" guy (sort of; more on this in a sec), but since he's the star of North Carolina the announcers launch into this whole spiel about his work ethic. They go off for so long, that on two separate occasions during this rant they mention how sometimes his hustle is so impressive it overshadows his skill. They then point out that his skill level is also worthy of adulation. I also learned that not even Michael Jordan out-competes Tyler Hansbrough, which thing I had never before supposed.

Here's the thing. First, this "hardest worker ever" garbage comes up every few years. I seem to remember hearing many of the same lines said about Shane Battier, for example. And second, the simple fact that most 6'9"-and-up guys are way too lazy to practice a jump shot does not make Tyler Hansbrough a special individual. He's doing what they all should be doing, and that's working on his craft. It's cool that he was cool enough to take them, but pretty-open shots of near free-throw length should be gimmes. I hate seeing curve grading infect a competitive stage as important as the Elite Eight. And still, the shots Hansbrough made were pretty easy by NBA standards.


Postscript: After the game, I caught the very end of the Nuggets' win over the Warriors, which put the Nuggets into the eighth and final playoff spot in the West—for now. The Nuggets are on a five-game winning streak and should make the playoffs. I certainly hope they do. But, on the other hand, if as speculated they win 50 games but somehow miss the postseason, I won't weep and wail. Why? Because if you want to make the NBA playoffs, you don't do it by winning 50 games; you do it by having one of the top eight records in your conference. Mostly, though, I'm just trying to be logically consistent: I couldn't stand all the Democrats moaning, "But Al Gore won the popular vote" back in 2000. Neat, guys, but that's not the scoreboard we actually go by, and you knew that going in. Also, a programming note: I plan to be evaluating a few key NBA teams next week, including the Nuggets-Suns game Monday.

SI archives now available online

Okay, I think this is really cool, though I don't know if anyone else will care: Sports Illustrated has made its archives available online, and as far as I can tell they're complete.

The site was up last week, technically, but I couldn't actually get to very many articles. They seem to have ironed out whatever problems they were having and if you have some free time, I recommend you check it out.

Two articles have already caught my eye: this one, about Michael Jordan's struggles in professional baseball, and Rick Reilly's fantastic tour-de-force he wrote on John Elway late in Elway's career.

If I recall correctly, the Jordan piece led to his not speaking with the magazine for several years, which SI must have regretted when he returned to the NBA. I'm not sure I blame him, either: the article is chock-full of cheap shots, and the writer and several people quoted find a shameless glee in his struggles, which is kind of hilarious, considering how their professional accomplishments look next to Jordan's. (I especially love the Astro who wouldn't even go on the record, and whose cutdown sucked anyway. Also, Randy Johnson's "I'd like to see how much air time he'd get on one of my inside pitches" line calls to mind Arnold Schwarzenegger's performance as Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin, but only if you capitalize AIR TIME. "I'd like to see how much AIR TIME His AIR-NESS will find in this AT-MOS-PHERE...HUH HOO HA HA...MY HEART IS COLD.")

As for the Elway piece, it was reprinted in one of those "Your team just won the championship of the world!" special edition magazines, which I have and cherish to this day.

Go ahead and give it a look-see. Who knows? You might even learn something!

Great upsets

I don't like to brag much, but at one point this weekend in my family's bracket challenge on ESPN, my five bracket entires held the bottom five spots in the lineup of fourteen, which I assume is why no one reads this blog.

While I missed a ton of basketball this weekend, I did get to see much of my favorite game: West Virginia over Duke. I hate Duke and it's always fun to see them fail, though perhaps it would have been more fun had Preakness University done the honors in the first round. I don't really care for Bob Huggins, either, except that now I think he deserves a 200-foot statue and a place in the Hall of Fame.

To be fair, these program schools are a little odd. Beating Duke this year isn't like beating Jason Williams/Shane Battier Duke, and it's nothing like beating Trajan Langdon/Elton Brand Duke. In retrospect the Blue Devils were a pretty good team, but not really championship material. The odd thing about watching the West Virginia game was that I kept expecting Duke to make some kind of run, and they simply couldn't. How far the mighty have fallen, at least for now, and how sweet it is.

Also exciting is Georgetown's loss today to Davidson. Next weekend I have to catch me some Stephen Curry. Georgetown's loss left my brackets in tatters, too, but who freaking cares? The whole point of the opening weekend is watching high-seeded teams fall flat on their face, and if you get some great individual performances, too, that's all the better.

And finally, I guess a No. 6 should lose to a No. 3, but I'm still pleased that Oklahoma managed to fall short by so much (by 30 points to Louisville, a small town near my home). I absolutely can't stand Oklahoma, and I hate their basketball team as much as their football team, which is rare for me. The University of Utah is probably the only other school to inspire that kind of feeling from me. I mean I don't like Nebraska's hoops team, but I don't have to hear about them, either.

What did y'all think of the weekend?

Elam goes to the Falcons

This weekend brought sad news for Denver Broncos fans: Jason Elam, the team's long-time kicker and one of the few remaining links to the franchise's Super Bowl championship teams, has signed a four-year, $9 million deal with the Atlanta Falcons.

The article at the link points out one cool fact I'd either missed or forgotten: as of last season, Elam has played in more games than any other player in Broncos history.

Two of Elam's performances stand out in my mind. The first, of course, was his 63-yard field goal during the Broncos' dominant 1998 season. The Broncos were playing the Jacksonville Jaguars, their hated rivals who'd ended their season prematurely in 1996. Yes, the Broncos got sweet revenge in the playoffs in 1997 with a 25-point victory, but the Jaguars were still despised in Denver, and the game was almost Raiders week-like in its buildup, at least for me.

Man, that was one of the most memorable regular season games ever. It was the seventh of the season, a game in which Denver ran its record to 7-0 and in which eventual MVP Terrell Davis crossed the 1,000-yard threshold. But anyway, right before halftime, the Broncos took a delay-of-game penalty, moved back five yards, and gave Elam a shot at immortality.

The kick was true, right down the middle, and probably would have gone in from a few more yards...not that it needed to be any longer to impress. Tremendous and, I should point out, slightly longer than Tom Dempsey's original 63-yarder.

Perhaps even more crucial was Elam's performance in the AFC Championship game against the New York Jets that year. The Broncos were favored in the windy home game, but the Jets took a 10-0 lead early in the second half. John Elway got off to something of a rough start, but I'm pretty sure Vinny Testaverde started off 13-for-13 or something. Just ridiculous. Anyway, following New York's touchdown was the memorable play in which Ed McCaffrey and Rod Smith lined up on the opposite ends of the field from which they were supposed to, followed by Elway's frantic flip-flop signal to them to switch their routes, followed by a 47-yard bomb to McCaffrey. After a touchdown pass to Howard Griffith, Elam kicked off, the ball bounced around, and the Broncos fell on it: it was the longest onside kick I'd ever seen.

On that possession and the next, Elam hit two clutch field goals to regain the lead, and he added another in the fourth. I remember his two field goals not for their distance (though 44 and 48-yard kicks are nice indeed), but because Elam said after the game that he had actually had to aim outside of the uprights and let the wind do the rest. In Elway's last home game, the Broncos were lucky to have a kicker so smart.

Obviously Elam has slipped over the years; his record kick was almost ten years ago, after all, and the Broncos have brought in various kickoff specialists in recent seasons to protect his aging right leg. But he's been rock-solid at a position where shakiness can submarine a team, and he's been incredibly clutch for years and years. It was clear that Elam would be moving on soon anyway, but it's always sad to see a great Bronco go.

Are the Rockets for real?

When the Houston Rockets lost Yao Ming for the rest of the season due to injury, I was relieved. The Rockets were on a 12-game winning streak at the time, but I figured they weren't really championship contenders, and if someone has to get hurt, I'd rather it was someone who wasn't going to win it all anyway.

Since then, the Rockets have extended their streak to 22 wins in a row, a remarkable feat by anyone's standards. Should I be changing my tune?

There are some reasons to say yes, and some to say no. In the positive column: the Rockets' win streak has finally moved them to the top of the Western Conference standings, where they're one game ahead of the New Orleans Hornets and Los Angeles Lakers. (Not the trio I would have guessed at the start of the season.) Second, they've...well, I guess that's it, unless you count their winning 22 freaking games in a row.

However, I still think there are more reasons to be pessimistic. First, Houston is barely in first in the conference, despite winning more than a quarter of the season in a row. To me, that means their true level lies somewhere between where they started and where they are now, unless you think Yao was really holding them back. Another piece of the puzzle is Houston's average 5.5-point margin of victory, which is only third in the West behind L.A. and the dastardly Utah Jazz. And it's not even close to the 10.3-point margin averaged by the Boston Celtics, who have exceeded no one's expectations but my own. (To be fair, Houston's average during the current win streak is over twelve points, but I think that just underscores how bad they started.)

More to the point, who's the top-caliber player on Houston's roster that's going to carry them through the playoffs? I hope you think it's Tracy McGrady, since he's the only active Rocket scoring more than 13 points a game. While McGrady is a tremendous talent, and one of the most skilled basketball players on the planet, he's yet to show he can carry a team deep into the playoffs by himself. And I'm not sure if anyone has that talent: even Hall of Famers who've led their teams to titles in recent years have had guys like Scottie Pippen, David Robinson, and Kobe Bryant by their side. (Don't give me that teamwork crap, either: I guess it worked for the Pistons, once, but they had five starters who were all B+ level players, whereas the Rockets have one active player that good. Maaaaaaaybe two. Not five.)

As much as I'd love to see '90s-era Nuggets like Dikembe Mutombo and Bobby Jackson get rings (actually, scratch that, I love Jackson but still think Mutombo's a chump for chasing the cash to friggin' Atlanta), I just don't see it happening for the Rockets this year.

Basketball in brief

1. The Nuggets scored 168 points Sunday night, the fourth-highest total in regulation in NBA history, in beating the Sonics by 52.

I didn't see the game (some fan), but the box score paints an interesting picture. No one had a breakout game (Carmelo Anthony led all scorers with 26 points), but almost everyone shot well: J.R. Smith (7-for-15) and Eduardo Najera (0-for-3) were the only Nuggets who shot under 50%. (And if you look closer, Smith was 4-for-10 on threes and 3-for-5 on two-point attempts, both of which are very good percentages.)

Even weirder, the Nuggets only out-rebounded the Sonics by six, and attempted just three more free throws. Denver even took six fewer field goals than Seattle. And bizarrely, four of Seattle's five starters shot over 50%.

I don't know what conclusions you can draw from this game, other than that it would have been sweet to watch.

2. March Madness starts this week, technically on Tuesday night but really on Thursday. (The play-in game is pretty stupid, though I'm sure whoever came up with it is pretty proud of himself.)

It's always kind of nice, since my first post here was about the NCAA tournament, and it means HPS has flourished for another year, or something like that.

I haven't watched enough college basketball this year (read: any) to give you good advice for your brackets, other than this: stay loyal. The closest I ever came to winning my family's bracket challenge was in 2005, when one of my five brackets started 13-0 and I was in the lead going in to the championship game. Unfortunately, though I'm a staunch North Carolina supporter, I'd picked Illinois to win that game, which meant when UNC won, I lost. (I'd picked every game in that bracket by winning percentage, so it wouldn't have been all that impressive to win, but at this age I wonder if I'll ever be that close again...)

Broncos' front office weirdness

Ted Sundquist, who's been the Denver Broncos' general manager since 2002, no longer holds that title. (It's not clear what the circumstances of his departure are yet.) From the linked AP article:

In a brief statement Wednesday, head coach Mike Shanahan said the organization needed to fresh ideas.

'I am grateful to Ted for all his hard work and efforts on behalf of the Broncos for the past 16 years,' Shanahan said. 'Now is the time for our organization to move forward and look at new directions. We are prepared to do so, starting with our ongoing draft planning, and along with continuing preparations for our mini-camps and training camp.'

This is a surprising move, at least to me. (Did anyone else see this coming?) There's no question the Broncos could do much better acquiring new players through the draft and free agency. However, and I mean no offense to Mr. Sundquist or his family, but I don't think I'm alone in seeing him as something of a puppet general manager. Whether or not he actually did make many of the decisions himself, it always seemed like Shanahan was ultimately responsible.

I mean, did Ted Sundquist single-handedly decide to release the heart and soul of the defense last year? And did Ted Sundquist undermine Jake Plummer and run him out of town prematurely? Because, gosh, whoever's been doing all that--it seems to me like that guy's the one who should be held responsible.

Maybe Sundquist pushed hard for these and other bad decisions. Or maybe he really did have no input, and just got to be a general manager of an NFL team for a few years without having any real responsibilities. Guess he wouldn't exactly be a victim in either situation, though it does suck to lose your job.

I imagine we'll get a clearer picture of the reasons for this move in the days ahead; I'm just unsure how this will help the Broncos going forward.

Of course, the decisions coming from Dove Valley will still bear the indelible mark of Shanahan. I've maintained for ages that Shanahan is among the best coaches in the NFL, and is, in all practical terms, good enough that it's impossible for any new hire to be an improvement.

I've also thought in recent years, though, that he's lost his Midas touch as a personnel evaluator. Here's a guy who had drafted well high (Trevor Pryce, Al Wilson), low (Terrell David, Tom Nalen), and signed big names (Neil Smith), unknowns (Ed McCaffrey), and known busts (Bubby Brister) and made them all shine. But lately, it's all gone the other way. For example, since the mid-'90s, the Broncos have developed exactly one wide receiver (Brandon Marshall), despite drafting Marcus Nash and Ashley Lelie in the first round, and they've disposed of nearly every productive pass rusher they've stumbled into.

On the other hand, the team has had a progression of fantastic running backs, and I'll admit I was absolutely wrong about the Clinton Portis for Champ Bailey and a No. 2 deal. Shanahan's not a failure or anything, but he's not the world's best anymore, either.

I've suggested before that Shanahan should coach as long as he wants, but that the team should reduce his influence on personnel matters. That may not be realistic, and I think at this point he either stays in all his roles, or he goes. And despite a mostly-disappointing decade (only the 2005 team approached greatness, though the 2000 squad showed promise), I don't think that Shanahan's time in Denver has come. But I also don't think it's a ridiculous question to be asking anymore. What do you think?

It's a business.

That's what we say, isn't it, whenever some soul-crushing free agent deal comes to pass? Sports is business. It might be true, but it usually sucks.

Sometimes it's good. (It's probably good exactly as often as it's bad, but sports fans are by nature pessimists.) For example, some recent good: the Rockies signing anybody and everybody to long-term deals, the most recent being Brad Hawpe. They've also reached four-year agreements with pitchers Aaron Cook and Manny Corpas. Matt Holliday got two more years. My favorite deal, of course, was the one with Troy Tulowitzki, who the Rockies ripped off to the tune of six years and $31 million. Of course, if Tulo had signed for 1 year and $150 million, I'd still defend the signing.

Unfortunately, Denver just got a big taste of the bad, too, as former Broncos wide receiver Javon Walker has reached a six-year deal with the Oakland Raiders. It's even worse because he wasn't a normal free agent; the Broncos had just cut Walker Friday, supposedly to get out of paying him a $5.4 million bonus.

$5.4 million is a freaking crapload of money, and it's not mine the Broncos would have spent, but you can't let such a clutch receiver go to your ultimate rival over something as fleeting as cash, can you?

For a guy who basically played one season for the Broncos (he was on the team for two years, but was injured much of the most recent season), Walker sure won me over in a hurry. Shoot, he had me sold in his second game as a Bronco, a 9-6 overtime win against Kansas City in which he made some key catches down the stretch. Then he spent the rest of the year doing nothing but catch long bomb after long bomb, even as the team fell apart around him. What a stud.

Unfortunately, Walker's first year ended in tragedy, as he was famously in the car with Darrent Williams when Williams was shot and killed. If Walker said to the Broncos this year that he just wanted out of Denver no matter what the cost, then I don't really fault him or the team, but I've seen no indication that that's the case.

It's also possible that the Broncos decided Walker's knee injuries are officially chronic, but on the other hand I'm sure the Raiders had him take a physical before signing the contract. Well, actually, I'm never sure with those guys, especially if Al Davis still has any input. And he should; he's certainly done a bang-up job the last few years.

I want Walker to do well in life and football, but going to the Raiders? Right now I feel like Moe Szyslak. I'm a well-wisher for Walker, in that I don't wish him any specific harm.

Brett Favre retires

Three-time NFL MVP and Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre is retiring.

Favre retires as the NFL's all-time leader in touchdown passes, passing yards, and wins by a starting quarterback. Most famously, he started 275 regular season and playoff games in a row, which is one of the most amazing streaks of my lifetime. And Favre is the league's career record holder for interceptions.

Favre's been one of my favorite players in the league for a long time, though I've always regretted not watching him more during his MVP years. Not only was he clearly a fantastic talent, he played with the style I love. There are a lot of different ways to be a great quarterback. Some guys, like Dan Marino and Peyton Manning, can throw the ball with absolute precision and are deadly from the pocket. I usually don't find it quite as exciting watching these guys, though for some reason I loved Kurt Warner in 1999. There's another style, quarterbacks who are a little more athletic, incredibly accurate, and cool under pressure, but maybe don't have quite the same zip on the ball. I'd put someone like Joe Montana or Tom Brady in this class. (When I say athletic, I mean a few things, but remember that Montana held the record for rushing yards by a quarterback in a Super Bowl game for years until Steve McNair broke it.) I like these guys, and I definitely respect them, too.

And then there's Favre, who had a style all his own, but who also shared many characteristics with the great John Elway. Favre had an incredibly strong arm, mobility, toughness, courage, creativity, and, above all, passion. Players like that are the quarterbacks I love the most. They're so much fun to watch, and even when they're down, you know there's always a chance you'll see a comeback for the ages.

Favre will be missed. I don't quite feel sorry for Packers fans, who after all spent the last decade and a half watching one of the game's living legends week in and week out. I think the Elway comparison is apt for another reason. The fact is, of all the great players who retired in recent years, only Elway symbolized his franchise the way Favre did (though Dan Marino and Barry Sanders came awfully close). As a Broncos fan, I know what loyal Packers fans are about to go through, and it ain't pretty.

First off: you think the broadcasters talk a lot about Favre now? Just wait until he's not even in the stadium, but they make thinly-veiled references to him every game. After every sack, and after every pick, comes either second-guessing, or predictions that the fans will soon start second-guessing. (The real ones won't so much, because they appreciated what they had in Favre when they had him, but the bandwagon guys are going to hate Aaron Rodgers.)

Second: your team is going to be worse. Probably a lot worse. It's true that Favre is imperfect, like all quarterbacks. But it's also true he was an absolute known quantity. The Packers never had to wonder if their quarterback was good enough, or if he was going to have confidence problems, or if he could handle the defense that week, or, bizarrely, if he was ever going to get seriously hurt. Having a great quarterback makes building a team so much easier, especially an offense. With Favre throwing passes, you can tell right away whether that young receiver's going to make it. When the quarterback's a question mark, suddenly people make excuses for everyone else on the offense. That doesn't happen when you have a guy like Favre. And besides, with Favre in the game, the Packers always had a fighting chance, and they won't have that anymore.

Ironically, though, the Packers did have some pretty sweet luck picking quarterbacks in Favre's time. They're just all gone now. I'm talking guys like Kurt Warner, Mark Brunell, and Matt Hasselbeck. Except for Hasselbeck, who is much younger than Favre, Favre outlasted them all as good players, which is remarkable.

Third: no replacement will ever be good enough. Deal with it. Favre didn't end on quite as high of a note as Elway did, but he played well his last year and almost made the Super Bowl. Favre got his team to a conference championship game at home, but lost. One of Elway's replacements, Jake Plummer, did the same thing, and it didn't keep him from getting run out of town a year later. Even worse, in the coming years your team will probably have a quarterback who actually IS bad, like the Broncos did with Brian Griese. The worst thing in the world is for a guy like that to show flashes, because then he'll keep getting chance after chance after chance. The thing is, it's not normal to have a great quarterback anchor your team for 15 years. Instead, you'll probably get by with a mix of draft picks and free agents for a while.

Brett Favre was a fantastic player and the face of the NFL for years. Don't be sad he's leaving, just remember how great he was, and be glad he left on his terms.