Gunslinger Page 16

  Thanks to the win, Southern Miss was invited to play North Carolina State in the All-American Bowl. However, 17 days after the victory, Hallman accepted a five-year, $85,000 contract to replace Mike Archer as the head coach at Louisiana State. In the blink of an eye, the Golden Eagles were a surging bowl-bound team without a coach. Then, five days after Hallman and most of his staff departed for Baton Rouge, the administration hired back Jeff Bower, the former offensive coordinator who had left four years earlier, to be his immediate replacement. Many of the Southern Miss players were crushed. Hallman was more than a coach. He was a father figure; a guide. Favre, though, loved Bower. Especially when the new coach met with Favre and told him, “I’ve got you for one game, and we’re gonna open this offense up and see what happens.”

  The words were cotton candy to the quarterback’s palate. Favre’s arm was as strong as ever. Hallman and Allison simply were not letting him use it properly, replacing deep throws down the sidelines and 20-yard outs with dump offs and draw plays. Every time he heard of an NFL scout attending one of the team’s underwhelming offensive showings, Favre surely wondered whether his future was taking a hit. “I’m not sure all of Brett’s strengths were fully utilized,” said Whitcomb. “I could see that being frustrating.”

  The final game of Favre’s college career was, from a cinematic standpoint, perfectly placed. Now in its 14th season, the All-American Bowl would be played in Birmingham, at Legion Field, home to Southern Miss 27, Alabama 24 a mere three months earlier. The Golden Eagles players and coaches checked in to the Wynfrey Hotel four days before the game, and Bower—back on the scene, trying to get his footing—made it clear that his guys should have fun.

  Though Birmingham is hardly New Orleans or Atlanta, its bars and restaurants were tantalizing destinations for Favre and the other Southern Miss seniors, all liberated by the imminent end of their collegiate careers. So, when practices were over and the obligatory appearances concluded, the players hit the town, drinking as if their spirals and tackles were powered by hops. Meanwhile, during the day, Bower and Favre worked side by side on turning the offense on its head, planning three- and four-receiver sets and hoping to fully utilize Jackson, whose blazing speed could exploit a plodding Wolfpack secondary.

  The result was the bowl game of the year, one Favre would look back upon as one of the most joyful—and heartbreaking—moments of his collegiate career. Wolfpack quarterback Terry Jordan was just as captivating as Southern Miss’s star, and the two went back and forth exchanging brilliant throws. The Golden Eagles opened the scoring on a 10-yard touchdown pass from Favre to Mark Montgomery. Jordan returned fire with a 10-yard option keeper into the end zone. Back and forth, back and forth. Favre threw for 341 yards and two scores. Jordan threw for 166 yards and one touchdown. On the final play of the game, with North Carolina State leading 31–27, Favre—who frantically marched his team 48 yards down the field—dropped back at the Wolfpack 20, convinced he was about to go out a winner. Instead, with eight seconds left, he was chased toward the sidelines by defensive end Corey Edmond. With nowhere to turn, Favre fumbled the ball forward and out of bounds, trying to stop the clock. Time, though, expired. On Southern Miss. On Brett Favre.

  As the white-and-red-clad Wolfpack players swarmed the turf in ecstasy, the greatest quarterback in Southern Miss history lay sprawled out on the field, crushed in disbelief. He would be named the game’s MVP, but took no pride in the honor.

  “You always think you can pull it out at the end,” he said afterward. “But tonight, we didn’t.”

  On January 19, 1991, Brett Favre headed to Mobile, Alabama, for the 42nd Senior Bowl. He felt the pressure. After an up-and-down season with up-and-down results against (with some obvious exceptions) mediocre competition, here was a chance to face the best players in the country. So what if he was listed as McGwire’s backup on the AFC squad? He would play, and—dammit—he would play well. To hell with USC and Miami and Alabama and Texas. This was Brett Favre’s time to shine. In the days before kickoff, Favre met with executives from a half-dozen franchises, including Denver, Washington, Cleveland, Buffalo, and the Jets and Giants. That Thursday, he even went to dinner with Mike Holovak, the Houston Oilers’ general manager, who was seeking a young backup for Warren Moon. This was turning into a good week. A great week.

  And then . . . it wasn’t. As McGwire lit up the NFC squad for 165 yards and two touchdowns, Favre played terribly. He attempted 15 throws. He completed 7. They covered 62 yards. There were several other quarterbacks in the game (Alabama’s Hollingsworth, Louisville’s Nagle, Rice’s Donald Hollas), and Favre was easily the most inept. It was even worse afterward, when instead of spouting off a bunch of clichés to the press, he fumed. “Hell, I got killed,” he said of shoddy protection from the offensive line. “What I need is a cold beer. That’s what I need. It wasn’t fun. I didn’t enjoy it. I’m glad I came, but I’m coming away with a lot of bruises. All [an all-star game] is really is a game of pitch and catch. I didn’t get the protection that some of the other guys got, though. For me it was more a game of getting killed than pitch and catch.”

  Afterward, Joe Mendes, the New England Patriots’ personnel director, spoke about what he had just witnessed. “There’s no complete player in this draft like a Troy Aikman or a Terry Bradshaw,” said Mendes, whose team had the No. 1 selection. “Jeff George [the Illinois quarterback who went to Indianapolis as the 1990 No. 1 pick] lacked the real good movement, but had a strong arm and quick release. There isn’t a Jeff George in this draft.”

  Favre wondered whether he’d blown his golden ticket. Never before had he played in front of so many scouts, and never before had he played so badly in front of such a large crowd. “It wasn’t good,” said Ricky Watters, the Notre Dame tailback and Favre’s Senior Bowl teammate. “I didn’t know who Brett was, but I wasn’t impressed. He threw everything 100 miles per hour. There was no touch. His balls were impossible to catch. Maybe it was nerves.”

  One week later, Favre found himself in Palo Alto, California, for the East-West Shrine Game, yet another college all-star fest for those entering the draft. Although he was scarred from the misery of Mobile, Favre didn’t show it. This was his first-ever trip to California, and the week was dreamy. The bowl organizers supplied cars for every player. They stayed in hotel suites, with a generous daily food per diem. Trips were arranged to Alcatraz and San Francisco. Practices didn’t begin until 2:00 p.m., so there was no pressure for early bedtimes or set alarm clocks. “We all went out and drank lots of beer,” said Blake Miller, Louisiana State’s center and East teammate. “You’d be out all night, hanging with these guys you never met before, having a lot of fun. It was pretty sweet.”

  To many, Brett Favre remained a mystery. Teammates from the South knew the legend of his 70-yard throws, but others had never heard of him. The majority of the West roster couldn’t pronounce his name. “He was a small-school guy,” said Joe Valerio, a center from the University of Pennsylvania. “I felt out of place being from Penn. But he was just like me, so we probably bonded a little. Nobody knew who I was, nobody knew who Brett Favre was.”

  For as awful as he played in Mobile, the Brett Favre who stepped onto the field at Stanford Stadium was nothing short of brilliant. He completed 15 of 26 passes for 218 yards, and launched a 54-yard bobama receiver Lamonde Russell for a touchdown. He also ran for a 7-yard score after pump faking, juking, and bolting toward the end zone. Favre was named the game’s co-offensive MVP with Stanford wide receiver Ed McCaffrey. The confidence returned.

  Sitting in the stands, notebook in hand, the Jets’ Wolf could hardly contain his excitement. There had been great debate inside the team’s headquarters about the upcoming draft, and what they should do with limited resources. The Jets lost what would have been their first-round pick when they drafted Syracuse wide receiver Rob Moore with a supplemental selection in 1990, so they didn’t have to worry until the seventh spot in the second round. Wolf returned to New York, entered the o
ffice of Dick Steinberg, the New York general manager, and said, “Brett Favre is the best player in this draft. We need to get him.”

  “You mean the best quarterback?” Steinberg replied.

  “No,” said Wolf, “the best player.”

  “What?” Steinberg said. Some had Favre ranked fifth among senior quarterbacks, behind McGwire, Arizona State’s Paul Justin, Rice’s Hollas, and Duke’s Billy Ray.

  “Dick, trust me,” Wolf said. “This kid will be our quarterback for the next decade.”

  Steinberg remained unconvinced.

  Buoyed by the Stanford experience, Favre created some serious buzz at the February NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. People knew of his strength, but witnessing it was a different experience. Sammy Walker was a defensive back from Texas Tech who opened eyes by clocking less than 10 seconds in the 100. One of the drills involved standing 10 yards from the quarterback, turning on the blow of a whistle, and catching the football. “Three guys are in front of me, and Brett’s the quarterback,” Walker said. “The first guy, the ball hits him in the hands and his finger goes sideways. The second guy just dodges it. The third guy gets hit in the eye and needs ice. I’d been told I couldn’t catch AIDS if I had sex with the virus, and I sure as hell can’t catch this fire. So I’m terrified, and as soon as he throws the ball I just duck and it sails over my head.”

  Favre also held his own predraft workout on the Southern Miss campus. A cast of 20 coaches and scouts showed up for the morning activities, including Wolf, Green Bay head coach Lindy Infante, June Jones, the Atlanta Falcons’ offensive coordinator, and Mike Holmgren, offensive coordinator of the 49ers. Favre threw to a couple of receivers, showed off his arm strength. Nothing new. With a roster featuring Joe Montana and Steve Young, San Francisco needed a quarterback less than any team in the league. Still, Holmgren was a passing junkie, and he wanted to see what all the fuss was about. “Somebody will probably take you fairly early,” he said before leaving. “I wish you luck.”

  They gathered at the house at the end of Irvin Farve Lane, as they always gathered at the house at the end of Irvin Farve Lane.

  In Kiln, Mississippi, where there seems to be a Favre for every grain of dirt, the afternoon of April 21, 1991, was Christmas and Easter and a birthday rolled into one.

  Although ESPN’s televising of the NFL draft would not commence until 10:00 a.m., relatives and friends began arriving hours earlier, replete with crawfish, chips, dip, beer, whiskey. Deanna was there, of course, with little Brittany. Many wore matching T-shirts that read DRAFT DAY 4-21-91. This was to be the ultimate celebration: Brett Favre’s introduction to the world as a first-round NFL draft selection. Just 10 days earlier, Allan Malamud of the Los Angeles Times wrote that Favre “probably will be the first quarterback taken,” and shortly thereafter United Press International’s Dave Raffo hailed him as “the best” thrower in the country and the Miami Herald rated him “the No. 1 QB available.” Steinberg, finally swayed by Wolf, told Newsday that Favre has “the passing skills, athletic ability, and toughness to be a winning NFL quarterback.” Alas, he anticipated the quarterback would be long gone by the time they had a chance to pick. The UPI’s annual mock draft had him going 21st to Kansas City.

  By now, Brett Favre had an agent. A Hattiesburg-based attorney with a general law practice, James “Bus” Cook met Brett two years earlier, when a friend asked if he would take a couple of college kids out for an afternoon of golf. While walking the greens, Favre—not yet 20 years old—said to Cook, “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you, and I wanted to know if you might be interested in helping me.”

  Cook was confused. “What kind of trouble are you in?” he replied.

  Favre laughed. He explained that he had a potential future in the NFL, and he wanted an agent who was trustworthy and down-home. “Son,” Cook said, “I don’t know anything about that business.”

  “Sir,” Favre replied, “I don’t know anything about playing pro football. But I’d love for you to talk to my parents and help me.”

  Now they were side by side in the Favre household, pots boiling, beer being poured, 100 or so relatives filling the rooms, no real clue as to what was about to transpire. In recent days, the Seahawks and Falcons had sent representatives to Mississippi to meet with Favre one final time. Both teams possessed high first-round slots (Atlanta held the 3rd and 13th picks, Seattle the 16th), which boded well, Cook presumed. But maybe it didn’t. Maybe they were bluffing, or thinking second-round. He had no real clue.

  The draft was held in New York City at the Marriott Marquis Hotel, and the sense of mystery was greater than usual. In the weeks leading up to the event, the consensus No. 1 pick was Notre Dame wide receiver Raghib Ismail—who ruined all plans days before by signing a four-year, $26.2 million deal to play for the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League. The Dallas Cowboys, holders of the golden ticket, were left to select Russell Maryland, an underwhelming defensive lineman from the University of Miami. With that, all bets were off. The Browns, second up, grabbed a UCLA safety named Eric Turner,* and for the first time all day silence befell the Favre household. The Atlanta Falcons, picking third, loved Brett Favre. They loved his arm, his moxie, his Southern charm. Ken Herock, the vice president of player personnel, was close friends with the Jets’ Wolf, and the executives agreed he was probably the prize bull of the entire herd. But . . . the team already featured a quality quarterback in Chris Miller, as well as a number of defensive holes. Finally Pete Rozelle, the NFL commissioner, stepped to the podium and announced the Falcons were drafting Bruce Pickens, a cornerback from the University of Nebraska.

  A collective groan could be heard through the Favre household.

  A low-pitched groan could be heard from Herock.

  “I wasn’t a fan of Pickens,” he said. “But the coaching staff thought he’d be a good cover guy, and we needed that. But he wasn’t a good kid.” Pickens lasted three unexceptional years in Atlanta. He goes down as one of the biggest busts in franchise history. “He was lazy and not very smart,” said Taylor Smith, the team president. “That’s a bad combination.”

  As most of the Favre attendees hovered around a large television, Brett sat in his old bedroom, the one with the wood-paneled walls and the ceiling covered with posters of Michael Jordan and Jose Canseco and Dwight Gooden and Jerry Rice and Al Toon. He wore jean shorts, a white T-shirt, and a white Southern Miss baseball cap. Wrote Robert Wilson in the Clarion-Ledger: “He didn’t watch the draft or eat. Instead, he opted for Nintendo on an empty stomach.”

  From time to time, Favre glanced at a small television, or a relative knocked on his door to offer an update. As the hours passed, the news was never particularly good. The Falcons used a second first-round pick to select a wide receiver from Colorado named Mike Pritchard. “Every receiver we had on the roster ran slower than I did,” said Jerry Glanville, Atlanta’s second-year head coach. “We needed speed.” Three slots later, the Seahawks—an organization thought to be hot for Southern Miss’s quarterback—grabbed McGwire.

  “Dan McGwire?” Favre yelled.

  He’d worked with McGwire in two all-star games, and liked San Diego State’s tall quarterback. But Favre knew he was better—just as he knew he was better than the 24th overall selection, a sophomore quarterback from Southern Cal named Todd Marinovich.

  Wait. Todd Marinovich?*

  The new Raiders quarterback was, according to the Los Angeles Times, “perceived [by NFL teams] as immature, erratic and a possible substance abuser who would have been better served by remaining in school.” During his senior year of high school, Marinovich kicked off his days by doing bong hits with classmates. By college, he had moved on to heavier drugs. On January 20, 1991, he was arrested on Balboa Peninsula, California, with a bag of cocaine. He was charged with two misdemeanors and allowed into a program for first-time offenders. He was also suspended by the Trojans for missing classes. It was all public information, there for every team executive to digest.


  And now, baggage be damned, Marinovich was a high NFL draft pick.

  The first round lasted nearly five hours, and it was pure torture. Beer and food kept the mood relatively light inside the Favre household, but Irvin, Brett’s father, was particularly incensed. Dan McGwire? Todd Marinovich? How hadn’t teams seen what he knew? That his son was the best quarterback in the draft? How could they be so blind?

  The second round began, and one team after another selected players nobody in the state of Mississippi had ever heard of. The Oilers grabbed a safety from Indiana named Mike Dumas. Tick. The Browns took an Auburn guard named Ed King. Tick. The Broncos snagged a tight end—a flippin’ tight end!—named Reggie Johnson, from Florida State. Tick. Roman Phifer, UCLA’s best linebacker, became a Los Angeles Ram. Tick. The Phoenix Cardinals went for Mike Jones, the defensive end out of North Carolina State. Tick.

  And now, a moment. The next two teams on the board were the Atlanta Falcons, picking 33rd, and the New York Jets, picking 34th. They had always been the most likely Brett Favre landing spots. Inside the New York war room, Wolf spent the afternoon urging Steinberg to move up by any means necessary. At one point, the team reached a deal with the Cardinals to slide two slots ahead of Atlanta. But when Jones remained on the board, Phoenix backed out. Herock, meanwhile, was overruled by ownership on the 3rd and 13th selections. At one point Taylor Smith, the team president, demanded Herock calm down. “I understand you like this guy,” he said, “but we have a good quarterback.”

  “I know,” Herock replied, “but I think this guy might be a franchise quarterback. A franchise quarterback.”

  Here, finally, was his chance. Inside the Falcons’ room, Herock posted a board ranking the team’s top prospects, 1 through 100. He was constantly working the list—scratching names off, jotting down arrows, phrases, question marks. A team had 10 minutes to decide upon a player, so as soon as the Cardinals (to Herock’s great relief) selected Jones, he returned to the board and said, for all 13 people in the room to hear, “Listen, our top-rated player on the board is Brett Favre, the quarterback. I really like him, I think he’ll be a quality player in the league.”