Gunslinger

by Jeff Pearlman

  The Falcons eventually released Pete Lucas, ending his NFL career before it ever began. “It was,” he said, “the greatest relief of my life.”

  Not yet 22 and naive to the world, Favre was in no position to step in and help a battered teammate. Not that he would have. Much like when he arrived at Southern Miss out of high school, the offensive linemen (and Fralic in particular) took a liking to Favre. He was one of them—a drinker, an airplane poker player. His shower routine involved bending over, naked, and pretending to chat with his butt crack. “It sounds gross,” said Scott Fulhage, the punter, “but it was hilarious.” As other rookies had their haircuts butchered into mortifying clumps and unimaginable angles, Favre bribed his way out of the fate. “He came and asked us whether he could avoid a Mohawk in exchange for a night out at dinner for all the linemen,” said Hinton. “We went for it.” Favre took the entire unit to Bone’s, a fancy steakhouse on Piedmont Road in Atlanta. It cost him a couple of thousand dollars, but his shaggy brown hair went untouched. “He ordered fish and drowned it in ketchup,” said Hinton. “I remember that.”

  Even though he didn’t want Favre, Glanville knew he had to keep him. After a couple of bad weeks of camp, the quarterback started to find his groove. Miller’s arm strength was terrific, but Favre’s throws were events. As was the case in college, his power, combined with a lack of touch, left many a training camp wide receiver wounded. “He didn’t make many right reads,” said Naz Worthen, a free agent receiver. “But, boy, he could sting your fingers.”

  Even with the ups and downs of the preseason, Favre presumed he would wind up the No. 2 quarterback. Sure, he struggled to grasp June Jones’s complex red-gun offense, but things were starting to make sense. The Falcons’ 1991 regular season was scheduled to open at Kansas City on September 1, and Favre told family and friends that, barring an alien invasion, he would be playing behind Miller, one of the league’s most fragile quarterbacks.

  On August 28, the aliens landed.

  The headline attached to the Associated Press story read CHARGERS’ TOLLIVER TRADED TO FALCONS, but it could have been FALCONS’ FAVRE NOW FREE TO GET FAT AND DRUNK. Atlanta sent a fourth-round pick to San Diego for Billy Joe Tolliver. A third-year quarterback out of Texas Tech, Tolliver started 14 games for the Chargers in 1990, throwing 16 touchdowns and 16 interceptions for a 6-10 club. Tolliver had been nicknamed “Billy Joe Terrible” by the Los Angeles Times’s Brian Hewitt, and it was justified. He was just good enough to play and just bad enough to lose. Herock made the exchange with the understanding that Favre would remain the backup. That’s how it went for the season opener at Kansas City—Miller started in the 14–3 loss, and Favre stood on the sideline, holding a clipboard and appearing mildly interested. Then Herock read the depth chart for the second-week battle against Minnesota and saw Glanville now listed Tolliver as the top reserve. He barged into Glanville’s office. “I thought we agreed Brett was No. 2 and Billy Joe would be third,” Herock said. “That’s the reason I made the trade.”

  Glanville didn’t like Herock and he didn’t like Favre. He also had final say on lineups. “Well, Billy Joe just knows so much more than Brett,” he crowed. “He’s more ready to play.”

  At that moment, the Herock-Glanville relationship—never terrific to begin with—was permanently damaged. “I never really trusted him,” Herock said. “He lied a lot.”*

  When Favre learned of Tolliver’s acquisition, he was indifferent. Quarterbacks come, quarterbacks go. It was only after the Minnesota game—when Miller, Tolliver, and Favre all wore uniforms—that he realized his plight. Under a new NFL rule, a team could dress a third quarterback and still designate him as inactive and only available in case of injury to the starter and backup. Nobody bothered to fill Favre in. He learned he had been deactivated only when Pasquarelli, the Journal-Constitution beat writer, approached in the locker room to ask whether he was upset. “I was third?” Favre said. An awkward pause. “Oh, well. I’ll just keep plugging away, I guess.”

  “It was the beginning of the end,” said Herock. “Brett lost interest.”

  There are good teams for young players and bad teams for young players, and the ’91 Falcons were the all-time worst. Although Glanville’s squad wound up compiling a 10-6 record en route to a rare playoff berth, everything seemed to be about brashness and arrogance and individual liberties. Glanville regularly invited celebrities to stand along the sideline during games, and granted rapper MC Hammer carte blanche to the team facilities. One of Glanville’s favorite quotes—“If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’”—was interpreted literally by a roster filled with cheap-shot artists. Glanville continued to humiliate his rookie quarterback in ways big and small. When the team traveled, Glanville kept warmups loose by betting any takers that Favre could launch a football into a stadium’s highest decks. Favre always succeeded, but did not enjoy being part of the dog and pony show.

  Scott Favre, Brett’s sibling and college running buddy, moved to Atlanta to keep his kid brother company. He took a job teaching learning-disabled middle-schoolers in the Clayton County School District, and Brett and Scott rented an apartment. Two of their friends attended a nearby chiropractic college, and the four hit the city hard. Brett knew he wouldn’t play on Sundays, so he went on a nonstop drinking and eating binge. Lots of pineapple and vodka, lots of pizza and steak and doughnuts. “He didn’t think he’d ever get a chance that season, so he probably didn’t take it very seriously,” said Scott. “Plus, you’re young and dumb and in a big, exciting city. We took advantage of it.”

  “I just said, ‘The hell with it,’” said Brett. “I went out every night, gained weight and was out of shape. I didn’t study, I didn’t care. I’d show up just in time for the meetings and I’d be out of there the second the meetings were over.”

  Glanville reached out to the Falcons’ favorite night spots and requested they deny his third-string quarterback service. “I went to downtown Atlanta, to a place called Frankie’s, to a bunch of other spots,” Glanville said. “I went to all of them and asked them not to give him free drinks, not to let him party, that he needed to be at home. Well, in Atlanta they don’t care who you are, what you want. No bar would agree to help me.

  “People think I didn’t like Brett Favre. Not true. It wasn’t about like or hate. Shit, I saw him do things with a football nobody did. I’ve seen him, in the wind, throw strikes when nobody could get heat on the ball. He could play. But he didn’t want to play. He wanted to party.”

  His regular-season NFL debut came on October 27, against the Rams at Fulton County Stadium. Miller had left the game with a bruised right thigh, and Tolliver went 5-for-5 for 45 yards before a hip pointer forced him out, too. With 1:54 remaining in the fourth quarter, and his team leading 31–14, Brett Favre walked onto the field under the Glanville directive, “Don’t do anything stupid, Mississippi.” Favre successfully handed off three times. “Hey, I came in and ran out the clock pretty good, didn’t I?” he joked afterward, a sad resignation attached to his words. “I think I found me a new role. I’ll be our kill-the-clock guy.”

  At one o’clock on the afternoon of November 10, 1991, two weeks after Favre executed those three marvelous handoffs, the Falcons and Redskins faced off in Washington, DC—two teams with playoff expectations. At 9-0, the Redskins were an NFL powerhouse. At 5-4, the Falcons were on the rise and confident. Before the game, Glanville framed the contest as a test. “Are you men enough,” he asked his players, “to beat the best?”

  The answer: No. With Chris Miller out because of a rib injury, Tolliver started and completed a mere 14 of 31 passes. The Falcons opened the game with a Norm Johnson field goal to take a 3–0 lead, then sat back and watched Washington score the next 28 points. By the late fourth quarter, the Redskins were up 49–17 and the 56,454 fans at RFK Stadium were filing out to go about their days.

  A few weeks earlier Glanville had said that in order for Favre to play, “we gotta have two plane wrecks and four quart
erbacks go down.” This was neither an airline crash nor four battered quarterbacks, but Tolliver had been sacked on five occasions. So, with nowhere else to turn, Glanville let Favre take over for the final 55 seconds. Wearing his black No. 4 jersey above a white long-sleeve shirt (it was 35 degrees), Favre trotted onto the muddy green field, approached the line, ducked behind center, and—for reasons only he probably knows—grinned boyishly. Perhaps it had to do with the realization of a lifelong dream. More likely, it was the preposterousness of an oddball rookie season. The PA announcer, Charlie Brotman, blared, “In at quarterback, Brett Favre!” Steam rose from the rookie’s breath as he barked the signals. Two wide receivers stood to the right, two to the far left. Rison jogged in motion behind him, the lackluster trot of a man itching for a hot shower. Favre took the snap and dropped nine steps back. With the pocket collapsing, the quarterback lifted his arm and shot a pass—high and hard but not completely uncatchable—to Pritchard. The football slipped through the wide receiver’s hands and into the waiting arms of linebacker Andre Collins, who was playing 4 yards back. He bobbled the ball, controlled it, burst through Pritchard’s weak grasp, and sprinted 15 yards for the score. As Collins gleefully spiked the ball onto the white end zone paint, Favre walked off the field. “Well, Brett Favre, you ever have the Redskins on your schedule at Southern Mississippi?” crowed Randy Cross, a former NFL star now working color commentary for CBS. “Welcome to RFK and the NFL!”

  Favre wandered through his teammates along the sideline, all silent and glancing awkwardly in other directions. He finally reached his head coach, who couldn’t stomach his team being crushed so badly.

  “Can you believe that, Coach?” the quarterback said. “My first pass in an NFL game went for a touchdown!”

  Glanville was in no mood. “Yeah,” he said. “But it was for them, not us.”

  “Eh, that doesn’t matter,” Favre replied. “It’s still a touchdown pass. That’s what they’ll remember.”

  Glanville cackled. Moments later, Favre returned to the field for the final 47 seconds. On first down, his pass landed three feet short of Rison’s toes. On second down, his pass jetted high above the outstretched arms of Rison for an ugly (and nearly intercepted) incompletion. On third down, he rolled right, repeatedly bounced on his toes, escaped two defensive linemen, swiveled left, and was smothered by a 297-pound defensive tackle named Bobby Wilson for the sack. On fourth down, with eight seconds remaining in the game, Favre escaped pressure, drifted to his left, and lofted a 55-yard Hail Mary that was picked off by cornerback Sidney Johnson.

  Brett Favre’s life as an Atlanta Falcons quarterback began.

  Brett Favre’s life as an Atlanta Falcons quarterback ended.

  He never again played for the franchise. Miller returned to health, threw for 3,103 yards and 26 touchdowns while carrying Atlanta to a wild card berth and earning the only Pro Bowl nod of his career. Favre’s statistical line was complete (0-for-4, two interceptions), but his antics were not. There were still six regular-season games left in the season, and with Miller back Favre knew he was useless. He arrived at team meetings with alcohol on his breath, and on one occasion was sent home by the coaching staff. “I went into a meeting and he was sound asleep,” Glanville said. “And I went to go over and raise all kinds of difficulties and the closer I got to him, I could tell why he was asleep.” Sometimes he reached the facility on time. Usually he was late. It was only in the final weeks of the season that anyone with the Falcons knew he had a daughter and girlfriend back home. Meanwhile, Favre’s understanding of the playbook was at a kindergarten level; his waistline continued to expand. “He absolutely could not run a 40-yard dash,” said Glanville. “It was a joke.”

  If there’s one moment that perfectly encapsulates Brett Favre’s Falcon existence, it is the annual official team photograph at the Suwanee training facility. On this day, as Jimmy Cribb, the photographer, assembled the players and coaches in five neatly organized rows, Favre was nowhere to be found. He skidded into the parking lot nearly an hour after the photo shoot ended, spotted Glanville’s van pulling out, caught his attention, and explained he was stuck behind an awful traffic accident and then he got lost and . . . and . . . and—it was all garbage. Favre had been out partying late into the night, and failed to set the alarm. “I was hung over,” he said. “I tell people I played for Atlanta and if they get the team picture they say, ‘What a liar. You didn’t play for them.’” Favre was fined $1,500.

  For Glanville, it was the last of the last straws.

  “I got trapped behind a car wreck,” Favre told the coach.

  “You are a car wreck,” Glanville replied.

  A couple of weeks after the season ended with a 24–7 playoff loss at Washington, Ken Herock steeled himself for the conversation he did not wish to have.

  Throughout the year, Glanville’s weekly Favre reports broke his heart. They were usually entertaining, but always negative. “I’d be on the road three or four days a week during the season, scouting,” said Herock. “I’d come back Friday and it’d be, ‘You should see what your boy did this week. Oh, he was drunk at a meeting. Oh, that son of a bitch is 20 pounds overweight. He doesn’t even know the damn scout plays.’ They showed me one tape and they go, ‘Watch this! You’ve gotta watch what he did in practice! Watch this ball! We’ve never seen a ball curve before. This guy can’t play.’”

  Glanville insisted he was OK with Favre as a person, but couldn’t stomach his attitude and approach. The main Atlanta Falcons’ rules involved punctuality and effort, and he adhered to neither. “You can’t tolerate this stuff,” said Glanville. “Not from a veteran, definitely not from a rookie.”

  So now, sitting across from one another, Herock listened again to the coach’s complaints, swallowed hard, and said, “I’ll see what we can get for him.”

  When Glanville exited the room, Herock dialed a familiar number. Ron Wolf, his longtime friend, had recently left the Jets to take over as the general manager in Green Bay.

  The Packers needed a quarterback.

  11

  Arrival

  * * *

  THERE IS a little-knownjournalistic law regarding the Green Bay Packers, and it involves history, reverence, and at least 253 evocations of Vince Lombardi per hour.

  It is, after all, the NFL’s most storied franchise, dating back to 1919 and filled with legendary names, legendary games, legendary settings, legendary accomplishments. So when one writes about Lombardi and Bart Starr and Paul Hornung and 13 championships and 24 Hall of Famers, we are required to kneel, make the sign of the crucifix, and speak in hushed tones.

  Shhhh.

  Thank you.

  Now that that’s done, let’s turn to Billy Ard.

  Yes, Billy Ard—a man who arrived in Green Bay as a free agent in the fall of 1989 after spending eight years as the New York Giants’ starting left guard. Having won a Super Bowl under Bill Parcells, Ard thought he understood what it meant to play in the NFL. You worked hard, you endured injuries, you overcame obstacles, you were richly rewarded with lucrative contracts and sweet perks. It was a plum gig, and he was thrilled to have it.

  “Then I came to Green Bay,” he said, “and they gave you one pair of shoes.”

  Ard doesn’t mean a member of the Packers would receive one pair of shoes per game, or per month. No, if you were on the Green Bay roster in the 1980s, Bob Noel, the equipment manager, asked your size, then dropped off one pair of athletic shoes for the entire season. “In New York, footwear was unlimited,” said Ard. “In Green Bay, you were on your own.”

  That wasn’t the worst of it. As the majority of NFL franchises played in palatial stadiums that seated 70,000 fans, the Packers held their home games in charming-yet-antiquated Lambeau Field—an enormous Erector-set construction plopped down in the heart of a barren village. “I played my college football at USC,” said Ken Ruettgers, an offensive tackle and Green Bay’s first-round pick in 1985. “Reaching the NFL was a huge downgrade. The we
ight room was a downgrade, the locker room was a downgrade. Guys were packing up their boxes to be sent home with two or three games still left in the season. My Packer teammates threw in the towel all the time. They didn’t care.”

  In the 24 years that followed Lombardi’s glorious final season in 1967 (the Packers beat the Raiders to win Super Bowl II), Green Bay endured five head coaches, each one accompanied by his own special blend of awfulness. The team won 10 or more games just twice, and made two playoff appearances. The tales of misadventure are endless. John Brockington, a star running back from 1971–77, recalled that before games, Dan Devine, the head coach for four dreadful years, would open his pep talk with, If I could build a franchise around one player, I’d pick . . . “And it was never one of us,” Brockington said. “Never.” Starr, the legendary quarterback, took over as coach in 1975, and optimism didn’t equal success. Midway through a 1980 preseason contest, a defensive end named Ezra Johnson was spotted eating a hot dog on the bench. Things turned so ugly that, after home games, Jerry Parins, a security worker for the team, would pull Starr’s Lincoln beneath the stadium so the coach could avoid the catcalls and threats from intoxicated fans. There were rumors that Starr’s son, Bret, was dealing cocaine to the players, and the coach once pleaded to Parins, “Jerry, please let me know if you hear about him doing anything.”

  Forrest Gregg, another magnificent ex-Packer, became head coach in 1984, and promptly ended Family Photo Day, an annual fan-favorite event. In 1985, defensive back Mossy Cade was charged with assaulting a woman—who happened to be his aunt—then wide receiver James Lofton was charged with sexually assaulting a woman in a stairwell. Gregg seemed to greet both incidents with dismissive shrugs.