Favre to Return in 2007

He holds three NFL MVPs, a Super Bowl Ring and an all-time league-best 5,021 career completions. For the past 15 seasons he has literally rewritten the Green Bay Packers record book. Yet quarterback Brett Favre is not done yet. He's "going to give it another shot," according to Packers GM Ted Thompson, and see if he can once again lead the Green Bay Packers to the promised land.

Favre, who led his Packers in a bruising 27-6 defeat of the Bears in week 17 of the 2006 season, will be watching Brian Urlacher, Rex Grossman, and the rest of his Chicago rivals play in Super Bowl XLI on Sunday.

He followed that game with nationally-televised interview in which the emotionally-choked QB appeared to be saying goobye to his team, his fans, and the game he loves. Favre, despite all indications, has now changed his tune.

"We were eight and eight last year, and that's encouraging," Favre said, rationalizing a non-retirement from the game he has dominated for most of the past two decades. "My offensive line looks good, the defense played good down the stretch. I'm excited about playing for a talented young football team."

Brett Favre is a shoe-in to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and his name is already set in stone beside such Green Bay Packers legends as Vince Lombardi, Bart Starr, and Reggie White.

Since coming off the bench in a week 2 loss to Tampa Bay in 1992 -- the young QB's first passing attempt in a Packers uniform being deflected back into his own arms to register a minus 7-yard completion to himself -- Brett Favre has never looked back. Number 4 proceeded to put together one of the most impressive runs in the history of the NFL. His league records, all set in the green and gold uniform, include career marks for passing yards (57,500), passing touchdowns (414), consecutive games started (237), and wins (147).

Yet there is one more win Brett Farve has set his sites on: the Super Bowl.

Some speculate that had the Bears postseason run not been so successful, then Brett Favre would not be quite so motivated to return to the gridiron in a Green Bay Packers uniform for the 2007 football season. Others say that his non-retirement from the NFL is the result of smelling the all-time NFL passing touchdowns and passing yards records, both held by Hall of Famer Dan Marino.

Brett Favre only needs seven touchdown passes to surpass Marino's lifetime mark of 420. Likewise, his 57,500 career passing yards are within reach of the former Miami Dolphins quarterback's record-setting mark of 61,361. The seven touchdowns can easily be tallied in a single season, but 37-year-old Brett Farve, whose career high of 4,413 passing yards came in 1995, will need to recapture some of that youth to even think about breaking the second mark in 2007.

Or, he can always return to finish the job in 2008.

Either way, Brett Favre, forever number 4 for the Green Bay Packers, will surely one day be inducted at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, alongside Lombardi, Starr and White. Thing is, he will need to retire first.

Source: "Farve Will Play in 2007," Associated Press.