Quit While You're Ahead

Pretty much everyone agrees that John Elway went out the right way - his final game was Super Bowl XXXIII, in which he won MVP honors by passing for 300 yards, throwing an 80-yard touchdown pass to Rod Smith, and scoring a touchdown of his own to clinch a 34-19 victory and a second consecutive world championship. A few months later, he retired after a 16-year career.

However, Elway's ending was the exception, not the rule. Check out the endings for these other Hall of Fame quarterbacks:

Warren Moon - He finished up as a reserve quarterback for a mediocre Kansas City Chiefs team, playing in only three games in two seasons.

Troy Aikman and Steve Young - Simply too concussed to continue playing.

Dan Marino - The Dolphins get blasted 62-7 in a divisional playoff game to put the cap on Marino's career.

Terry Bradshaw - Sat out most of the 1983 season after elbow surgery, then reinjured the elbow in his first game back, which was also the last game of his career. At least his last pass went for a touchdown.

Joe Montana - Pushed out the door by the 49ers after winning four Super Bowls, he finished up his career with two decent years in Kansas City. His final game was a playoff loss to Dan Marino and the Dolphins.

Dan Fouts - The Chargers finished his final season with six straight losses while he posted his lowest passer rating in 12 seasons.

Which brings us to Brett Favre. It wouldn't have been a totally bad ending for him - he led a Packers team which wasn't supposed to be that good all the way to the NFC Championship game, and they came up just short of the Super Bowl. So he retires from the NFL, the team moves on, but he changes his mind. He knows the Packers don't want him back, so he asks to be released, but they don't want to let him go, probably for salary cap reasons. So he either creates a quarterback controversy in Green Bay, or goes somewhere else like the Carolina Panthers and hangs on for another year or two, perhaps slightly tainting his Packer legacy. I'm not a fan of Favre or the Packers, but I could imagine how the fans must feel. It would have made me sick to see Elway finishing up his career in another uniform.

I'm not sure how it will end up for Favre, but I'm sure it won't be as good as the ending he already had. But he can rest assured that Peter King and John Madden will always love him no matter what.