behind the news

Cool Your Jets

NY sportswriters celebrate the Brett Favre trade
August 7, 2008

How do New York sportswriters feel about the recent trade that brought former Packers quarterback Brett Favre to the New York Jets?

1. They’re stunned

Rich Cimini, New York Daily News: “In a stunning upset, the Jets finalized a trade Wednesday night for Packers legend Brett Favre…”

Mark Cannizzaro, New York Post: “The Jets’ stunning acquisition of Favre makes them matter again on the New York football landscape…”

Michael David Smith, New York Sun: “The Jets want to win the Super Bowl this year, and they made the boldest move imaginable to get it done. That is the ultimate takeaway from the stunning news that the Jets have acquired Brett Favre in a trade with the Green Bay Packers.”

Jim Baumbach, Newsday: “The stunning news that Brett Favre has been traded to the Jets puts a fitting end to the team’s 1991 draft-day debacle.”

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Erik Boland and Bob Glauber, Newsday: “The Jets have pulled off one of the most stunning trades in their history…”

2. They’re excited

Gary Myers, New York Daily News: “It was a terrific move for the Jets, one they had to make…”

Rich Cimini: “The Jets have pulled off their greatest quarterback coup since luring Joe Namath to the AFL when he left Alabama in 1965.”

Mark Cannizzaro: “…their boldest personnel move in team history…”

Steve Serby, New York Post: “He gives the Jets their biggest star since Namath, gives the Jets their best chance to overcome Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, makes them a legitimate Super Bowl contender.”

3. They’re confident

Steve Serby: “The minute Favre shows up he transforms the Jets from a good team to a team that will not be afraid to knock on the door of greatness.” Also: “The franchise now has its franchise quarterback.”

Michael David Smith: “…they made the only trade that could possibly transform them into a better team than the New England Patriots.”

William C. Rhoden, The New York Times: “The trade instantly catapults the Jets — in the short term — to the top of the sports entertainment heap where for countless years they have been behind the Yankees, the Giants, the Mets and even the lowly Knicks.”

4. They are poetically inclined

Mike Vaccaro, New York Post: “He already rescued one sickly-green franchise from the morbid miasma of mediocrity. Can he do it again?”

Steve Serby: “they sure could use the fuzzy, grizzled face of an old gunslinger to take the sting away from PSL High Noon at their next OK Corral.”

5. They are skeptical. Well, two of them

Jay Greenberg, New York Post: “It’s not that the cost of a conditional draft choice is unreasonable. It’s where are the Jets in two years? There was arm enough left in Favre last year to win 13 games, and a playoff contest. But after all he has been through, all he has put himself through, does he have enough heart left for the game to make this more than just a late, wild, swing by the Jets for some attention?”

Mike Lupica, New York Daily News: “Brett Favre does not put the Jets into the Super Bowl and Favre does not just show up in a different kind of football green and make the Jets better than the Patriots or the Chargers or even the Colts. He does not make Eric Mangini into a real genius or prove that Mike Tannenbaum, the young general manager, has the game to make the Jets a real contender in their conference or in their sport. What Favre does is make the Jets a team to watch again, and that is enough for now.”

Justin Peters is editor-at-large of the Columbia Journalism Review.