Brett Favre’s arm fatigue will go away as the summer drags. It’s what he doesn’t have yet, that poses a bigger problem.
Favre, who said his arm was dragging today, also talked about the difficulty in gaining familiarity with a new offense. Learning new calls, plays and gaining cohesiveness with his wide receivers are the obstacles that lay ahead of the soon-to-be 39-year-old with the season less than a month away.
Favre has not missed a game in 15 years, but those were all with the Packers.
“To me, the most important thing right now is getting to know those guys, what they run well, just talking to them,” Favre said.
“There’s no way, and this goes back to playing with the guys in Green Bay, you never practice every route. We knew each other fairly well. I knew what I threw best, I knew what those guys ran the best and we incorporated it into our system.”
Laveranues Coles, the Jets’ top receiving threat, has not talked to the media since Favre was traded for and Chad Pennington released. Coles and Pennington were good friends, and the receiver may be upset with the Jets’ decision. Favre talked to Coles today about the situation.
“Those two guys had a great rapport together,” Favre said. “I said, ‘Look, I’m not trying to replace him, I’m here to help you guys win. I hope you respect me for that. I can’t guarantee you that. I would love to say I’ll come in here and help this team not only get to the playoffs but get to the Super Bowl.'”
Coach Eric Mangini said he believes the biggest difficulty will be translating the language Favre used in Green Bay to the one used in New York.
“It just doesn’t roll off the tongue right now like I’m sure he’d like it to, but that’s going to come,” Mangini said. “After you get used to being in a huddle, saying it a few times, going through the walkthrough, seeing it on tape, eventually it starts rolling off the tongue a lot quicker.”
Favre, who played 16 years with the Packers, explained why it is going to be a challenge.
“We call plays out here and I revert back,” he said. “A lot of the terminology is used in this offense but it means something totally different. Scat here is a totally different protection; in fact it’s a max protection here, where in Green Bay you’ve got five linemen. So any blitz at all, you’ve got to throw hard. As soon as I hear scat, I’m going ‘Blitz’, I’ve got to get rid of it.”
As far as the arm fatigue, Favre said he would ask Mangini for reduced throws during the afternoon practice. Favre did not seem overly concerned, though.
“It wasn’t too bad; my arm is dragging a little bit today,” Favre said.
” It’s not really sore, just fatigued. To be honest with you, I’m surprised, I don’t want to say I feel good, but I’ve been able to make it through every practice so far. I think maybe this afternoon I’m going to talk to Eric (Mangini) about it. Limit my throws a little bit.”