Can’t keep a good man down

The kid’s time had finally come.

Matt Hasselbeck, better known by Green Bay fans as Mr. August because of his preseason heroics, was going to get his chance after all.

Better be ready, they told him. The coaches, the trainers, his teammates – they all said the same thing.

The time had arrived, had finally reached out and touched him, and Hasselbeck definitely felt ready.

He was running the first-team offense at Green Bay Packers practices all week. He was studying the Indianapolis Colts’ defense like he’d never studied any defense before. He was paying special attention in meetings, his eyes occasionally drifting to the crutches and cumbersome boot that were protecting Brett Favre’s sprained foot.

Everywhere Hasselbeck looked, the signs were pointing toward his first NFL start.

Except it didn’t happen. Hasselbeck would have to wait a couple more years, after he’d been traded to the Seattle Seahawks.

Favre played in that game in Nov. 2000, just like he played in the previous 135, and just like he’s played in the 95 games since that day.

“He had a size-13 shoe on his left foot by game time, a size-15 on his right foot, and he got out there and played and was unbelievable,” Hasselbeck recalled last week from his new workplace at the Seattle Seahawks’ practice facility. “He threw a touchdown underhand. It was just typical Brett Favre stuff.”

“Typical” for Brett Favre is much different than it is for any other human. Anyone who’s been around him over the years recalls a story of the future Hall of Famer defying the odds, not to mention the advice of team trainers. Favre started the final 13 games of his first season with the Packers and hasn’t missed a start since. His streak of 231 games is something that former Packers and current Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren recently called, “one of the more remarkable things in sports history.”

Asked for examples of Favre’s toughness, Holmgren vividly recalled two particular occasions during his seven years coaching the 6-foot-2, 220-pound quarterback.

There was the time that Favre suffered a separated shoulder in the first quarter of a game against the Philadelphia Eagles, only to finish the game and also play through the pain the following week.

There was another time when an ankle injury was so severe that Holmgren told Favre to take the week off and concentrated on getting his backup ready to start the upcoming game against Chicago. On Saturday, the day before the Bears game, trainers cleared Favre to throw some passes. The quarterback backpedaled gingerly on the ankle, then convinced Holmgren to let him start the game.

“I said, ‘If I’m looking out there, and you’re at risk or something, then I’m taking you out,’ ” Holmgren recalled last week as his Seahawks prepared for Monday night’s game against Favre’s Packers. “We started him in the game, and he ended up throwing five touchdown passes.

“I mean, really, he couldn’t move. We were lucky he was in the pocket. And he played as fine a football game as he has.”

Favre’s current head coach, Mike McCarthy, remembers another time when he was the Packers’ quarterbacks coach and the indestructible player from Kiln, Miss., suffered a broken thumb and two other injuries to the same hand during the course of the 1999 season.

“I can recall up in Detroit, when he hit it (again), he was holding the ball the whole time that he was (on the sideline),” McCarthy said, “because the swelling was increasing, and he was concerned about being able to grip the football.”

Of course, Favre finished that game and started the following week.

Feet, ankles, knees, groin muscles, hands, elbows, shoulders, concussions. The Energizer quarterback has kept going and going and going through it all.

“It’s probably one of the most impressive streaks in sports,” said Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon, who is certain to be joined by Favre in Canton one day. “It even surpasses Cal Ripken (Jr., who played in 2,632 consecutive baseball games), only because of the physicality of football. You’d think somewhere along the line someone would roll into his knee, or roll into his ankle, and he’d get hurt, where he couldn’t play in a game. But nothing like that has happened yet.”

“Packers rookie Abdul Hodge will make his first NFL start on Monday night.

Head coach Mike McCarthy announced after the team completed its practice week that Hodge would start in place of an injured Nick Barnett at middle linebacker.