Seahawks to take on Packers

SEATTLE – Brett Favre’s private jet was revving, ready to take the quarterback and icon back home to another offseason in Mississippi. The Seahawks’ team jet was nearby at the airport in Green Bay, readying to fly back to Seattle.

Favre boarded the Seahawks’ plane.

No, the 37-year-old quarterback’s mind wasn’t scrambled last New Year’s Day by having just finished the 2005 season with a career-high 29 interceptions. And the furor throughout Wisconsin and beyond that he may have played his final game – a meaningless home win over the Seahawks, who had already clinched the NFC’s top playoff seed – didn’t have him confused, either.

Favre strolled onto the Seahawks’ jet with one of his two daughters, and a purpose. He strolled past stunned, gawking flight attendants. He found his mentor and former Packers coach, Seahawks head man Mike Holmgren, reading up front, sat down next to him and told Holmgren that he was indeed retiring.

“What are you doing here?” Holmgren asked the man he helped turn into a three-time league MVP.

Monday night, Holmgren may be asking Favre the same thing.

Of course, Favre didn’t retire last offseason. He doesn’t even know if this, his 16th NFL season, will be his last.

Favre won’t discuss the topic. Essentially, neither will Packers first-year coach Mike McCarthy.

Favre will start for the Packers (4-6) against the Seahawks (6-4) Monday night for the 232nd consecutive time in the regular season. What about leaving last week’s loss to New England with a banged elbow and numb fingers on his passing hand? Just another example of Favre’s remarkable longevity.

Besides, he wouldn’t want to disappoint the biggest influence on his astounding career.

“I have a tremendous amount of respect for him,” said Favre, who has rebounded with 13 touchdowns and just seven interceptions this season. “Without him, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Holmgren coached Favre and the Packers from 1992-98. With Holmgren orchestrating nearly everything Favre was supposed to do – and seething each time the freewheeling passer did whatever he wanted to instead – Favre was league MVP three consecutive times and the Packers won their first Super Bowl since 1968.

Holmgren chuckles at the memories of Favre’s recklessness.

“He’d do stuff, you’d go, ‘Oh, gee!’ Just unbelievable stuff,” Holmgren said. “But you knew you had something special.”

After Favre’s third consecutive 9-7 season as his starter in 1994, Holmgren corralled the quarterback for a talk on how to excel instead of merely achieving.

“There was a time that a few doubts crept in whether he could actually discipline himself enough to actually reach his potential,” Holmgren said. “We had a talk about that after the third season, one of many talks. But I just said, ‘We’ve got to get these interceptions down to take the next step.’

“He goes, ‘Listen, that’s how I play the game. I’m just wild and woolly. … We made the playoffs.’

“Yeah, we did,” Holmgren told Favre. “But that gets us to 9-7.”

Favre and Holmgren never finished worse than 11-5 together after that. Favre won the next three MVP awards and remains the only NFL player to win three. The Packers reached two of the next three Super Bowls, winning the championship in 1996.

Following a 1998 Packers playoff loss at San Francisco, Holmgren left for $32 million over eight years to become Seattle’s general manager and coach.

Monday brings another reunion of the man who made Favre’s career and the man who largely made Holmgren’s.