Even Favre knows something's wrong
Posted: Sunday October 18, 1998 01:21 PM
Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King spoke to CNNSI anchor Mike
Galanos on Sunday morning about the Packers' second-straight loss on
Thursday on what to look for in weeks ahead.
MG: You had a chance to talk to Packers quarterback Brett Favre after Thursday
night’s loss to the Lions. How is he handling this, after three straight
three-interception games?
PK: It’s been very tough on him. In the solitude of the Green Bay
locker room late Thursday night, Favre told me, “We’re not an elite team
now. We can be, but we’re not right now.” That’s a pretty startling
admission from the three-time league MVP, but here’s what I think is wrong
with Favre: One, without Dorsey Levens at running back, the Packers running
game is a half a yard worse per carry than it was last year. Teams don’t
respect the Packers running game. Two, the wide receiver corps, minus No. 3
receiver Derrick Mayes
and with Robert Brooks
hobbled, is getting no separation from the corners and Favre is locking
onto Antonio Freeman.
And the third thing I think is they get no offensive momentum, they go
three-and-out, three-and-out. Defenses aren’t on their heels anymore;
they’re attacking.
MG: Rob
Johnson said he really wanted to play against his old team, the Jags.
How long could Doug
Flutie keep him on the bench?
PK: If Doug Flutie wins this game, there’s going to be a
full-blown quarterback controversy in Buffalo and Flutie keeps the job as
long as he keeps winning. The key stats for Flutie in the two games he’s
played this year: zero passes batted down, 70 percent completion rate and
about 26,000 tickets sold for Sunday’s game that probably wouldn’t have
been sold if he weren’t playing. When Buffalo pro scout A.J. Smith -- the
man who married Flutie to the Bills -- saw Flutie in Canada last year, he
didn’t see the macho guy who tried to force plays in Chicago and New
England on his first NFL go-round. He saw just what coaches want, a
quarterback who takes what the defenses give him. Flutie’s got a lot of
intelligence and I think that’s going to show Sunday against a hard pass
rush.
MG: Everyone knows that new pickup Kerry Collins is the most
talented quarterback the Saints have on their roster. Billy Joe Tolliver is going
to start Sunday but when can we expect to see Collins in the lineup?
PK: New Orleans offensive coordinator Danny Abramowicz strongly
intimated to me Saturday night that starter Billy Joe Tolliver needs a
bang-up game Sunday at Atlanta to keep Kerry Collins out of the starting
lineup next week. Abramowicz told me, “We didn’t bring him here to have him
sit on the bench.” Here’s the fascinating thing that Abramowicz told me.
The Saints didn’t weigh Collins down with extra meetings Thursday and
Friday because it was important for them to have Collins in the locker
room, trying to get his new teammates to believe in him. If Collins plays
next week, it will be with a wristband with all the plays written on it.
But Abramowicz is right, people in the NFL buy Dom Capers’s story: the
Carolina coach says that Collins walked into his office 11 days ago and
said, “Hey, pull me. My heart’s not in it.” Now that’s not Collins’s story
but since he told the story that he never said that seven days late, who’s
going to believe him? But New Orleans these days is the home for wayward
quarterbacks so Collins has a natural place to get a second chance.
MG: The Cowboys lead the NFC East this year but things aren’t
going as well for last year’s division champs, the Giants. They’re 2-4,
dead last in offense. Is that where the trouble begins for this team?
PK: Absolutely. Even if the Giants win Sunday against the
Cardinals, with their schedule down the stretch, they’re cooked. They’ve
got to win at least two of the games against San Francisco, Green Bay,
Denver and Kansas City, and there’s no way they’re going to do that.
Arizona, on the other hand, has a cake schedule -- did somebody say “wild
card”? Their defense is beginning to show the promise of draft day when Andre Wadsworth was picked
to solidify the defensive line. The Cardinals ought to feast on one of the
worst offensive lines in the NFL Sunday and continue a trend that began
with an eight-turnover game against Chicago last week. Wadsworth told me
Saturday at the team hotel that Eric Swann turned to him
on the sidelines and said, “Rook, this is the most fun I’ve had in eight
years in the NFL.”
MG: In talking about Kevin Gilbride, the numbers spell it out. He
wasn’t getting the job done -- is there anything beyond the losses that
really sealed his doom?
PK: Kevin Gilbride was not the coach that Bobby Beathard hired 19
months ago and the reason he was not is very simple: Beathard thought he
had hired an imaginative, bright, optimistic offensive coordinator, who had
worked in Houston and Jacksonville, and instead he found increasingly that
Gilbride was a glass-is-half-empty guy. Looking on the other side of the
field Sunday with Philadelphia, the same fate is going to befall Ray Rhodes
at the end of the year to a large degree because of another quarterback
problem. They put their faith in Bobby Hoying, and after
one of the Eagles' losses this year, a coach from the opposing team came up
to Rhodes and said, “Ray, that’s one of the worst quarterbacks I’ve ever
seen. I think you’re going to have to make a change.” I think that now
going with Rodney Peete
shows how the Eagles no longer have any faith in Bobby Hoying.
MG: There’s plenty of news coming out of San Diego ... the demise
of the Padres bullpen, the firing of Kevin Gilbride, but that’s not all,
right?
PK: I don’t think this is going to get the Padres off the front
page but San Diego punter Darren Bennett is in
danger of losing his job, but not because of performance -- he’s averaging
45 yards a punt this year and he’s been to the Pro Bowl. But Bennett is
Australian, not a U.S. citizen, and the Immigration and Naturalization
Service wants him to prove that he’s not taking a job away from an American
who could do it just as well. If he can’t, he’s in danger of losing his job
with the Chargers.
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