Favre Is Still Having Fun as the Jets Turn a Bit Wobbly

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Brett Favre’s 39 years have a tendency to fade in and out of focus. They are plainly obvious when he stands before a roomful of reporters, his face covered in gray stubble, and discusses his health, saying that he no longer knows what normal feels like. Yet the years seem to melt away when he gathers a handful of rubber pellets off the artificial turf to jokingly jam through the ear hole of a teammate’s helmet.

But it is that time of the season, as aches and pains grow sharper and the stakes become clearer, when Favre can no longer outrun the two topics that cling to him and his age: his health and his future. The moment he walked into his news conference Wednesday, someone wanted to know how his shoulder was feeling.

“The good one or the bad one?” Favre replied with the same good humor that has him teasing teammates throughout practice.

Fifteen weeks into his 18th season as a professional, Favre is used to the constant scrutiny of his health and the critics lying in wait. But he no longer sees any reason to be anything short of perfectly honest. After he escaped his mediocre performance against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday with a victory, he said, “Maybe I don’t have the arm I once had, I don’t know.”

He reiterated the sentiment Wednesday. Although he is almost certainly bound for the Hall of Fame with records in every meaningful category, Favre acknowledges that his powers are waning. For Superman, it was kryptonite; for Favre it seems to be countless blitzes.

“I feel like I’m closing in on 40 and I’ve been sacked or hit however many times,” he said. “But that’s not to say that at the start of training camp I felt like a million dollars.”

In the last three weeks, Favre’s quarterback rating has languished below expectations. His average over that spell (61) is more than 40 points lower than that of Chad Pennington (102.5), the quarterback the Jets unceremoniously cut when they obtained Favre. Two of the past three games ended in defeat and last Sunday’s game was one lucky bounce from turning into a third, as Favre underthrew wide-open receivers, blew routine plays and took the league lead for most interceptions (17).

But he maintains that, regardless of statistics, he is the kind of leader the Jets need to guide them to the playoffs. That much is clear to his teammates.

“His charisma, his confidence, no matter what, it’s always the same,” the veteran cornerback Ty Law said. “Great play, not so great play, he has an air about himself that is unparalleled.”

How much longer he will carry that air around a locker room is a question Favre has not answered with any certainty. He has retired and unretired at least twice and seemed to come to New York for the last in a string of swan songs. Even Seahawks Coach Mike Holmgren, who worked with Favre for seven years in Green Bay and whose team will face him Sunday in Seattle, has given up trying to predict when he will hang up his cleats for good.

“I thought I had that nailed down a couple years ago,” Holmgren told reporters in Seattle on Wednesday.

Favre did, too. But he is well aware, he said, that he may be playing his final games — there are two in the regular season and perhaps the playoffs — and he is far more concerned with reaching the postseason than making decisions about his future.

“I know what’s possibly ahead for us,” he said. “But I have no idea what’s possibly ahead for me.”