In the mostly empty visiting team's locker room at
Cleveland Browns Stadium on Aug. 7, Jets receiver Jerricho Cotchery reflected on what he and his fellow players had heard from their newest teammate about five hours earlier.
"It was very interesting to hear him say, 'Let's have a lot of fun,"' Cotchery said after the Jets' 24-20 victory. "A guy who's been in the league that long, won a championship and all that, and the first thing that came out of his mouth was, 'Let's have a lot of fun."'
In a lot of ways, it has been exactly that for the Jets since Brett Favre came to the franchise as a result of that late-night trade Aug. 6 and was introduced, first to his teammates, then to the media, Aug. 7 in Cleveland.
Of course, the full Favre Effect on the Jets couldn't quite be gleaned from the quarterback's brief appearances in the preseason and it won't be known in its entirety for some time. Still, in his first regular-season game as a Jet last Sunday, Cotchery's comment from a month before seemed prescient enough.
Every Favre touchdown pass touches off a Jim Valvano, hug-the-nearest-human moment, which isn't a surprise. This, after all, is a quarterback who low-fived referee Pete Morelli after throwing a touchdown pass - to current teammate Bubba Franks - against Detroit last season.
"I was looking for someone to celebrate with," Favre said at the time. "He just happened to have stripes on."
But to many of his new teammates, the kid-in-the-candy-store routine is a surprise. And a welcome one.
Tight end Chris Baker, in his seventh season with the Jets, said Monday that Favre's enthusiasm is something ratcheted up from the preseason, something he's never experienced on a football field.
"Some of the excitement that he shows," Baker said. "You're used to seeing it on TV, but to be on the field with him and being able to see some of the things that he does - some of the reads. His actual in-game operation is unlike anything that I've been around."
Baker's answer strayed a bit but it seemed fitting for the player he was discussing because Favre's "in-game operation" encompasses so much. It ranges from Favre gunning the ball 50 yards in the air to Cotchery for a 56-yard touchdown, high-fiving whomever he could find; the javelin-like touchdown pass to Chansi Stuckey, and his fail-safe method of calling out plays from a playbook he hasn't quite mastered.
"A couple of times, I just winged it and told the guys, 'Same play,"' Favre said Sunday.
Typical Favre self-deprecation?
"He actually did that," Baker said. "He wasn't joking when he said that."
Many have predicted some friction between Favre and Jets coach Eric Mangini because of that kind of "winging it" philosophy, but Mangini, above all else, is a pragmatist. He knew Favre's history coming in and wouldn't have signed off - and really, pushed for - the deal in the first place if it scared him.
In Mangini's eyes, the good (getting the playmaker his team needed) outweighed the bad - the ill-advised decisions that haven't happened yet, but inevitably will, leading to some turnovers.
Asked Monday about Favre's "same play" calls, Mangini smiled.
"You know, a couple times I wish he had called 'same play' and vetoed the stuff we sent him," Mangini said. "You know, any port in a storm."
Translation: In the organized chaos that is an NFL game, teams that win have the ability to score in ways both predictable and unpredictable.
But the Favre Effect goes beyond just fun and improvisation, and in the case of the Jets, it was Cotchery, yet again, who gave to this point the best summation, and most important aspect, of it.
