Nearly five years after his final NFL game, and almost eight years since his last contest as a Green Bay Packer, three-time MVP Brett Favre was officially welcomed back, in front of a sellout crowd on Saturday night, July 18, as the team inducted him into their Hall of Fame.
The warm reception was a reverse of Favre’s final two appearances at Lambeau Field, when he showed up as a member of their hated rivals—the Minnesota Vikings.
But prior to that, Favre had been the main force behind the once-storied franchise’s sudden revival.
The Packers were football royalty in the 1960s with legendary coach Vince Lombardi leading Green Bay to five NFL championships, and the team’s first two Super Bowl wins, during one of the most dominant nine-year periods ever.
But from the time Lombardi left (following the 1967 season) through Favre’s first year in 1992, the team had made the playoffs just twice—1972 and 1982.
Finally in 1991, Green Bay hired Ron Wolf as general manager. Two of his most significant moves were hiring Mike Holmgren as head coach and trading a first-round pick to Atlanta for Favre—then a seldom-used, second-year quarterback out of Southern Mississippi.
The former was a great hire, while the latter turned out to be one of the greatest heists in NFL history. Though both were instrumental in bringing Green Bay back to glory, a coach is only as good as his best player and Favre will go down as one of the best ever.
His impact at quarterback was almost immediate as the 1992 Packers went 9–7 and challenged for a playoff spot. Favre himself made the Pro Bowl—the first of 11 appearances in the NFL’s version of the All-Star Game for the future Hall-of-Famer.
