BRETT FAVRE’S CONSECUTIVE QB START STREAK
Football is a physical game. It might be THE physical game. And the players in today’s NFL are getting bigger, stronger and faster than in year’s past. Because of this, injuries are commonplace, and more often than not multiple players are needing at each position during the season due to missed time.
Nobody told Brett Favre.
Brett Favre was quarterback for the Green Bay Packers for the majority of his career, with brief stints with the Atlanta Falcons, Minnesota Vikings and New York Jets. In the regular season, he made 297 consecutive starts. If you were to include the playoffs, that number is 321. This streak spans from 1992-2010. To add perspective, there are only 3 other quarterbacks who have eclipsed 200 games- Payton and Eli Manning, and Phillip Rivers. The only current streak over 100 games is Tom Brady, and he’s had 3 separate streaks of over 100 games, but has now retired again, so nobody is even close.
And Brett Favre did NOT play conservative… he ran around, diving for first downs, lead blocking on reverses, taking on defenders and such. His style of play made injuries or simply big hits a probability, yet he stayed on the field for the better part of 2 decades. I think there are some streaks by special teams players that are near as long or longer, but they may only be on the field a handful of plays a game. Favre was out there on the majority of offensive snaps, and he might as well have had a bullseye on his jersey, because defenses are taught to get to the quarterback, and knock him around when possible.
Nowadays, players in football AND the other major sports more frequently miss games, and a lot of the time it is not injury related. The term LOAD MANAGEMENT gets tossed around a lot. BRETT FAVRE was not familiar with that term. Neither were WALTER PAYTON, CAL RIPKEN, JERRY RICE… you get the idea. I don’t see this record falling any time soon.