Week 1: Brett Favre Postgame Quotes

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Brett Favre made his regular season, unretirement debut as quarterback of the N.Y. Jets and led his new team to a 20-14 win over the Miami Dolphins on Kickoff Weekend. His final stats were solid — 15-of-22 passing for 194 yards and two touchdowns. Here’s his postgame presser transcript:

Whether the pass to Cotchery was the type of play he came back for.
Yes, and the result — the win. A win is as win and they never get old. All the stuff that goes on during the course of the game, the big plays, the bad plays, that’s what it’s all about, to walk off that field with a win.

On the 4th down play for the touchdown.
Obviously with Mike (Nugent) hurt that changes everything. It was double pressure and I tried to throw it to where somebody was and just give someone a chance. I saw him, but I didn’t think he had a chance in hell in catching it.

On his first win with the Jets.
It means a great deal. It was ugly at times, but a win is a win. I know this, we ran the ball well and it opened up the deep ball to Jericho. We probably could have taken some more chances during the course of the game like that. I’d be lying if I stood here and told you that I feel real confident in the passing offense right now. Getting the play out is the first thing. Then you have understanding the concept and the protection changes. They gave us a few protections problems today that really fall back on me. I was more concerned about who was lining up where. We overcame that and the guys around me overcame that. Every one of those guys in there on offense, I told them that if I forget something to tell me. That’s usually the opposite. They were able to overcome that. We made some mistakes that I think were a result of the newness, but it’s a win.

On his thoughts when the Dolphins were making their last drive.
Don’t score. Chad played well and I give him a lot of credit. I’ve said that this whole camp. The guy is a competitor and I think that he’s raised that team’s level of play and will continue to do that. I kept thinking that if they scored, it’s over. They would have only left us with 5, 6, 7, or 8 seconds.

On if he kicked growing up.
Badly. Brian Daboll, the quarterbacks coach, asked me on the sidelines, ‘Hey can you kick?’ It was right after Mike had attempted that kick and I said that I can’t even kick that well. We never talked about it again.

On his first game back.
Tomorrow morning I’ll probably be going that I don’t want to play, but I know I’ve said that this is what it’s all about. I’ve said from day one that I know that I’ve made the right decision. I enjoy these guys. There’s no guarantee what’s going to happen for the rest of this year. We’re 1-0 and I’m excited about the opportunity — not only for today but for the remainder of the year. I hope that I can bring something to this team that I’ve brought to every team that I’ve played with. Whatever that may be, as long as it helps us win.

On what he was feeling about taking the field for a different team.
I didn’t dwell on it too much, I really didn’t. I’m over that. I think one time during the course of game I looked up and they were flashing scores and I saw Packers-Vikings tomorrow night and it wasn’t like I was supposed to be there. I’m a Jet. I’m one of 53 on this team and I’m proud of it. I had a great career in Green Bay, but that’s over and done with and it’s what I do this year. It was a good start. It was shaky, but it was a good start and it was a win. You can never question a win and it is what it is.

On if he thought we underthrew Cotchery.
I thought I overthrew him but obviously I didn’t. That’s the one thing that I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to have that one first shot and just unleash one and throw it up into the second deck. Not that I underestimate his speed but he’s a deceptive player. Greg Jennings was one of those guys where all of a sudden you would go, ‘Man was that Greg Jennings again and Jerricho’s that type of guy. He’s always around the ball and the guy can make plays. He has deceptive speed and I hope he keeps deceiving people.

On if lack of familiarity was the reason for the incompletion to Coles.
Absolutely, that play was a touchdown. I didn’t think he was going to do something totally different, but I thought he was going to cut in just a little. We’ve never ran that play together, we’ve talked about it but we talked about it against 5, 6, 7 or 8 different looks. He almost made a hell of a catch on the pass interference. If I had picked the ball up just a little bit more that’s an easy catch. I don’t know what’s going to happen next week, but you can see where there’s just a couple of plays where you thought that if they just get on the same page, look how good they can be. The potential is there, we’re close but you can see when you make little mistakes how different it can be. That’s not just with Laveranues and I, but with snap counts and things like that. We’ve got a ways to go, but we’re close.

On if he was nervous today.
Not really. Before the game several guys would come up and ask me how I was doing and I was really just low key. Finally I said that I was just trying to conserve. I’m going to need to conserve some energy because I’m going to need it. I’ll be 39 in a month and I hadn’t played in a full game in quite a while. The last full game that I played in was 120 degrees cooler so you never get tired. I knew that this was going to be a battle. I knew it was going to be a battle for a lot of reasons, including just the newness for me and having to overcome 3 ½ weeks of work. I wasn’t nervous, I just wanted to make sure that I played well and well enough for four quarters to give us a chance to win. I didn’t want to lose the game for us.

On how he feels physically.
Right now I feel fine. I got nailed on the one where they threw the flag. I told Roth later that you nailed me and he said that I gave him a great fake. I looked right at him with no ball in my hand and I saw him coming, but he hit me anyway. I guess they wanted to test me and they knocked me silly there for about 30 seconds. For the most part, I can overcome all of that stuff and I’ll probably be sore as heck tomorrow but a win sure makes it easier.

On Tom Brady’s injury.
I just found out about that. That’s terrible. I guess it’s an ACL or something. They’ve always overcome injuries and things like that but that’s pretty difficult.

On percentage of the playbook he is comfortable with.
Boy I don’t know, I don’t know what else these guys have in store for me. Phil Simms and Jim Nantz were asking me yesterday how comfortable I felt and I would say about 75%. I don’t know, but I think with each day it gets a little bit better. There’s only so much studying you can do before you just start staring at the wall. Last night, I just wrote a lot of the plays down so they sounded and looked normal to me. I knew once the live bullets start flying that it’s different. A couple of times I just winged it and told the guys same play and then I said okay ready break . That’s the good thing about having a veteran team, we were able to overcome some of those things. I don’t want to do that week in or week out. but sometimes you just have to overcome.

On if he’s a New Yorker yet.
I’m a New York Jet. I don’t know about a native New Yorker or however you say it. I’m happy to be a Jet and it was a great win for us. I don’t know where we go from here. Hopefully it goes up, but it’s a good start.

On his “nifty” run for a first down.
Actually that was the one hit that I fell on the ball and it kind of knocked the wind out of me. I knew I couldn’t lay down so I got up, and I didn’t have rib pads on and came back to the huddle. The first thing I did was to look to see if I got the first down which made the wind being knocked of me a little bit better. I wouldn’t call it nifty — maybe successful.

Source: NewYorkJets.com, Photo: Newscom