Tom E. Curran • E-mail

NBC Sports broadcaster John Madden spent countless hours with Brett Favre during the course of the quarterback's legendary career. The Hall of Fame coach shares his memories of the soon-to-be Hall of Fame player.

Q: What was the first impression you had of Brett Favre?
A: The first impression I had was through a friend, a guard named Rich Moran who was from my hometown and played for the Packers. Rich went to high school with my son and I knew him and his dad. I talked to Rich and he said, “This guy Favre, he acts like an offensive lineman.” I guess they were at a bar one night, all these offensive linemen and Brett and a little rumble started with a group of guys. And this guy comes diving over everybody to punch the guy and it was the quarterback, Brett Favre. So that was the first thing I heard about Brett Favre and that was the lasting impression of him is that he’ll jump over linemen to get a punch in. 

Q: You spent a lot of time in production meetings with Brett over the years. How were they?
A: As I got to know him over the years, I never felt any time I spent with Brett Favre was a meeting. You could call it a production meeting but it was a conversation. We talked about everything – riding tractors to talking about his Uncle Rube to his mom and dad to his wife to going deer hunting and sitting in a blind all day. Obviously we talked about the football and all those things but it was just a BS session. Time was never of the essence with him. You would sometimes plan for a half hour, 20 minutes, 45 minutes but it always just went on and on and on. Brett was guy who didn’t want to leave. He was just that kind of guy. Sometimes with those production meetings it is a meeting. With Brett Favre I never called it a meeting.

Q: You two seemed to have a unique relationship.
A: Yeah, I had so much respect for him. The way he played the game. Some guys had to be reminded it is a game and you should have fun playing it. He had fun playing it. He had fun practicing it. He had fun in the locker room, the bus, the airplane. He was the guy that had the fart machine. He had all that stuff. He was a practical joker. I respected every part of him. Toughness. I know how hard it is to play quarterback. It could be the toughest thing in sports. When you take a guy who does it as well as Brett Favre for as long as Brett Favre and then you take all those other things and just squish ‘em all up together you have a pretty special guy.

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Q: What was your initial reaction when you heard he was retiring?
A: I was surprised because a year ago I thought he might retire. Over the years we’ve talked about this and he always said as long as he had a good team around him and a chance to win and no injuries, he would play. He came off a good team that had a good year, he had no injuries so I felt he would be back this year. I was more surprised this year than I would have been had he retired a year ago. People would ask me what I thought he’d do and I said he’d be back.

Q: Did you think he had that great 2007 season in him?
A: Yeah I did. We did the Packers last game in 2006 and he had a helluva game against the Chicago Bears. Sure the Bears had already clinched and it was a meaningless game to them but the way he finished up, I said, “Hell, he can still play.” I mean, right now sitting on a tractor in Mississippi, he’s going to be better than 70 percent of the quarterbacks in the league.

Q: What’s the NFL going to be like without him?
A: That’s the thing. That’s a big loss. I always said that if you were going to make a monument to the NFL it would be the Green Bay Packers and Lambeau Field. I think that changed to, “Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers.” He brought that franchise back and brought it back to being “Titletown.” There was a pretty big gap in between Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr and Paul Hornung and Brett Favre and he brought back the history and tradition and all those things. We’re gonna miss that. I don’t know what happens to Green Bay’s schedule now when you have no Brett Favre as a draw for a network. I don’t think it stays the same.

Q: Where does Favre fit in the conversation of the all-time great quarterbacks?
A: That’s always a tough one. There were different times, different eras. It would be Top 10. It’s hard to say one guy is the top quarterback. I always put Joe Montana there. But it’s Montana and Johnny Unitas and Otto Graham and Brett Favre and John Elway and Dan Marino and Tom Brady and Peyton Manning and they’re all in that group and you can make an argument for any of them. I don’t think someone has to be the best of all time but Brett Favre sure as hell is one of them.