Monday Night Football Recap

Monday Night Football has been a fixture of the National Football League for over 40 seasons and running. Monday night games originally aired on ABC but moved to ESPN in 2006. The first year TV aired prime time football was in 1966. In 1970, as part of the negotiation for new television rights, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle negotiated a full schedule of games with ABC network.

Last night, October 11, 2010, Monday Night Football aired an amazing set of milestones. Whether you love or hate Brett Favre he truly is an amazing icon of professional football.


* Favre has started 289 straight games. Only five quarterbacks have regular season streaks of 100. His streak is the longest by a player at any position. Peyton Manning has started 197 straight, but from the moment Favre's streak stops he'll have to play about six more full seasons to catch him and he's 34 right now. Ron Jaworski (116), Tom Brady (111) and Joe Ferguson (107) are the other three to start more than 100 straight games. Eli Manning (92) and Phillip Rivers (69) have the other longest current streaks.

* Favre threw his 500th career TD pass to Randy Moss last night and also tossed two others to finish the evening with 502. I figured that Dan Marino or some other guys might be right around that number. Wrong. Marino is second with 420. John Elway is fifth at 300, Joe Montana ninth at 273 and Terry Bradshaw 24th at 212 (Bradshaw also threw 210 interceptions). Again Peyton Manning may eventually catch Favre. He currently stands third at 377. Here is the list.

* Favre, as expected, has a clear lead in interceptions. He's thrown 324. What is more interesting is that Kerry Collins, second on the active list, is all the way down at 29th on the career list with 188. Peyton Manning is 32nd with 183.

* Favre has 70,190 passing yards. This may again not seem like alot but die-hard football fans please take note:
2. Dan Marino+ 61,361
3. Peyton Manning 51,737
4. John Elway+ 51,475
5. Warren Moon+ 49,325
6. Fran Tarkenton+ 47,003
7. Vinny Testaverde 46,233
8. Drew Bledsoe 44,611
9. Dan Fouts+ 43,040
10.Joe Montana+ 40,551

And I might point out he's only 41 years old. 4 years younger than I am. Amazing!! Will Peyton Manning be able to surpass these achievements? Maybe...
If Peyton Manning stays healthy and maintains his past 12 seasons averages he could have 86,000+ passing yards by age 41. (Very basic math calculation)

Anyways...congrats to Brett Favre for providing a great moment in history last night. I felt honored to have witnessed such an event. Ranks right up there with watching Hank Aaron break Babe Ruth's home run record on TV, April 8, 1974.