With the rest of the NFL watching, Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers showed Monday night why the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers finally have company among the elite teams.
Scoring after three early turnovers by the Philadelphia Eagles, the Packers got an unnecessary edge and turned it into a 39-13 rout, embarrassing another NFC playoff team that thought it had big ideas. Before a record Lambeau Field crowd of 60,666, coach Mike Holmgren totally dominated his former defensive coordinator, Ray Rhodes, who left the Packers after the 1993 season because he didn’t like living in Green Bay.
Favre, appearing in the home opener after spending six weeks for treatment of an addiction to pain medication, was wild high on his first five passes, but finished with three touchdown passes.
“I was a little excited at the beginning. I just settled down,” Favre said. “I can get better. We all can. It’s kind of a scary thing. We made a lot of mistakes tonight. We could have scored 50 points. We stopped ourselves. I’m not comfortable with the way I’ve played. I’m happy we’ve won, but we could be better.”
The precision of Favre’s four first-half strikes for 116 yards to wide receiver Robert Brooks, two for touchdowns, demoralized tight Eagles coverage and must have made defensive coordinators everywhere turn away from their TV sets.
An improved Packers defense stifled Eagles quarterback Rodney Peete, forcing four first-half turnovers. The Packers’ 10 forced turnovers in the season’s first six quarters sharply contrasted to the league-low 16 they garnered all last year.
“That’s all we’ve been talking about is getting turnovers,” defensive end Reggie White said. “If we get these guys in position to score, they can put a lot of points on the board.”
