I looked at the stats and I did a double take. Is it possible that Brett Favre has matured as QB in his 18th year as a starter?

Like him or not Brett Favre after his revengeful antics in orchestrating ending his playing career with his previous teams most hated rival, is a sure shot first ballot Hall of Fame inductee. However, Brett's last two years have ended on a somewhat sour note.

Favre's last pass for the Packers was an interception that kept his team out of the NFC Championship game. After Starting 8-3 with the Jets last year and talks of a storybook trip to the Superbowl, an injury to his arm caused him to play poorly and the Jets ended up 9-7 and out of the playoffs. Let's face it, his record got in the way. If he couldn't play well he should have let Clemens have a go at it, but no one ever accused Brett Favre of being a team player.

This year the Favre-led Vikings are 8-1 and steamrolling through the NFC for what seems like an inevitable meeting with the Saints in the NFC Championship game. In many ways Favre's performance this year can be considered the best of his career. That's saying a lot.

Favre won the league MVP an amazing three years in a row from '95-'97. In those three years he amassed 122 TD and 12,179 yards of passing and only had 2.6% of his pass attempts picked off. The knock on Favre from his detractors has always been that he was a gun-slinger and while he would make a spectacular play from time to time that no one else could make, he would also throw the untimely pick to cut your heart out that no one else would throw.

During his MVP years Favre kept those mistakes to a minimum. But in this, Bret Favre's 18th year as a starter he is perhaps having his finest moment. Let's take a look at his Hall of Fame career stats (including those three great years) vs. this year's stats year to date.

More than half way through the 2009 season Brett Favre is exceeding his Hall of Fame career average in a positive way in every important metric. Favre has been efficient and protected the ball while still being able to throw the ball down the field. This is evident by the fact that while completions percentage is up, his yards per game and per completion are up as well yet his interceptions are down dramatically. No dinking and dunking for Favre, he's still a gun slinger, just a more prudent one.  And this year, he is in fact doing the things that a team player needs to do to win.  It's taken 18 years but he's finally got it.

Mike Cardano is the founder of the Around the Horn Baseball Blog and the Extra Point Football Blog.

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