{"id":907,"date":"2011-12-17T23:30:24","date_gmt":"2011-12-18T04:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/?p=907"},"modified":"2011-12-17T23:30:24","modified_gmt":"2011-12-18T04:30:24","slug":"favre-a-palooza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/17\/favre-a-palooza\/","title":{"rendered":"Favre-a-Palooza"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Now that we can safely say that Brett Favre has retired (notwithstanding <a href=\"http:\/\/espn.go.com\/chicago\/nfl\/story\/_\/id\/7327743\/jay-cutler-said-brett-favre-chicago-bears-interesting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">rumors<\/a> to the contrary), I thought it was time to pull out some data on the indecisive quarterback&#8217;s career touchdown passes.\u00a0Stats on passes say a lot about the relationship between a quarterback and his receivers so I wanted to create a visual that captured some of these stories.<\/p>\n<p>The chart below shows each touchdown pass that Brett Favre threw during his NFL career and displays it up by receiver (vertical axis), season (horizontal axis), average yardage per month (size of marker), and team (color of marker).<\/p>\n<p><script src=\"http:\/\/public.tableausoftware.com\/javascripts\/api\/viz_v1.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"tableauPlaceholder\" style=\"width: 729px; height: 1069px;\"><noscript><a href=\"#\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"BRETT FAVRE CAREER TOUCHDOWN THROWSAverage Yards Per Receiver Per Month (1992-2010) \" src=\"http:&#47;&#47;public.tableausoftware.com&#47;static&#47;images&#47;Br&#47;BrettFavreCareerTouchdownThrows&#47;BrettFavreTouchdownThrows&#47;1_rss.png\" style=\"height: 100%; width: 100%; border: none\" \/><\/a><\/noscript><object class=\"tableauViz\" style=\"display: none;\" width=\"729\" height=\"1069\"><param name=\"host_url\" value=\"http%3A%2F%2Fpublic.tableausoftware.com%2F\" \/><param name=\"name\" value=\"BrettFavreCareerTouchdownThrows\/BrettFavreTouchdownThrows\" \/><param name=\"tabs\" value=\"no\" \/><param name=\"toolbar\" value=\"yes\" \/><param name=\"static_image\" value=\"http:\/\/public.tableausoftware.com\/static\/images\/Br\/BrettFavreCareerTouchdownThrows\/BrettFavreTouchdownThrows\/1.png\" \/><param name=\"animate_transition\" value=\"yes\" \/><param name=\"display_static_image\" value=\"yes\" \/><param name=\"display_spinner\" value=\"yes\" \/><param name=\"display_overlay\" value=\"yes\" \/><\/object><\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 729px; height: 22px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 0px; color: black; font: normal 8pt verdana,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;\">\n<div style=\"float: right; padding-right: 8px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tableausoftware.com\/public?ref=http:\/\/public.tableausoftware.com\/views\/BrettFavreCareerTouchdownThrows\/BrettFavreTouchdownThrows\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Powered by Tableau<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Packer Fans will immediately recognize the significance of some of the data points. For the rest of you, here are a few highlights:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sterling_Sharpe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sterling Sharpe<\/a> caught Brett Favre&#8217;s first touchdown pass as a Green Bay Packer in 1992 and continued to be the quarterback&#8217;s primary receiver for the next three years. The 5x\u00a0All-Pro led the NFL in touchdown receptions in both 1992 and 1994 and would certainly have played a major role in the team&#8217;s subsequent success if he hadn&#8217;t suffered a career-ending neck injury at the end of the 1994 season.<\/li>\n<li>Following Sharpe&#8217;s early exit from football, Favre was forced to distribute his passes among a broader range of players, chief among them wide receivers <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Robert_Brooks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Robert Brooks<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Antonio_Freeman\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Antonio Freeman<\/a>. These two players would serve as the primary pillars of the passing game throughout\u00a0Favre&#8217;s most successful period with Green Bay.<\/li>\n<li>During the 1996 season (the year the Packers won <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Super_Bowl_XXXI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Super Bowl XXXI<\/a>), Favre threw touchdowns\u00a0to ten different receivers, a career high. His total touchdown pass yardage\u00a0that\u00a0year\u00a0also reached a\u00a0high water mark.<\/li>\n<li>Following\u00a0Favre&#8217;s\u00a0two Super Bowl appearances, there was a noticeable dropoff in the number of new players catching touchdowns. It is not clear whether it was because the receiving core had stabilized or the coaches were focused on developing other aspects of the team but there were no fresh faces in the 1998 season and only two (Corey Bradford and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Donald_Driver\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Donald Driver<\/a>) in 1999.<\/li>\n<li>Favre did not have another pair of favorite &#8220;big play&#8221; receivers until his last two seasons with the Packers, when he had both Driver and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Greg_Jennings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Greg Jennings<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>After Favre&#8217;s retirement from the Packers, he was introduced to an entirely new slate of receivers with the New York Jets in 2008. This situation was repeated in 2009 when he signed up with the Minnesota Vikings. He threw his\u00a0final touchdown pass to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Percy_Harvin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Percy Harvin<\/a> in December 2010.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now that we can safely say that Brett Favre has retired (notwithstanding rumors to the contrary), I thought it was time to pull out some data on the indecisive quarterback&#8217;s career touchdown&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15,19,27,55,56,62,99],"class_list":["post-907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-infographics","tag-brett-favre","tag-charts","tag-data-visualization","tag-graphs","tag-green-bay-packers","tag-information-design","tag-tableau"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}