My first memory of watching Brett Favre play was in 1992 during a pre-season game. Favre had just come over to Green Bay from the Atlanta Falcons and all the assembled Packer faithful were curious to get a look at him. He’d cost our struggling franchise a first round pick and nobody seemed to know much about him. Leaning forward in our chairs, the bar got quiet as we watched the youthful #4 bolt onto the field. The unspoken question hung heavy in the air, “Does this kid have the juice?”

From his first snap, Favre was all over the yard. There were comic five-second scrambles, 40-yard lasers launched with a flick of the wrist, fumbled snaps, improvised runs gleefully finished by Favre knocking linebackers ass over tin cups, and a handful of 100-mph fastballs on 8-yard slants that nearly decapitated the intended receivers.

During this short stint in a meaningless game, Favre hit everything but the Goodyear blimp, and he would have drilled that too…but he overthrew it. After absorbing this first surreal performance, I turned to the stunned assemblage and vocalized what we all were thinking, “I’m not sure what the hell that was, but it sure was fun to wxatch.”

16 years later, that wild-eyed kid is now a middle-aged man, with gray in his hair and more than a little weariness in his voice. He’s sitting at a podium telling the world he no longer wants to play football. I listen and remember that day in 1992, and it doesn’t seem possible that the kid who ricocheted all over that field could possibly be sitting in that chair, but he is, and it’s time.

Brett Favre may not be the best quarterback to ever play the game — he’d be the first to tell you his mechanics were unorthodox, and God knows he could be reckless with the football. But when he was on the field, you couldn’t take your eyes off him.

Favre captured people’s attention for many reasons. Where most quarterbacks are only two chromosomes away from robots, with a corporate personality to match, Favre was deliciously human.

He laughed, he cried; he did great things; he screwed up; he would visit sick kids in the morning and tell fart jokes in the afternoon. He was Superman on Sunday and Everyman the rest of the week. Ordinary people liked him. Ordinary people knew him.

During his retirement speech, Favre said that despite how this last season ended, he knew he was going out on top. I couldn’t agree more. As much as I’d selfishly like to see him continue, the true mark of greatness is knowing that the time to leave the stage is before the applause subsides.

I struggle to find words to accurately convey my thanks and appreciation for what Brett Favre has contributed to my life the past 16 years. I find that I am as dumbfounded today by what I have witnessed as I was that Fall afternoon in 1992.

Ironically, it is in that beginning that I find a fitting epitaph to the unique greatness of Favre. After 16 years of watching him play, I’m still not sure what the hell that was, but it sure was fun to watch.

Thanks, Brett. For everything.