As Chad Pennington jogged off the field with “MVP” chants ringing in his ears, his former team could only watch, solemnly. “The grand Favre experiment was officially a fiasco,” writes Harvey Araton of the New York Times, “unless gauged strictly as a business arrangement.” The Jets chose to “go geriatric” with Favre mostly “for the sake of salesmanship” and now it’s their castoff, Pennington, headed for the playoffs.
At times yesterday Pennington looked like the weak-armed quarterback the Jets had tired of, but at the end of the day he had snagged the fourth playoff appearance of his career. Favre, meanwhile, threw three interceptions, and seems headed for an overdue retirement, wishing “I could have held up my end of the bargain.” “It’s not a revenge factor—it’s really not,” Pennington insisted after the game. But “it’s always a sweet feeling to be a champion.” (More New York Jets stories.)