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player ready...Sore thumb and all, Brett Favre looked like his old gunslinger self against the Bears for much of Sunday. But there’s no doubt he’d like to have one first-quarter pass back.
The Packers, trailing 7-0, had third-and-8 in the final minute of the first period. Favre dropped back to pass and fled to his right to avoid R.W. McQuarters on a corner blitz, only to find defensive end Phillip Daniels in his face.
Favre tried to throw the ball away, but he couldn’t get much on it backing up and firing into the teeth of a stiff breeze. His pass fluttered down into the hands of rookie linebacker Lance Briggs, who brought it back 45 yards for a touchdown.
So obvious were Favre’s intentions that he was called for intentional grounding. The Bears declined the penalty and took a short-lived 14-0 lead.
Briggs was the only man on the field with the slightest chance of catching the ball.
“You’ve got to stay disciplined,” Briggs said. “You’ve got to be where you’re supposed to be even when there’s nobody there. He was trying to throw it away, but he threw it kind of awkward. He couldn’t get enough on it, the ball kind of hung up and I was able to make a play on it.”
The misguided pass was the Packers’ only turnover. The Bears had five.
“We needed more takeaways,” linebacker Brian Urlacher said.