Oct. 29, 2007

While the opponent is hazy, the defeat has stayed with Tim for years. On a cool October night, Tim trailed his opponent by 4 points heading into a Monday Night Football showdown between the Green Bay Packers and the Denver Broncos in Denver. While his opponent had used all nine players in the Sunday games, Tim had his tight end still to play: the Green Bay Packers Donald Lee.

And things started off great. On the Packers third drive of the game, Favre connected with Lee three times for a total of 34 yards. With 11:42 left in the second quarter, Tim felt confident that Lee would not only be able to get the six yards to tie the game, but 16 for him to win it. And with good reason. 41:42 of football is a longtime, and Lee had already nabbed a bulk of the yards he needed.

But things did not go according to plan the rest of the game. Drive after drive, Favre would hand off the ball to Ryan Grant or complete passes to Greg Jennings or James Jones. The clock ticked and ticked and ticked. As the fourth quarter winded down, the Packers led by three and Denver had the ball. Tim, realizing the only way he could tie or win now was if the game went to overtime, screamed at his dorm room TV as the Broncos slowly marched downfield. With :22 left on a 3rd & 1 with no timeouts, Denver quarterback Jay Cutler was brought down for no gain. The clocked rolled as Jason Elam dashed onto the field. “Kick it! Kick it!” Tim screamed as Denver could not stop the clock. And with a second to spare, longsnapper Mike Leach got the snap to holder Todd Sauerbrun, and Jason Elam kicked a 21 yard field goal through the uprights.

Spared temporarily, Tim cheered as the Packers won the coin toss for overtime and chose to receive. But one play later, the dream ended. Favre took the snap, stepped back in the pocket, play action faked to Ryan Grant, and heaved the ball downfield where it was hauled in by Greg Jennings at the Denver 37. Jennings scampered into the endzone untouched, the game ended, and Tim lost his matchup.

And if the pain wasn’t bad enough, Favre rubbed salt deep into Tim’s wounds when he told reporters in the post game press conference that the play was designed to go to Donald Lee, but he decided to take a shot up top to Jennings. To which Tim remarked “Fuck You Brett Favre…and Donald Lee.”