ShareThisTroy Aikman will go down as one of the greatest quarterbacks to play in the NFL, having played on three winning Super Bowl teams and being the big reason the Cowboys dominated the NFL in the early 1990s.
Now a member of the top Fox NFL broadcasting team along with Joe Buck, Aikman couldn't say enough good things about Brett Favre after watching the 40-year-old quarterback lead the Vikings to a 36-10 victory over the Bears on Sunday.
"No, he has not lost anything," said Aikman, who competed against Favre for the last time in a 45-17 loss to the Packers in 1997. "I've marveled watching him over the years, and especially this year.
"As I said during the broadcast, I stood on the opposite sideline when he was winning league MVPs and playing against him in some very meaningful games, and then watching him 15 years later and to me he's the exact same guy.
"I mean, other than he's got a bad beard now, and it's gray, he's still doing all the things that he did back in the early '90s."
Aikman said Favre has gotten better with age.
"And that's really saying something considering he is a three-time league MVP," Aikman said. "But at 40 years old, to be playing the best of his career, he's one of those few athletes that comes along -- Nolan Ryan was one of those guys, and there's others that we've seen -- that have gotten to an age to where others can't even think about going and doing the things that they're doing, and yet they're not only doing it but they're doing it at a high level."
Aikman is also high on the Vikings but he believes home field will be important if they have to play the Saints to go to the Super Bowl.
"I think (the Vikings) are really good," he said. "I think it's the most complete team, certainly in the NFC, maybe in the NFL -- without having seen all of the teams in the AFC," Aikman said.
"But the one thing that I think is that when you look at the two teams right now that are the best in the NFC, it's New Orleans and Minnesota. New Orleans, if they're playing at home, that's going to be awfully difficult for anybody to go into New Orleans and win that game. I think it comes down to ... who gets home-field advantage.
"This is a big game Monday night now between New England and New Orleans, and I'm sure these Vikings players will be sitting around the television watching this one with great interest."
Additionally, Aikman was very complimentary of Rick Spielman, Scott Studwell and the Vikings personnel department for building this great team.
"When you think about the fact they go out and they get Steve Hutchinson, then they bring in Jared Allen last year and, of course, Brett Favre this year, but then look at the draft that they have: Phil Loadholt, to be their right-tackle and playing like he's playing. Sidney Rice, the verdict was out on him over the last two years; he was banged up, this year he comes in and he's tremendous," Aikman said. "Signing a guy like Bernard Berrian, Adrian Peterson, drafting him, I mean there's just a lot of playmakers.
"You think about the places that Brett Favre threw the ball today, well, that speaks to the fact that there's a lot of options for him, and that's dangerous for whoever they're playing against."
(Contact Sid Hartman at shartman(at)startribune.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
columnMust credit Minneapolis Star Tribune
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