Favre, Packers Weren't Just Beaten They Were Beaten Soundly And Emphatically Joe Henderson, The Tampa Tribune, published 25 November 2002 The best quarterback in the National Football League was looking for the right words to describe the 21-7 beating he and his Green Bay teammates had endured Sunday against the Bucs. He paused, he stammered. He looked confused. He had been looking for answers all day and had found none. Now he just looked defeated. ``It's not so much that I'm frustrated - I'm frustrated,'' Brett Favre said. ``Frustrated is the word I'm looking for.'' Well, that's as good a way as any to convey what the NFL's best quarterback felt after his fifth trip to Ray-Jay ended like the previous four. This one actually might have been worse, considering Favre threw four interceptions - it had been 51 games since that happened in the regular season - and the win gives the Bucs a big edge in the positioning for home field in the playoffs. Everyone knows the Bucs' problems when they go Lambeau Field, particularly if it's below 40 degrees, but Favre's problems here are becoming just as chronic. The fact he may have to return here in January cannot be comforting. The natural aggression that will earn him a quick pass to Canton when he is done as a player seems to work against him during games in Tampa. The Bucs dare him to make a mistake, and when he does, it often triggers a game- changing momentum swing. Exhibit A: Midway through the third quarter, Martin Gramatica kicked a 51-yard field goal to cut Green Bay's lead to 7-6. On the first play after the kickoff, Favre tried to hit Terry Glenn but found Bucs cornerback Brian Kelly instead. Four plays later, the Bucs had the lead, and they never gave it back. ``You could feel it slipping away,'' Packers coach Mike Sherman said. It might have been Glenn's fault for running a bad route and not fighting for the ball hard enough. It might have been Favre's for forcing a pass. Neither man would blame the other in the aftermath, so until they conduct further review in the solitude of their film room, the assignment of guilt will have to wait. ``In conditions like this, you all have to be on the same page,'' Favre said. Whatever page they were on in this game needs to be ripped from the playbook and burned. ``I don't look at it as Brett Favre struggling,'' Glenn said. ``I think a better way to look at it is our offense struggled today. If you can't run the football, you can't pass the football. Especially against a team like Tampa Bay.'' Maybe it doesn't matter who did what, or didn't do what. All that mattered for Green Bay is what didn't happen. Two weeks ago, the Packers were the darlings of the league, all but granted home field throughout the playoffs by acclimation. But they lost last week at Minnesota and basically got the tar beaten out of them by the Bucs. The look on Favre's face was telltale. The man was, oh - what's the word? Frustrated, maybe. Because he is Brett Favre, you anticipate the impossible on each throw. That's what made this game so strange. By midway through the second half, the crowd of 65,672 could tell there would be no miracle on Dale Mabry for the Pack. The smart move might have been to use running back Ahman Green more, maybe play a little grind-it-out football. That isn't the way Green Bay's offense works, though. ``At some point, you have to try to score points,'' Favre said. ``You have to try to win the game. You can't give in to them.'' By the end, Favre seemed to have done just that. He had the look of someone who wanted to leave this town as quickly as possible. He couldn't even work up a good lather against old friend Warren Sapp, accused by Sherman of throwing a cheap-shot block that landed Green Bay offensive tackle Chad Clifton in a hospital. ``Until I see it, I don't want to comment on it,'' Favre said. That seemed to be the last thing he wanted to talk about on this day. Favre seemed bothered on a deeper level. He looked puzzled, perhaps a little disturbed, by the outcome. It wasn't so much that the Packers had lost, but rather the manner in which it happened. They didn't just lose, they were beaten. He had been beaten. That doesn't happen very often, and he wasn't quite sure what to feel or how to act. Was he mad? Not really. Puzzled? Perhaps a little bit. Frustrated? Yeah, that's probably it. That's the word he's looking for.