An angry Favre expected to return with a flurry

The Associated Press

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Warren Sapp took no solace in watching Brett Favre's meltdown. He knows the Green Bay Packers quarterback rarely plays poorly two weeks in a row.

"He has that one game every year," the Tampa Bay tackle said. "Too bad it ain't my place where he has it."

Favre threw three interceptions in Green Bay's 31-21 loss at Minnesota on Sunday after being picked off just four times in his first nine games.

He also jawed frequently with defensive linemen, who were whistled three times for roughing the passer, and he got so flustered he picked up a personal foul himself for a late hit on a linebacker following an interception.

"You have to take Brett Favre for what he is. He's a passionate player," said coach Mike Sherman, whose Packers play the Buccaneers on Sunday in a game between the league's only 8-2 teams.

Sherman is not about to do anything to diminish that fervor, which he says is a big component in making Favre one of the game's all-time greats.

Favre admits he let the Vikings -- particularly Chris Hovan and Lance Johnstone -- get under his skin. How could he not, he asked, when he spent the afternoon dealing with "little fingers in facemasks and rolling on your legs."

"Football is football and it's not a nice man's game," Favre said. "But I'm not going to take anything off anybody."

Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden, a former Green Bay assistant, said Favre always returns from a sub-par performance with a vengeance, and that's exactly what he expects Sunday.

"Everyone's entitled to have an off day," Gruden said. "The one thing about Brett that I do know is it will not bother him one bit. He will come down here and play his best football. He always does after he has a game that's not to his standards."

Favre hopes Gruden is right. But he doesn't know about all this bounce-back stuff. It seems everybody is always telling him he plays his best the week after getting hurt or the week after he hurts himself.

He only wishes he didn't have to make any comebacks at all.

"I hope to play my very best every week," Favre said. "I don't need a loss or a bad game to open my eyes."

He does know that he seems to stay angry after a bad outing, something not apparent from his easygoing, country-boy persona and locker-room role as a jokester.

"I tend to stay ticked off all the time, it doesn't show," Favre said.

That anger seethes until he unleashes it on the next opponent.

So, it seems everybody's expecting Favre to flourish Sunday, but he's 0-4 at Raymond James Stadium and considers Tampa Bay's defense "by far the best they've ever been."

"To think that you're going to go in there and just light it up, I don't know if that's realistic. We can go in there and win that football game, I know that," Favre said matter-of-factly.

One thing's for sure: Favre doesn't plan on doing any of his notorious trash-talking with Sapp.

"I'm too old to be jawing with these guys," Favre said. "I'm trying to conserve energy. I used to do all that and I tried it last week and it didn't work out."

Sapp said he doesn't plan on getting into it, either.

"I don't know how you win a verbal battle anyway," Sapp said. "They don't keep track of how many good one-liners you have."