Eight quarterbacks started in the NFC North a year ago. Seven had completion percentages below 60 percent. Six had losing records. Five threw as many or more interceptions as touchdown passes.
The quarterback with the best record in the division last year — the Vikings’ Gus Frerotte (8-3) — is out of football this year. Five others who started games in the division last year are now NFL backups.
Obviously, the NFC North was a division in need of an overhaul at quarterback. It got one via three distinctly different avenues during the offseason. The early results this fall are impressive and suggest the NFC North might just turn out to be the NFL’s best division in 2009.
All four teams won Sunday. Thanks to NFL.com and a Lions media guide that helped locate Detroit’s few-and-far-between victories, it was determined that Week 10 of the 2005 season was the last time that happened.
The combined record of the NFC North was a league-best 8-4 through Sunday. The NFC East was 7-4 before the Cowboys played the Panthers in Dallas on Monday night.
A year ago, the NFC North started 4-8. Of course, a year ago, it didn’t have Brett Favre, Jay Cutler and Matthew Stafford starting alongside Aaron Rodgers, who is back for his second season as a starter in Green Bay.
Rodgers, Cutler, Stafford and Favre represent the four best ways for an NFL team to get better at quarterback: 1, Draft and groom a first-round pick as a backup for three years (Rodgers/Packers); 2, Trade for a disgruntled Pro Bowler in his mid-20s (Cutler/Bears); 3, Be historically horrible and use the No. 1 overall draft pick on a kid with swagger (Stafford/Lions). 4, Beg a future Hall of Famer familiar with your system out of retirement (Favre/Vikings).
Those four paths intersect this week when Detroit visits Chicago on Sunday and the Packers face the Vikings at the Metrodome on Monday night in Favre’s first game against the team with which he spent 16 years building a legend.
"I think everybody in the country will be sitting in front of their TVs Monday night," Jets fullback Tony Richardson, the former Viking, said Monday during a phone interview for an unrelated story. "Brett and I were teammates last year. He’s a friend of mine. In fact, I just texted him (Monday) morning to congratulate him on Sunday’s win. First, he does that, and now it’s Brett Favre vs. the Packers on Monday Night Football. Who won’t be watching?"
Richardson’s congratulatory text referred to Favre’s game-winning 32-yard laser to Greg Lewis in the back of the end zone to beat the 49ers with two seconds left in Sunday’s game.
It was the 43rd fourth-quarter comeback of Favre’s career and his first with the Vikings. Later in the day, Cutler executed his second in two weeks with the Bears to help fans forget about that four-interception loss at Green Bay in Week 1. In the fourth quarter of the Bears’ victories over Pittsburgh and Seattle the past two weeks, Cutler is 12 of 13 for 135 yards and two touchdowns.
"I pride myself in that," Cutler told reporters after his 36-yard touchdown pass to Devin Hester with 1:52 left beat the Seahawks 25-19 in Seattle. "I want the ball in those situations."
Stafford doesn’t have a comeback victory. But he’s a Lions quarterback with a victory. That’s special enough for now.
Rodgers does have a fourth-quarter comeback this season. He opened the year by throwing a 50-yard touchdown to Greg Jennings with 1:11 left to beat the Bears.
He also hasn’t thrown an interception in 148 passes going back to last season. That ranks him third in franchise history behind Hall of Famer Bart Starr (294 in 1964-65) and — believe it or not — Favre (163 in 2001-02).
It’s possible Rodgers could move past Favre while playing against Favre. Asked about their upcoming meeting following Sunday’s victory in St. Louis, Rodgers quickly clammed up, clearly wanting no part of the public discussion about the game.
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