My Favorite Mic’d Up Clips Are A LIE

A post on Reddit sent me down a rabbit hole from which I can’t return

Today is December 20th, 2024. On this day in 1997, the Packers played the Buffalo Bills in Green Bay. It was 21-0 at the end of the first half and the team’s two biggest stars in Brett Favre and Reggie White got benched to get some rest for the playoffs. But this isn’t the game that I’m writing about. In fact, it took me two hours to find that out.

Let me back up.

Earlier today, the top post on the Green Bay Packers subreddit was a video containing the famous Brett Favre mic’d up moment of “You know what, Andy? I love you, man.”

However, this version contained way more context than I’ve ever seen before. Andy mentions he’s about to get chewed out and then head coach Mike Holmgren does indeed berate him over a screen call. Mike then says, “It’s first and f***in fifteen, let’s go!” before storming off.

Casually, one of the commenters asked if anyone could find the play. They mentioned it looked like a Bills player walked by about 8 seconds in. Someone replied with Dec 20th, 1997 because of Don Beebe being a Packer vs the Bills.

Well, I’m eternally online and currently procrastinating about something with my day job, so I went on the hunt. I found a video of the full broadcast and scrubbed it until I got to a 1st and 15. Rookie Ross Verba jumped at Favre’s hard count and the broadcast mentions that Bruce Smith would make anyone jump.

But wait…they also said it’s “31 degrees at kickoff, although the windchill’s 25.”

In the “I love you, man” clip, everyone is in short sleeves. This COULDN’T be the game. So I ran to the Acme Packing Company Slack chat to see if anyone else who makes content for this website felt like ignoring their day jobs on a Friday the week before Christmas.

I posted a blurry screenshot of the opposing player walking by, knowing that this would be the Bat Signal for Jon Meerdink. Jon is APC’s go-to guy for things like TV Numbers and helmet brands.

Jon believes it’s still a Packers v Bills game in 1997 but that it’s preseason week 4. It explains the white jersey, but not the home jerseys along with the weird-looking stadium. That’s when I learned about the AMERICAN BOWL. It turns out, that’s just the name for the international preseason games the NFL used to do before 2005. A noteworthy American Bowl game would be the time Terrell Davis, full of hotdogs, made a tackle on a kickoff that secured his roster spot with the Denver Broncos.

This American Bowl was played in Canada. Not seeing the normal yellow fencing of Lambeau in the background makes sense!

But…again…we were wrong. Jon found a broadcast of the game and noted that there was no red railing to be seen anywhere. I watched much of the game anyway and noticed Andy Reid’s hair was quite a bit longer than in the “I love you, man” clip.

At this point, I’m in so deep that I’m studying VHS rips of antenna broadcasts like they’re the Zapruder Film.

The certainties so far include the year and the color scheme of the opponent. Due to Don Beebe being on the sideline, Andy Reid having QB-related duties, and the Nike swoosh on jerseys it HAS to be 1997. So I look at the schedule again. The very next week the Packers played a “home” game in Madison, Wisconsin.

For anyone raised outside of Wisconsin (whattup, it’s me), the Packers played one preseason game a year at Camp Randall for over a decade. The last game played there was in 1999 against the Broncos. Brett Favre broke his thumb in the first quarter. I’m sure that won’t affect the rest of the season at all. Right? haha ha….ha…ugh.

Back to 97: the New York Giants were the “away” team at Camp Randall and their kit had not changed at all since 1980. White jersey with a blue/red/blue elastic at the end of the sleeve…this was it.

I still can’t find a full broadcast of this game. I did manage to find one single clip from a Web 1.0 page that hasn’t changed since it was posted in 1997. This HAD to be it. The University of Wisconsin LOVES the color red and puts it EVERYWHERE.

What I did with this information was go back to old mic’d up videos looking for home jerseys with a Nike swoosh. This leads me to what I am ACTUALLY trying to talk about, uh, 803 words later.

No less than six of the fandom’s favorite Brett Favre moments all come from this one game.

Gotta love this s***! Can you believe they pay us for it?!

I got some cheeseburgers at half. In my locker, I’m gonna grab em. I’m huuuuungry.

(above two seen here)

[To Don Beebe] I just ripped a big one

[To Andy Reid] Musta been something I ate. Cajun? [Andy responds] Let’s go. I don’t wanna hear about it

[To Andy] You got any Eligibility left?

(above three seen here)

And last, but not least, this is one of my all-time favorite mic’d up moments: Favre casually sings along with Do Wah Diddy Diddy playing in the stadium before instantly locking in and calling Red Left Slot 51 X 5 Flanker Cross. He then hits Robert Brooks over the middle and quips before moving with the chains.

All of these clips add to the “like a kid out there” narrative that John Madden used to talk about. It was so amazing to see someone playing at the top level of the sport joking around mid-game.

But it was a LIE. This wasn’t the true high-stress environment of an NFL game! There were no stakes! Brett Favre was out there goofing off at a locally-televised scrimmage. The sold-out crowd of 77,129 is no different than the sold-out crowd of Family Night. It’s finding out that Mark Sanchez eating chicken tenders and Mark Sanchez eating a hot dog are higher on the “casual under pressure” scale than six of my favorite Favre memories.

Look, not ALL of the best Favre sideline moments are from this game, but enough of my favorites are that it was a bit of a bummer to find out. It sort of takes some luster away from the legacy, for me.

Well, that and the funneling of welfare funds for personal use. That part sucks, too.