INTERESTING DIGITS ON BOMBS

Maybe you heard. Brett Favre got traded to the Jets.

Lots of stuff on FanHouse, some of it penned by your humble correspondent. Some of it penned by other, much more intelligent people.

Anyway, Tim Graham blogs for ESPN.com on the NFL, and he unearthed some superb numbers on Favre, his predecessor in New York (Chad Pennington), and their ability to throw the deep ball.

Pennington didn't go deep as often, but he was much more effective when he did. His amazing passer rating of 107.7 dwarfed Favre's 66.9.

The main reasons for the disparity were Favre's interceptions and Pennington's judiciousness. Only 3.7 percent of Pennington's passes got picked off. Favre's daredevil antics helped inflate his interception rate to 12.1 percent.

Favre threw more than twice as many touchdown passes of 20 yards or more. But Pennington, the infamous soft-tosser, had a higher completion percentage and yards-per-attempt average.

Now, it's worth noting that Favre and Pennington have indeed used the deep ball differently. I swear there were times that Favre used it as a punt.

(And with how some of the Packers' punters have been over the years, I think Favre is better off taking care of it himself.)

It's also worth noting that Pennington threw a lot fewer deep balls, in part because his offense didn't call for them, and in part because it's hard to throw the deep ball when you're laying flat on your back.

Hopefully, the free-agent signings by the Jets work out, because the alternative is Favre spending a lot of time scrambling and/or laying flat on his back.