Former Jets Assistant: Favre's Late Arrival Hampered Offense

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Quarterback Brett Favre was never fully incorporated into the New York Jets offense last season until mid to late-October, says one-time Jets offensive assistant Jimmy Raye, who is now the San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator -- and will face his former QB Sunday at the Metrodome.

Raye also revealed Thursday that Favre's torn biceps tendon forced the Jets to severely limit his throws during practices late in the 2008 season.

"As best I can remember, that was very difficult for us," said Raye, who was running backs coach with the Jets from 2006-08. He said Favre's late arrival during the exhibition season -- he was traded from the Packers to the Jets on Aug. 7, 2008 for a conditional fourth-round pick -- proved disruptive for an offense that had grown accustomed to Chad Pennington.

As a result, Favre and the Jets got off to a 3-3 start, losing a particularly difficult 16-13 game at Oakland on Oct. 19 that seemed to sap a lot of the veteran quarterback's enthusiasm.

"We were on the road the second or third preseason game [when Favre arrived], and it was somewhere late-October, mid-October, before ... it took us most of the month of September just to get accustomed to his cadence," Raye recalled.

"I haven't thought about it in awhile, but it was very difficult for Laveranues [Coles] and Jerricho [Cotchery], because it was a totally different style. They didn't have the time to work together in the game plan situations."

The 49ers (2-0) take on the Vikings (2-0) in Minnesota, and Raye concedes he has no idea why Favre's transition there appears to be smoother than it was with the Jets. Favre also joined the Vikings late in training camp, signing on Aug. 18.

"I'm not sure about the situation he's in now, but it took us a long time going from Pennington, who had been there forever, to [Favre]," Raye said of the '08 Jets. "The adjustment was monumental.

"I don't know anything about the Vikings' situation, but all I can tell you is, for us [the Jets], it was a big adjustment."

Raye also said that the Jets didn't game plan around Favre's torn biceps injury -- the one that former coach Eric Mangini failed to reveal on the weekly NFL injury reports and eventually cost the Jets franchise and Mangini a combined $125,000 in fines from the league.

But Raye said the Jets, who had won five in a row following the Oakland loss, lost momentum in part because Favre's injury hampered their production. The Jets lost four of their last five games in '08, finishing 9-7 and out of playoff contention.

"We kept doing what we were doing," Raye said of the game planning, "and we kept slipping further and further into the muck. The way the injury affected us was in preparation because during the week, we didn't throw the ball very much. He needed a lot of time to receive treatment to get to the point that on Sunday, he felt that he could play and throw.

"What hurt us was the lack of continuity during the week, because he was on a throw-limit during the week and of those were basically route review and the ball wasn't coming out. So it hurt us more in the physical application of what we were doing in preparation, as we got into the week."