Favre Looks Plenty Comfortable in Second Vikings Appearance

HOUSTON -- Brett Favre said he wasn't sure what to expect in his second start since joining the Vikings.

When his night was complete, Favre had completed 13-of-18 passes for 142 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions -- good for a 113.7 QB rating in Minnesota's 17-10 preseason win over Houston at Reliant Stadium on Monday.

The Vikings scored all 17 of their points with Favre at quarterback, a span of seven possessions. Favre was happy with the performance, but said improvements can be made.

"It felt good," Favre said. "Still a lot to work on, overall. We had a lot of penalties, just a good bit of them were procedural, that falls back on me, the snap count, putting guys in motion, things like that. It was a good test for us."

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Favre threw only four passes in his Vikings debut last week, and was hoping to get more action against a Texans' defense that was minus three starters due to injuries.

Favre said he played the game with a rib injury that's going to bother him the rest of the season. Yet it didn't seem to give him any problems during the game. He threw several passes with his usual zip, moved well in the pocket to avoid the rush and, when he was knocked down, got up with no problem.

"There's nothing you can do about it, first of all," Favre said of a possible cracked rib that occurred on a hit in last week's game. "Really don't believe it is [a problem]. It doesn't feel great, but I think I'll be fine. We haven't done an x-ray yet. Say it shows its a crack, there's nothing you can do about it, you play with it."

Favre did put himself at risk in the third quarter with an illegal crackback block on Texans free safety Eugene Wilson. The Vikings were in a Wildcat formation and Favre was split wide. Wide receiver Percy Harvin, who was playing quarterback, moved toward Favre's side of the field after taking the snap. Favre went low with his block on Wilson, who suffered a left knee injury on the play. Favre was penalized 15 yards for an illegal crackback.

Favre said he was trying to protect Harvin with three defenders after him, and he didn't want the rookie to get hurt.

"I hope he's OK," Favre said of Wilson. "I hope its nothing bad. My intentions were not to hurt anyone, including myself. Percy was running my way, I was out there and there's people that say I should have done nothing get out of the way, but I think had I not blocked him and wanted to get out of the way and Percy gets hit and gets hurt that looks much worse. I hope he's OK. My intentions were not to be cheap."

Wilson was upset by the hit and several of his teammates thought it was a bush-league play.

"Well, it happened, it's done," Wilson said. "I don't have too much to say about it. I didn't speak to [Favre] about it, to see if it was on purpose or not. So, I'm not sure."

The hit knocked Wilson out of the game. When asked if wanted to return and get back at Favre, Wilson said, "No comment."

Favre's best efforts came in the two-minute drill at the end of the first half, which resulted in his only touchdown pass of the game, a 28-yarder to running backer Chester Taylor.

That last drive of the first half was highlighted by two big yards-after-catch plays.

The first came from Harvin, who caught a nice pass over the middle and broke through two defenders for a 13-yard gain. Then on the touchdown pass, Favre looked off a defender to his left, came back to his right, and connected with Taylor, who outraced defenders to the end zone -- capping a nine-play, 74-yard drive that took three minutes, 11 seconds.

Favre said he felt comfortable with the plays being called in the two-minute offense, and he was just unsure how his teammates would respond in that situation because he's still learning them.

"We do it everyday in practice," tight end Visanthe Shiancoe said of the two-minute offense. "We try to perfect it and it showed that we can move the ball."

Favre almost added a red-zone interception when a pass was tipped by Texans linebacker Zac Diles, but the ball dropped harmlessly to the turf. He also showed off his trademark arm strength, lofting two deep balls to the end zone -- he threw one that bounced off Harvin's fingertips in the end zone, and another to Jaymar Johnson that was off the mark.

"It was more plays than I thought I would get but that's a good thing," Favre said. "When you're in 14 days and having that kind of test it's good, good for all of us. Once again, overall, I thought it was good. But as I said, there [are] a lot of things we can work on. I thought we could score more points."