STEELERS Forcing matters is not good for Favre

Injuries are taking their toll on both teams, especially Green Bay.
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) -- The knock on Brett Favre even when he was winning MVPs and taking the Green Bay Packers to Super Bowls was that he needed to dial down his risky style.
It's a criticism Favre is hearing anew. As he loses playmakers and close games at an equally alarming rate, commentators and critics contend he should be more conservative.
Yet, with the Packers (1-6) and Houston tied for the worst record in the league and Pro Bowlers Ahman Green and Javon Walker leading a long list of players out for the season, Favre feels it's more important than ever to try to make something happen.
"Sometimes I feel like I have to take it upon myself more so than at any other time in my career," Favre said as he prepared for today's visit by the Pittsburgh Steelers (5-2), who are going for their 11th straight win on the road. "Especially when we're 1-6. If you lose, you lose. But you've got to go down fighting, in my opinion.
Won't go out on top
"I may be wrong, and if I am then it's time for me to leave this game, but I'm going to go down swinging," Favre said. "And if it looks bad sometimes, it looks bad, but I'm not going to say, 'Damn. If I'd have just tried it.' I'm going to try everything I can."
Like last Sunday, when he threw interceptions on five straight drives for the first time in his career and still had the Packers within striking distance of the end zone as time ran out when he flubbed the final play on a fake spike in a 21-14 loss at Cincinnati.
"Making it up, making something happen," explained Favre, who swears the film shows that had he just winged it to the end zone, he had Donald Driver open for the touchdown between seven dumbfounded defenders.
But Favre didn't realize that rookie guard Will Whitticker took out the pass-rusher trying to swat his arm and so he tucked the ball and stumbled across the line of scrimmage, shuffled the ball forward and fell down, exhausted.
Vintage Favre.
"It's kind of hard to watch him have games like he did last week with those interceptions, and to lose it like that, because you're always pulling for the guy," said Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlesberger, who is out after arthroscopic knee surgery. "He's such a great guy, class act. So, it's tough to see stuff like that happen with him."
Said Steelers linebacker Clint Kriewaldt: "He does some stupid stuff once in a while, but I can't take anything away from the guy, he's a great football player."
Freelance
Favre's fake spike was pure freelance, but nobody on his team criticized him.
"That's the way he's become the three-time MVP and arguably the best quarterback to ever play the game," Ryan Longwell said. "I mean, that's Favre being Favre and he's going to go down fighting. It's always easy to be tough in another man's skin. It's easy to second-guess a guy.
"I don't think anybody in this locker room will question his instincts. Just trying to make a play. That's the great athletes of this world. It goes back to Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Brett Favre. Those guys just don't have quit in their systems. That's what makes them the best of the best."
And the Packers are content to live with Favre's gunslinging style because they know it's what gives them a chance on any Sunday, even without their top two running backs and three of their top receivers.