Brett Favre, who announced his retirement on Tuesday, ranks among the top ten quarterbacks in American Football history. If he falls short of the top five - and plenty would argue that he does not - it is not by much, and almost any other player would be proud of the accomplishments of the Green Bay Packers’ number 4.

The only player to win three consecutive most valuable player [MVP] awards (1995-97), Favre, 38, also led the Packers to victory in Super Bowl XXXI in January 1997. On the way he passed for 61,655 yards and 442 touchdowns, both NFL records. The team posted only one losing record in his 14 seasons with the team, and in 12 of those seasons they were among the top 10 in points scored.

That was a result of the “gunslinger” style that made Favre admired well beyond the icy confines of Wisconsin. Favre was a passer who threw plenty of interceptions - including the final pass of his career - but they were always outnumbered by completions. And he played with competitive fire, and often while injured, which endeared him to the “Cheeseheads” - the fans of the Packers, regarded as among the most knowledgeable and demanding in the sport.

Even though he played most of his career in one of the coldest of cold-weather towns with an NFL team, Favre grew up and played college football in the warm weather of Mississippi, not far from New Orleans, the site of his Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots. He was drafted in the second round in 1991 by the Atlanta Falcons, who traded him to the Packers a year later.

“His accomplishments are legendary,” Ted Thompson, the Packers’ general manager, said. “And it’s the passion with which he played that made everyone a Brett Favre fan.”