The New York Giants opened their defence of their Super Bowl title on Thursday evening with a 16-7 victory over the Washington Redskins, but it will be the New York Jets who are the focus of attention when the other 30 teams kick off the new season on Sunday.

Brett Favre, the former Green Bay Packers quarterback, makes his debut for the Jets in their game away to the Miami Dolphins, having announced his retirement from the game earlier this year - and then changed his mind.

Favre, 38, spent 16 seasons with the Packers, leading them to victory in Super Bowl XXXI and to seven division titles. An audacious passer, he holds the NFL records for career touchdown passes (442), career passing yards (61,655) and career victories as a starting quarterback (160) among others. He started every game since the fourth game of the 1992 season, but announced in March that he did not want to play any more – a remark he later took back, saying he was “guilty of retiring early”.

Despite his history with the Packers, their reaction to his decision to un-retire was lukewarm, hence a trade to the Jets. Whether the move heralds an Indian summer for Favre and a sudden shift in the balance of power in the AFC East division, which has been ruled by the New England Patriots for most of the decade, is anybody’s guess. But Favre admitted this week that it will be as strange to him as to the public for him to appear in the Jets’ shade of green rather than that of the Packers, and that the difference will only sink in when he steps out at Dolphin Stadium tomorrow.

“It will and it’s like another chapter,” he said. “I’m not so naïve as to think that it won’t feel different, but you have to believe me that I am excited about this. I knew what I was getting into from the start and it was one of those when I looked in the mirror and said, ‘Are you ready for this?,’ and I was. There’s no guarantees what will happen for me and for this team, but I do like the team we have in place. I’m excited about the opportunity. I do feel like a Jet. The uniform feels right on me and when we line up to play Sunday it will be exciting for a lot of reasons. The obvious reason is there is a lot of newness and it is what it is, but I’m excited about it.”

Favre knows that he runs the risk of an element of anti-climax after his long leadership of the Packers, although he sidestepped comparisons with Joe Namath or Jonny Unitas, great quarterbacks who changed teams late in their careers without success. Namath left the Jets for the Los Angeles Rams and Unitas the Baltimore Colts for the San Diego Chargers, each for a single season.

“Maybe more like (Joe) Montana [the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback] with Kansas City,” Favre said. “I thought he had a pretty successful run there, but if it works out, great. That’s what I expect it to do. If it doesn’t, so be it, but I won’t know unless I try. I know I still can play. The odds are against me if you want to say that; that’s from the outside looking in, but I’m up for the challenge. You know what, five years from now, ten years from now, who really cares one way or the other? What matters is right now and I enjoy being with these guys. I enjoy being on this team and I hope the feeling is mutual and we’ll see what happens.”

There is added spice to tomorrow’s game in that the opposing quarterback for the Dolphins – traditional division rivals of the Jets – is Chad Pennington, who was traded away by the Jets to make room for Favre. And Favre has admitted that his learning of the Jets’ playbook and his understanding with his receivers are both ‘a work in progress,’ with the potential for spectacular errors. But Favre has never been afraid of the spotlight, which he knows will be especially intense this weekend.

“I consider it good, because we as players - I would hope every one of the guys in this locker room - want attention good or bad,” he said. “It gives you an opportunity to shine on a big stage which you get anyway, but this one kind of brings a little more attention to it. I’ve been fortunate throughout my career that I’ve been able to put that stuff aside. I don’t know if it’s amusing or what; it is what it is. There’s a lot of reasons to want to watch this game. But once the first kickoff takes place it’s all about football and that’s going to be the case all year long.”