Her name -- I had to look this up -- was Anya Major, and although she was blonde and rather petite in the early 1980s, she supposedly had been a discus thrower in a previous life. The epiphantic Anya rushed into my mind toward the end of the second quarter Monday night, when the Packers' Brett Favre' planted his back foot and launched a 60-yard-plus rocket to a presumably amazed Bill Schroeder at the Jaguars' 14. Yes, the ball went straight through Schroeder's hands, but no matter ... even the Bible is filled with good men and women who struggle to receive the full impact of revelation when it comes near.

	Brett Favre, the Anya Major of NFL quarterbacks.

Fortified on nothing stronger than caffeinated soda, I decided right there and then that Favre's astonishing throw -- not a Hail Mary, not a Gravity's Rainbow, but an absolute laser -- might someday have been seen as being every bit as revolutionary as Anya's heralded heave during the Super Bowl in 1984 turned out to be.

"1984" ... remember? That was the year, and the subject, and the title of director Ridley Scott's $1.6 million commercial for a new computer called the Macintosh, a commercial that had but one national airing, during Supe XXIV, and which starred an uncredited Anya Major charging through scenes of dreary, soul-sapping, mindlessly collective conformity and unleashing a soaring hammer-throw into Big Brother's very heart of darkness. Or something like that. C'mon, it was years ago!

"1984" would eventually be judged the greatest commercial of the last 50 years, apparently by people who'd never heard Motormouth John Moschitta take all of three seconds to say, "Peter, I'm putting you in charge of Pittsburgh ... Pittsburgh's perfect for you, Peter, that's why I picked Pittsburgh, Peter -- may I call you Pete?" If "1984" was a little overrated as an ad, the product it signified was indeed All That. And now we can only hope that Favre's throw will have a similar impact. Because these days, it seems as if Brett -- and his slinging confreres Kurt Warner and Jeff Garcia -- are all that stands between us and ...

... Dilferization.

Because in 2001, we've been seriously Dilferized. The whole NFL season has. Trent Dilfer may not have a starting job, but at least he's become a verb ... and, to an increasing number of NFL coaches, the beau ideal of the 21st century quarterback: the QB who manages the game, but doesn't try to win it.

		If you like singers who write their own songs, and directors who shoot their own screenplays, and any other artist or entertainer who tries to keep the distance as short as possible between the work he imagines and the work the audience enjoys -- i.e., who Just Want to Do Their Thing and Not Get Hassled by The Man -- then Dilferization has got to trouble you.

These days, Dilfer's like Sir Christopher Wren, the guy who built St. Paul's in London: if you seek his monument, look around. In Buffalo. In Chicago. In New England, and how. In Pittsburgh ("may I call you Pete?"). Even in Indianapolis. Go ahead, add a few of your own. More and more quarterbacks these days are on a tighter leash than that three-headed thingy in "Harry Potter." What in the name of Montana, Elway, Marino and "making a play" has happened here?

Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl, that's what. He ran a mistake-free, hey-I-don't-make-the-rules, I-just-work-here offense. Meanwhile, that ferocious defense wrought havoc, and the result? The Vince Lombardi Trophy, and a big party in Ybor City.

Which is a shame.

Because if you like singers who write their own songs, and directors who shoot their own screenplays, and any other artist or entertainer who tries to keep the distance as short as possible between the work he imagines and the work the audience enjoys -- i.e., who Just Want to Do Their Thing and Not Get Hassled by The Man -- then Dilferization has got to trouble you.

Funny thing is, 2001 looked more like an Anya Major year going in. Early reports featured much love for Doug Flutie in San Diego -- when they were 3-0, someone suggested he was an MVP candidate -- and for the Great Favre. So what happened?

Well, some talented players realized they weren't on great teams. Flutie overreached a few times and the Chargers fell off the radar screen. What do you suppose Jake Plummer sees when he's not looking at David Boston, and what do you think it makes him feel he must do to win? As for down-the-field flinger Jeff George ... well, let's remember that Michael Bolton writes some of his own songs, too.

Three big events, though, seemed to instill Dilferization throughout the league. Favre himself threw that ill-advised bomb in the fourth quarter against the Falcons, which seemed to spook everyone for a week or two. And you can't forget Peyton Manning, who misses Edgerrin James like my family still misses our dead cat James, throwing four interceptions in the 49ers game and causing addled coach Jim Mora to do everything but put an ad in the personals column of the Indianapolis Star-Tribune: "Aging Daniel Berrigan look-alike seeks Dilferesque M for risk-free, long-term relationship ..."

Most significant of all, though, was the moment when Patriots coach Bill Belichick decided to stick with efficient but uninventive game manager Tom Brady at QB instead of reinserting newly healed game-breaker Drew Bledsoe. I thought that was the wrong decision, but subsequent events suggest, incredibly, that Belichick knows more about football than I do: Bledsoe is handling his situation with uncommon grace, Brady is proving to be a QB of substantial resourcefulness, and Belichick himself is ... smiling? Hugging people? I guess it's great to be the HC of the NEP.

	There are so many Trent Dilfers this season, even Trent Dilfer can't be Trent Dilfer.

This past weekend, I yearned for improvisational transcendence from the quarterback position ... and found it hanging in the balance toward the end of the Steelers-Vikings game. The new and said-to-be-improved (because he's been Dilferized!) Kordell Stewart faced a third-and-long deep in Pittsburgh territory late in the fourth, and game analyst Troy Aikman, adding to his already superb year in the booth, said something like [I'm paraphrasing]: "Quarterbacks have been asked all year to manage the game. I think a quarterback's job is to win the game. Kordell Stewart has a chance right now to make a play and win the game." And so Stewart went back to pass and ...

... fumbled. Dear God.

But later that day, out of reach of the DirecTV-less, was Jake Plummer winning a big one against Oakland. And then came Favre's bolt from the blue Monday night, an incomplete pass, but to me an unmistakable declaration from the two-time MVP: "I am the best player on either team, and I will win this game."

And of course he did, because that's what guys like that can do, and it's just so much fun to watch them do it ... that means you, Mr. Warner and Mr. Garcia. It's a reminder to everyone that great players must be given the chance to make great plays. Now all Favre and guys like him need are a few more chances to get it done, and a lot fewer restrictions placed on their play-making abilities.

Because Peyton Manning needs less Jim Mora and more Anya Major.

Chris Connelly writes a weekly column for Page 2. "Unscripted with Chris Connelly," the TV show airs at 5 p.m. ET, Monday-Friday on ESPN.