After NFC title game, color purple has new meaning for Brett Favre

After his pounding by the New Orleans Saints, Brett Favre might be sporting as much purple today as he did Sunday. . . .

As Deion Sanders of the NFL Network said of Favre’s postgame appearance, “He looks like a [Floyd] Mayweather opponent.” . . .

At least he was on his feet. . . .

Favre enjoyed perhaps his greatest season at 40 because he avoided the type of unnecessary risk that doomed the Minnesota Vikings against the Saints. . . .

Old habits die hard. . . .

Favre’s last pass with the Green Bay Packers was intercepted, too -- in an overtime loss against Eli Manning and the New York Giants two years ago, also in the NFC championship game. . . .

So much is made of Peyton Manning’s intelligence that his pinpoint accuracy is almost an afterthought. . . .

Where would the Indianapolis Colts be today if, in 1998, they’d taken Ryan Leaf instead of Manning? . . .

A bumper sticker reportedly spotted in Indianapolis, but probably not on any vehicle driven by party-pooper Colts Coach Jim Caldwell: “Our starters are STILL perfect.” . . .

He probably didn’t mean it that way, but when President Obama said on Monday at the White House, “Nobody exemplifies excellence in basketball more than the Los Angeles Lakers last year,” he seemed to be casting doubt on the Lakers ofthis year. . . .

What’s become of the pugnacious Ron Artest, who tried to pick a fight with Kobe Bryant in last year’s playoffs? . . .

For all the talk of their great improvement from last season, Baron Davis and the Clippers still sit 12th in the West. . . .

If Allen Iverson sat out the All-Star game, as some have suggested, it would be an insult to the fans who voted him into the Eastern Conference starting lineup. . . .

Gary Matthews Jr., little more than a high-priced fifth wheel with the Angels, is not expected to be too much more than that with the New York Mets. . . .

Florida’s Urban Meyer, who cited health concerns when announcing his resignation last month, then changed his mind the next day to say he was taking an extended leave of absence, now says he plans to coach the Gators during spring practice. . . .

“I tried a day and a half,” he says of his halfhearted attempt to walk away, “and it didn’t work.” . . .

While Pete Beathard (in 1967) remains the only former USC quarterback to throw a pass in the Super Bowl, reader Mark Larson of Newport Beach e-mails to note that ex-Trojan Mike Rae took the final snap of the NFL’s marquee event in 1977. . . .

Rae, summoned by John Madden, replaced Ken Stabler in the fourth quarter of an Oakland Raiders rout of the Vikings. . . .

On the final play, he took a knee. . . .

Five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams has never won the Australian Open, reaching the final once. . . .

“Lasordapalooza,” a Baseball Reliquary exhibition surveying the life and times of Hall of Famer Tom Lasorda, is coming this spring to the Pomona Public Library. . . .

Kelly Kulick, who Sunday in Las Vegas became the first woman to win a Professional Bowlers Assn. tournament, also might be the first bowler to have a “Spider-Man” character named for her. . . .

On this date 50 years ago, Danny Heater scored a national-record 135 points in a 32-minute high school basketball game in West Virginia, the 17-year-old senior forward making 53 of 70 shots and 29 of 41 free throws. . . .

On the same day, in Miami, a Compton High graduate named Pete Rozelle was introduced as commissioner of the NFL, a position he held for the next 29 years. . . .

Rozelle’s original contract paid him $50,000 over three years. . . .

Former USC tennis All-American Gene Mako, winner of four Grand Slam doubles titles in the 1930s with partner and good friend Don Budge, turned 95 on Sunday. . . .

Jim O’Brien, who kicked the winning field goal for the Baltimore Colts in the 1971 Super Bowl, will be joined by several other veterans of the championship game on Super Bowl Sunday at a fundraising party for Prevent Child Abuse Riverside at the Eagle Glen Golf Club in Corona. . . .

Information: pcariverside.org. . . .

Noting the powerful physical presence of the NBA’s reigning most valuable player, reader Jerry Li of Huntington Beach e-mails to suggest, “Maybe we ought to start calling him LeBrawn.”

jerome.crowe@latimes.com