08/07 — Brett Favre’s arrival in New York means the end of the Jets' Chad Pennington era.

The 38-year-old Favre, entering his 18th NFL season, will be a Jet for the 2008 season. Favre, who decided to retire in March, had a change a heart and is headed for Gotham today.

“We are taking things season by season,” Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum told reporters in an early-morning conference call. “We are really happy to have him for the season and we will move forward from there.”

Pennington, who played eight seasons in New York, will move elsewhere. The 2006 AP Comeback Player of the Year, who led the Jets to the postseason in the three seasons he has started at least 12 games (2002, '04, '06), was originally selected by the team 18th overall in the 2000 NFL Draft.

Tannenbaum said Jets head coach Eric Mangini had spoken with Pennington and called the QB’s impending departure a bittersweet moment.

“I have all the respect in the world for Chad as a person and a player,” he said. “He gave his heart and soul to this organization for a long, long time.”

The Jets entered training camp with the starting QB position up for grabs as Pennington and Kellen Clemens vied for the controls.

“I feel good about training camp. I feel like I came in here with a purpose and I am concentrating on that purpose every day,” Pennington said Tuesday. “I will pick something out each day to really come out here and focus on individually to get better at and add that to the rest of my game, so I can become a more complete quarterback.”

The next pass Pennington completes will be with another team. The opportunity to grab Favre, one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the game, was just too good to pass on.

“My gut feeling for a long time — I just didn’t think was going to come to fruition,” said a weary Mr. T. “Then it really heated up recently and I just think organizationally the only part of the process we control is preparation. And we had a lot of great preparation, so if and when that opportunity presented itself, we were ready to roll and when it did we moved quick.”

Now it’s full speed ahead with Favre. He’s the man in charge and he’ll have to make the transition quickly. Less than a month from opening day, the Jets have made a landmark deal for the franchise.

“He’s coming to a new city. He’s been in one system for 16 years,” Tannenbaum said. “There aren’t a lot of connections with Brett and our coaching staff, but we were able to talk through moving to the Northeast and all those other issues. We feel really good about it and we’re excited that he’s with us.”

DO QB-LIEVE IT? BRETT FAVRE IS A JET

General Manager's News Conference