Mike McCarthy stood in front of the media in Green Bay Tuesday and delivered a message that should have made most of the Packers’ faithful fans cringe.

Brett Favre’s tenure as the quarterback of the team is over and the way forward can be only described as uncertain.

The Packers are now gambling that incumbent back-up signal caller Aaron Rodgers will be able to fill the void left by a still able-bodied Favre, who has been telling all who will listen that the Packers, in essence, ran him out of town.

Should Rodgers fail, McCarthy could be out of a job and Green Bay might be on its way to quarterback uncertainty for years to come.

Now the bad news. Rodgers is almost guaranteed to fail.

In addition to fighting perception that Favre would have been a better quarterback for the Packers this year, the first-year starter has to fight history as well.

Teams replacing great quarterbacks often find little success, no matter how well those teams believe they are prepared for the next era.

Dan Marino retired after the 1999 season. During his final game, a playoff loss to Jacksonville, Marino was replaced by Damon Huard, but Huard didn’t start the next season. The Dolphins have had 11 different starters since and are still looking for a star player at the position.

Dallas had similar luck when Troy Aikman retired following the 2001 season. Five quarterbacks went to camp for the team the next year in Tony Banks, Quincy Carter, Anthony Wright, Ryan Leaf and Clint Stoerner. None of them ended up being a long-term solution at the position. Others followed, like Drew Henson, Chad Hutchinson, Vinny Testaverde and Drew Bledsoe, before the Cowboys settled on Tony Romo, who just completed his first season as the full-time starter last year. Dallas hasn’t won a playoff game since Aikman retired.

John Elway went out on top when the Denver Broncos won the Super Bowl title back in 1999, but the Broncos haven’t found a replacement for the legend yet. Brian Griese and Jake Plummer looked promising, but both failed. The team is hoping Jay Cutler will be the answer. Cutler showed flashes of solid play last year. An offseason diagnosis of diabetes, however, casts at least some doubt on Cutler’s future as a professional athlete. Assuming good health, Cutler still has to prove he can be the long-term solution.

Jeff Garcia wasn’t able to do that in San Francisco. He took over after the retirement of Steve Young back in 1999 and looked promising. He even won a playoff game, a memorable comeback win for the Niners over the Giants, but his production dropped off and San Francisco started looking for another quarterback.

Alex Smith was drafted in 2005 and was thought to be the future of the franchise, but some are questioning whether Smith will make it out of this training camp with the job.

The Indianapolis Colts might be the best example of quarterback frustration. In 1983 the Colts tried to draft Elway, but Elway refused to play for the Colts and ended up in Denver.

It took 15 years for the Colts to draft another great quarterback. The team took Payton Manning in 1998.

With all of this to consider, the Packers still choose to create a rift between the organization and its 16-year star quarterback. Favre nearly had the Packers in the Super Bowl last season. He’s still the best option now.

Rodgers could be the answer down the road, but the Packers need to consider that great quarterbacks and future Hall of Famers are a rare find.

The Rodgers era could be very short lived.

Rodgers could struggle and pressure would likely build quickly. The head coach would take the blame and find himself squarely on the hot seat for running Favre out of town.

Green Bay executives should have done whatever was necessary to assure Favre would play as a Packer this season. The executives didn’t back down their rhetoric and Favre will play for the Jets.

Because of that, the 2008 season could turn out to be make or break for McCarthy.