GREEN BAY, Wis. — The knock on Brett Favre even when he was winning MVPs and taking the Green Bay Packers to Super Bowls was that he needed to dial down his risky style.

It's a criticism Favre is hearing anew. As he loses playmakers and close games at an equally alarming rate, commentators and critics contend he should be more conservative.

Yet, with the Packers (1-6) and Houston tied for the worst record in the league and Pro Bowlers Ahman Green and Javon Walker leading a long list of players out for the season, Favre feels it's more important than ever to try to make something happen.

"Sometimes I feel like I have to take it upon myself more so than at any other time in my career," Favre said as he prepared for Sunday's visit by the Pittsburgh Steelers (5-2), who are going for their 11th straight win on the road. "Especially when we're 1-6. If you lose, you lose. But you've got to go down fighting, in my opinion.

"I may be wrong, and if I am then it's time for me to leave this game, but I'm going to go down swinging," Favre said. "And if it looks bad sometimes, it looks bad, but I'm not going to say, 'Damn. If I'd have just tried it.' I'm going to try everything I can."

Like last Sunday, when he threw interceptions on five straight drives for the first time in his career and still had the Packers within striking distance of the end zone as time ran out when he flubbed the final play on a fake spike in a 21-14 loss at Cincinnati.

"Making it up, making something happen," explained Favre, who swears the film shows that had he just winged it to the end zone, he had Donald Driver open for the touchdown between seven dumbfounded defenders.

But Favre didn't realize that rookie guard Will Whitticker took out the pass-rusher trying to swat his arm and so he tucked the ball and stumbled across the line of scrimmage, shuffled the ball forward and fell down, exhausted.

Vintage Favre.

"It's kind of hard to watch him have games like he did last week with those interceptions, and to lose it like that, because you're always pulling for the guy," said Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlesberger, who is out after arthroscopic knee surgery. "He's such a great guy, class act. So, it's tough to see stuff like that happen with him."

Said Steelers linebacker Clint Kriewaldt: "He does some stupid stuff once in a while, but I can't take anything away from the guy, he's a great football player."

Favre's fake spike was pure freelance, but nobody on his team criticized him.

"That's the way he's become the three-time MVP and arguably the best quarterback to ever play the game," Ryan Longwell said. "I mean, that's Favre being Favre and he's going to go down fighting. It's always easy to be tough in another man's skin. It's easy to second-guess a guy.

"I don't think anybody in this locker room will question his instincts. Just trying to make a play. That's the great athletes of this world. It goes back to Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Brett Favre. Those guys just don't have quit in their systems. That's what makes them the best of the best."

But Favre is having his worst season on the field, even though he's thrown 15 touchdown passes to go with his NFL-high 13 interceptions.

The 36-year-old quarterback who has thrown more passes and totaled more yardage than every quarterback but Dan Marino said this is nowhere near his most trying of seasons, however.

"Sometimes, I think we — anyone who loves football or covers football or plays — think this is the most important thing in life. And I'm here to say it's not. In Green Bay, it's pretty important. In Wisconsin, it's pretty important, which is why I love playing here," Favre said.

The recent tragedies in Favre's life includes his family members losing their homes to Hurricane Katrina two months ago in Mississippi.

"But when you lose someone or your wife is faced with cancer or you have family members who are without a home or your wife's brother is killed, just so many different things, two girls are born, that stuff stays with you forever," Favre said.

"This can be corrected. I don't know if it will, 1-6 is a pretty damn deep hole, but it can be corrected. Those things I just talked about you have to live with forever."

And the Packers are content to live with Favre's gunslinging style because they know it's what gives them a chance on any Sunday, even without their top two running backs and three of their top receivers.

The Steelers won't be at full strength themselves Sunday in their first visit to Lambeau Field in a decade. Roethlesberger, the NFL's top-rated passer will be replaced by Charlie Batch. And Jerome Bettis (thigh) will likely be replaced by Duce Staley, who hasn't carried since the AFC championship game, as Willie Parker's backup.