How annoying will this post be? Probably super annoying to those of you who can’t stand football, ie Communist Feehan. And probably pretty annoying because all I’m doing is rehashing my venom for the man. You know who I’m talking about. Especially because I mentioned him in the title of the post.
I canNOT stand Brett Favre. I know, I know, who would have thought this would ever happen? I had a poster of him in my freshman-year dorm room. I had bought in Rosendale on the way to Green Bay for something or other. I LOVED him. My dad used to call him Stonehead, but I had fallen hard for number 4. He was dreamy and cute and smiley and he loved to play football. I mistakenly translated that into a love for the green and gold, a love for Green Bay. Boy was I wrong.
After years of dancing around it and making us wonder, “Will he? Won’t he?,” Favre finally annouced his retirement from the NFL in early 2007 and I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. I was in the bathroom at the Palmer House packing up my stuff from an oral argument I’d had in the morning at the Seventh Circuit. I don’t remember a thing about the case (not surprising), but I remember getting a simple text from my cousin Maggie saying, “He’s retired.” It took me a bit to figure out what she was talking about, but then I began to cry. The end of an era. He’d left us. I didn’t really blame him — football’s a rough sport, afterall — but I was crushed. We then spent months thinking, “Maybe he’ll change his mind; he won’t be able to stay away; he’s coming back soon.” But then he didn’t. He thought about it that spring and Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy flew down to Mississippi to get him back on board. But he backed off again. The Packers drafted around Aaron Rodgers that spring, not Brett Favre. That summer, the Packers told Aaron he’d better get ready to lead the team, and that’s what he did. He hosted players over for dinner, he showed up for training camp, he assumed his role as quarterback — a role he’d patiently waited around on the sidelines for years to get. He’d been the understudy for too long and he now deserved to play. To start. All systems were ready to go. Fans got behind him and eagerly anticipated the first preseason game in August.
And now it was August. And who comes flying into town on a private jet while the local papers screamed, ‘Touchdown?’ You guessed it. Favre and Deanna waltz into town with serious chips on their shoulders and demands that couldn’t possibly be met. Favre was already upset that the team had moved on and hadn’t jumped at the opportunity to take him back when he started to indicate at the end of July/early August that, oh, he might be interested in playing again. Well, who can blame anyone — at least anyone involved in the business aspect of the team — from hesitating and thinking twice this time before assuming that Favre spoke the truth. Did he really want to come back? Well, that hesitation led to Favre crying like a baby and throwing a tantrum that he wasn’t being well-treated. And that led to Thompson and McCarthy saying, “You know what? Rodgers is our guy. He’s here, he’s reliable and — and this is important — he’s been training in the off-season and practicing during training camp, things that Favre has never been very interested in.” So, they think, we’ll talk to Favre and see what the deal is but we’ve been fooled so many times now, we’re not promising anything. Favre meets with McCarthy and McCarthy comes out with the impression that Favre is no longer at all interested in playing for Green Bay. Well, enough said. It’s been enough. It’s been too much, really. And Favre is released (with serious stipulations such as he can’t play for a team in the NFC North; and if the Jets, who ultimately take him, reach the Superbowl, the Packers get a certain draft pick; should the Jets reach the playoffs, the Packers get a different specific draft pick; etc. Of course none of this matters because after a great start, the Jets stink up the remainder of the season and don’t reach the postseason). And it’s done.
And then we all see Favre in a green-and-white jersey and it’s weird. More Jets games are shown on Wisconsin television than ever before (or ever will be again), I dare say. But that’s really about it. Since he’s playing for a team the Packers never play, it’s not the biggest deal in the universe. Since the Jets end up sucking, it’s a little bit easier to swallow. Don’t get me wrong: I was pissed. But it was nothing compared to my feelings this year.
Favre is a Viking. He is a traitor. And, as Terry Bradshaw stated, a liar. He wanted to beat Green Bay for revenge and to say otherwise is so unbelievable it makes me wonder about his sincerity when it comes to anything that comes from his mouth. He’s a diva. He’ll play for the Vikings because they have maybe the best offensive line in the country. I can’t really blame him for that. I don’t want to get hit by professional football players, either. What bugs me about this, though, is that I don’t think he wanted to come back to GB in the first place, but he’s convinced himself that he has been wronged and others have jumped on this idea and now he is getting sympathy for it. Long-time GB fans are blaming Thompson and McCarthy for Favre no longer being a Packer. And maybe they’re right; but I think they made the right move. They put the diva’s feet to the fire and he cried. A football team is just that: a team. Favre was no longer a team player, if he ever was. The end result of this all is that we have pretty much the worst possible scenario: we have Packer fans who are now Vikings fans.
Completely unacceptable.
