Whatever.
Oh wait, maybe I didn’t hear you right – you’re never coming back?
Okaaay. Whatever.
Hold up, did you say what I think you said – you really are coming back?
Whatever.
Honestly, what will it take for this story to just go away? Better yet, what will it take for Brett Favre to just go away?
As of Tuesday, it appeared Favre finally got around to making up his mind and signing a $10 million deal for the 2009 season with the Minnesota Vikings.
And, as of Tuesday, I am now a fan of any and every team on the Vikings schedule. (Go Browns!)
Put it this way: if I still had that Brett Favre poster which used to hang in my Allston college apartment, I’d have ripped it off the wall by now.
Sorry, Brett, I’m just not a fan anymore.
I get that you love football. I get that you want to stick it to the Packers. And I get that it clearly has to be difficult to walk away from the game you’ve been playing since childhood. But now I also get what this is really all about.
You.
It’s not like you’re the first player in any sport to retire, Brett. Shoot, Michael Jordan and Roger Clemens even beat you to the comeback trail. Again and again. Sure, they did it for themselves, for the money. Oh yeah, and for the “love of the game” and all that stuff, too.
But even they can’t top your performance, Brett.
For all of the me-first attitudes that permeate pro locker rooms in every sport, you’d be hard-pressed to come across a decision made (finally!) with such self-importance.
Hey Favre, can you really look all those Vikings players in the eyes (the ones who have sweated through two-a-days for weeks now) and tell them you made your decision, changed your decision, and then changed it again with the team’s best interest in mind?
You sat on the fence, waffling over this decision, for so long that Humpty Dumpty thought your act was getting old.
You’ve now flip-flopped so many times on the retirement issue that you’re making Sarah Palin look like a credible 2012 presidential nominee. And what’s worse, you’re destroying your own credibility, built over the course of a brilliant NFL career.
Expect the Vikings to introduce Favre at the obligatory press conference (he’s pretty used to those by now) in the next week or so. Expect Favre jerseys to fly off racks of Minneapolis sporting goods stores, too. Expect the Vikings to be labeled the “team to beat” now. And expect Sage Rosenfels and Tarvaris Jackson to wonder what they ever did in a previous life to deserve this.
So much for giving them a chance, though to be perfectly fair, Brett Favre gives the Vikings the best chance at winning.
Especially twice against the Packers.
It’s hard to fault Minnesota for flirting with Favre. Or the New York Jets, for that matter, last year.
But maybe head coach Brad Childress should’ve called ousted Jets boss Eric Mangini to ask for tape of Favre’s three-interception effort against the Dolphins last December with the playoffs on the line. My favorite part is the cutaway to the coach right after that third pick, when Mangini could be seen mouthing something to the effect of, “What the *%#@ is he doing?”
That question applies to Favre on so many levels, doesn’t it?
What, Brett, are you doing?
Oh, right. You missed the game. You missed Sunday afternoons.
Conveniently enough, you also missed training camp, too.
You know what? Whatever.
