Note to self – Enough is enough
Brian Murphy |
For fuck’s sake, how much longer will people continue to give Brett Favre attention? Once upon a time he was a Super Bowl winning, football slingin’ league MVP who absolutely struck fear in the hearts and minds of opposing defenses. Now, he’s the NFL’s equivalent to Paris Hilton. His name is routinely in the news, but no one can figure out why.
Word on the street is that Favre will meet with Brad Childress and the Minnesota Vikings within the next few days to discuss the possibility of Brett un-retiring. Of course, this sounds awfully similar to a year ago when the words “Favre,” “New York Jets” and “un-retiring” were all prominently involved. And lets not forget the two years before that when the Favre-un-retiring-Green Bay Packers combo was all the rage.
I’m all for a guy earning an honest living, but does the rest of the world have to fawn over the guy every time he changes his mind and decides to step back onto the gridiron for another year? Honestly, the guy flip flops more often than any politician and while the majority of those guys are (deservedly) labeled liars and/or crooked bastards, Favre continues to earn a free pass every time he changes his stance on retirement.
While Favre absolutely blew chunks playing for the J-E-T-S, JETS! JETS! JETS! a year ago, anyone who knows him knows that Minnesota is where he truly wanted to play. I mean, he’s a bigger diva than the secret love child of Madonna and Celine Dion, and when the Packers chose Aaron Rodgers over him a couple seasons ago it’s was painfully obvious he was playing the part of scorned lover. The prospect of playing for a division rival against the team who threw him to the curb was simply too good for any drama queen to resist.
And if we’re being honest, why wouldn’t he want to play for the Vikings?
They have Adrian Peterson on offense, which means he can show up and hand the ball off to one of the most dynamic playmakers in football 30 times a game and still walk away with a win. For those who may have forgotten, Peterson led the league in rushing last season with 1,760 yards, which is even more impressive when you factor in just how lopsided their offense was.
Any half decent college quarterback could have show up and got the job done (hand of 30 times, throw 10-15 passes per game without making any boneheaded decisions or turnovers), which is why it’s been comical to watch the Tavaris Jackson-Gus Frerrotte Pu Pu Platter stink up the joint. At times Vikings fans wished their offense lined up with only 10 men, because whichever quarterback entered the game was surely going to find a way to screw things up.
On the other side of the ball, the Vikings boast the sixth-best overall defense and the top-ranked run defense in football. So to recap, they are stellar at running the football and stopping other’s from doing so. That’s typically how championship teams are built. Favre clearly sees himself as the missing piece on a ready-made title contender, so why are folks even contemplating this?
Well, according to ESPN, there is one small hiccup. Favre hasn’t been working out since the season ended. Oh, and he declined to have surgery to repair the torn biceps tendon that plagued him the final month of last season. And apparently Favre believes the injury can heal on its own, because he says a similar problem with his left shoulder back in his Green Bay days magically healed itself, so this one can too.
So, we’ve got the makings of a Kevin Costner movie here. Favre, who was the 21st-ranked quarterback in the NFL a year ago (behind such stalwarts as Shaun Hill, Seneca Wallace, Trent Edwards and David Garrard) is coming off a subpar season. He stunk up the joint so badly that no one outside of his immediate family (and John Madden) believes he’s got anything left in the tank. One team is (likely) giving him one final (hopefully) shot at redemption. How could I be so cold-hearted as to deny the middle-aged white men who comprise the sports journalism community a chance to cover their peer? It’s simple. They’re the only ones who care anymore.
The paparazzi who stalk Lindsay Lohan don’t give a shit about her well being. They just know she’s a trainwreck and they’re hoping to cash in by catching her at her worst in hopes of a big payday. But you know what, at least they’re honest.
Sports writers and columnists continue to blow Favre every chance they get (even though he hasn’t been relevant on the field in two or three years) because they’re all secretly rooting for the old bastard. Journalistic integrity be damned. If he saunters out onto that field one last time and lights ‘em up I get to gush about him for a thousand words or so and everyone wins. If not, I can still go circle seal on him because of the personal courage or heart that he had while throw those five interceptions that single-handedly killed any chance his team had at a victory.
A mediocre quarterback with poor decision-making skills already relocated to Minnesota this offseason. His name is Sage Rosenfels. Folks would know that, but the story just isn’t nearly as sexy for the guys who cover the NFL for a living. So you’re stuck with Brett Favre all day, every day until he makes a final decision. And then once again when he changes his mind. Rinse, wash and repeat. At this point I’m basically begging for Mike Vick and PETA to get involved just to kill (bad choice of words) this story.
Brian Murphy is an award-winning sportswriter who also goes by the name Homer McFanboy. Contact him at murf@homermcfanboy.com.