This Favre situation must be resolved immediately. Granted, things definitely could have been handled better by Mike McCarthy and Ted Thompson, but as this saga draws out, I'm becoming increasingly angry with Favre.
The last two offending by-products of this mess are: 1. The pathetic "Bring Back Favre" rally which saw a group of Packers fans (100 strong...wow) bring shame and national ridicule to Packers fans everywhere; 2. Favre's interview with Greta Van Susteren (?), which has Favre talking-around-but-not-so-subtly blaming Thompson and McCarthy for this quagmire. My favorite part, I think, was:
And I said, "But you guys wanted an answer in March and I gave you the honest answer." And I said, you know, "Had I been able to wait until training camp, that would have been great."
He said, "Why didn't you tell me that? We would have let you do it."
And I thought to myself well, you know, you told me before the tryout I'm a free agent. And they ended up signing two kids in the draft. So that kind of tells you.
Sweet Christ, where to start? Maybe I'm completely delusional and Thompson really did want Favre out of Green Bay as quickly as possible, but I get the sense that if Favre had said to McCarthy and Thompson that he was worn out and needed some time to think it over, but that there was a not insignificant part of him interested in coming back, they would have given him his opportunity. Instead, after understandably asking for an indication of his plans, Favre seemed to say he couldn't commit, but didn't seem to offer an insight as to his mindset.
After three off-seasons of "maybe I will, maybe I won't," who could blame the Packers' front office for getting impatient? Professional football is a business that can't accommodate down time; there's a reason coaches work 20 hour days. If Favre had been able to let them know there was a better chance than not that he'd be back, the Packers could have made their off-season plans accordingly with a contingency plan in place in case he shocked them by actually retiring. Instead, it seems like he gave them the indication that he probably wasn't coming back, so they went forward. (Now, maybe it's a little foolish that they didn't have a contingency plan for this scenario; or, maybe this is it....)
At any rate, it's unlikely at this point that Favre is going to gracefully ride into the sunset, so Thompson is going to have to say explicitly, "Brett Favre is not going to be on the Packers' roster in 2008," at which point Favre can accept it and actually retire, or say, "I definitely want to play," and demand a release or trade. Sure, Thompson is going to become Public Enemy #1 for a lot of knee jerk fans (but I'd like to think he wouldn't lose favor amongst the majority), especially if Rodgers starts out a little shakily. The thing is, though, what if Favre did come back and a few of the early season breaks the team got last year went the other way? If after four or five games, they were just around .500? Favre said that coming back would only be worth it to go to and win a Super Bowl. If they hit some roadblocks along the way, would he be able to stay focused, or would he start second-guessing his decision to come back?
In the immediate aftermath of the NFC Championship game, I said that Favre'd be back until I was blue in the face. If he'd changed his mind anytime before the draft, I'd have been all for it. Now, though, I just want him to go away.
2 comments:
Yeah, enough with this Ryan-Marissa b.s. Somebody's got to be an adult here and say "Sorry, but no." I kind of think of Favre as a grown-up Riggins, from Friday Night Lights. And I don't think Riggins is in touch with his feelings enough to verbalize his feelings like you suggest. Which is too bad, really, cos fucking nobody should have to watch the cosmic wrongness of GvS and Favre going head to head. Awkward.
"...wrongness of GvS and Favre..."
For a second, I forgot what the post was about and was like, "Why would Favre go head to head with Gus Van Sant?"
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