Brett Favre

I am as tired of the Brett Favre story as anybody else. Or maybe even more so. But there are a couple of comments that I wanted to make.

• I'm almost as tired of the "he's going to damage his legacy" stories as I am of the "will he come back or won't he" stories. He's a big boy, his "legacy" is pretty well fixed, and if he plays poorly as a 40 year old for a new team, well, it doesn't take away from anything that he's done.


• In a similar fashion, the people who are tired of him coming out of retirement are missing the point. It's his life to live, he loves to play football, and if he decides that he still can and someone wants to pay him, he should come back and try. It's safe to say that five years from now he won't still be playing, and if he can spend another one or two years doing something that a) he loves and b) is remunerative, who is anyone to tell him not to?


• All that said, the story is tedious, and Favre is largely responsible for it. I don't blame him for coming out of retirement - I blame him for announcing his retirement, when everyone knows he won't actually make up his mind until July or August. I don't think he's coming out of retirement for attention, but I'm suspicious that he announces the retirement for that reason.


• In conjunction with that, the media has overplayed every single announcement he's ever made. Obviously he's been a great player. Obviously it's news when he retires or when he signs with a new team. But the non-stop saturation coverage is so far over-the-top that I'm sure even big Favre fans are well and truly sick of it. On SportsCenter this morning, there were four or five different Favre stories in the upcoming story sidebar. Yes, I quickly changed the channel. It's ridiculous.

Will he play well for the Vikings? Don't know. I'm uncertain why anyone who watched the Jets melt down last year would think that he's got another good year left, but that's just me. And I don't follow the Vikings, so I can't say how much of an upgrade he represents over what they've already got in camp.

I've never been a Favre fan, and long been a believer that he's one of the most overrated great players in the history of the game. I've never seen a QB who was so good at keeping both teams in the game at the same time. He'd make a spectacular play and follow it up with a stupid interception. Yes, he's the all time leader in passing yards and touchdowns. He's also the all-time leader, by a wide margin, in interceptions, and four fumbles from the top spot in that category. I'm sure that part of my dislike of him stems from the Packers victory over the Patriots in 1996. And a lot of it is related to the love affair that announcers had with him, and the excuses for every stupid throw. Whatever. There's no denying that he's a Hall-of-Famer.

I'm just sick of the story.