Wednesday 2 July 2008

Brett Favre 'Has itch'

ESPN's Chris Mortensen is tonight claiming that the story that we all thought would never go away - but then actually went away - has returned like a deadly sequel.

Brett Favre may be reconsidering his retirement.

The 'source' says that "Favre has communicated his potential desire to coach Mike McCarthy but talks have not advanced to a substantive stage". If true, it obviously throws a huge, planet-sized Spanner into the Packers' offseason program. Don't forget that Aaron Rodgers has spent three seasons waiting for this moment, and the entire organisation has already made it's peace with Favre's retirement. For him to come back would not only (in our opinion) be unfair on Rodgers, it would be unfair on the personnel team that drafted Brian Brohm and Matt Flynn during this year's draft.

If Favre truly loves the Packers as he said he did, he would appreciate that the time has come for them to move on as a team.

For us, there is another reason to not come back, and that is the legacy that Favre leaves. When he went out in tears, it would take a robot not to have welled up at his emotional goodbye. Consequently, if he was to come back, his career is almost certain to end with a muted goodbye that we will not remember.

The piece also mentions the possibility of a trade, but to where? You'd have to be pretty sure that you had a Superbowl contending offence - and that the only piece missing was at Quarterback - to convince Favre to join. Then you would need to give the Packers at least a first rounder, and pay Favre's $12m salary for a year. All whilst knowing that you'd be lucky to get more than one season out of him. It's basically the Jason Taylor situation multiplied by a million.

No, we think this is just a story that was bound to come out at some point. Of course Brett was going to miss the locker room as the months wore on. Who wouldn't? Many retired players say that the hardest part of retirement is not being part of the team anymore. In our opinion, Favre should have a stab at media work, even if it's not his ultimate desire. The reason he feels this way is more than likely that he will have no role next year, Whereas Michael Strahan will have his own 'big game' to get ready for every Sunday.

You know there would be no shortage of takers...

No comments: