Brett Favre won't let my hate die

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Forever Suffering From Favre Fatigue

Brett Favre. Are we finally done talking about him for a few months? I'm gonna need a rest from being swamped in Favre Fever. It's like botulism, but with more vomiting. But the only thing I can think about is that when January comes, we're going to be right back here again.

That's the problem with all of this. This makes, what? Six years of Brett Favre retirement speculation, with two and a half actual retirements (the half was from just a month ago, where he told the Vikings that he was staying retired). I probably should even say this, but fuck it: I feel sorry for his wife, because we all know how women love a decisive man.

Look, I understand that retirement from sports can be a difficult thing. You're being forced to give up a game that you've played since you were a kid, a game that, in your mind, you never stop being able to play well. I get that. Professional athletes are generally retired by 40 (except tennis players, who retire by 25). That's a young age. It's not the 1700s anymore. You've still got half of your life left to live, and Lord knows your trophy wife doesn't want you spending it around the house.

But can we get you to pick a side and stick with it? You're not being asked about foreign relations with North Korea; We're just talking about whether or not you're going to keep playing a game that you still want to play.

For three years, sportsmedia was held hostage in the offseason by the prospect that Brett Favre, the eternal child, could retire. Not that he had announced that he would, but that he might. All Brett Favre had to do was nip this crap in the bud and say, "Hey, asshole. I'm not retiring. I'm only 35."

But he didn't do that. And sportsmedia apparently fell in love with the idea of digging in Favre's garbage, checking his used tissues, and dispatching CIA helicopters to wherever he is, so it continued, even when he actually did retire. Thing is, no one believed that he was really retired. And clearly, neither did he, because he spent the first few months of retirement trying to get traded.

Now, why couldn't he just say, "No, I'm not retired." How hard would that have been? Instead, we had to sit through his press conference, where he got all emotional and teary-eyed, and damn near electrocuted himself on the microphone. We had to read everyone's half-assed tributes to Brett Favre <(including my own). He knew all along that he wasn't staying in Hattiesburg. Have you ever been to Hattiesburg? If there weren't stoplights in the middle of town, there would be no reason to stop.

And after forcing a trade to the Jets (because no one would have been dumb enough to trade him to their biggest rival), he decided that he had to up the ante a little bit. Of course, he doesn't know that he wants to go through training camp again (the same bullshit that he's fed you since 2004), but he also needs surgery on his throwing arm! And he's 39! How tough must he be to do all of that at 39? Maybe those Wrangler jeans commercials were right.

You're not fooling me, Brett. You're setting up a return that will pave the way for beatification. If all goes as planned, one day, people will tell their grandkids about the time a 40 year old Brett Favre stopped a sniper's bullet from killing the President with his surgically repaired shoulder. Phases one, two, and three are now complete. And now, we wait. Oh, yes. It's just a matter of time before everyone is wearing St. Brett medals, the patron saint of indecision and media oversaturation.

Didn't you learn anything from Michael Jordan on how to retire? Sure, he came back one too many times, but the difference between his retirements and St. Brett's is that Michael actually retired, let us think about something else, like the Lewinsky scandal, and when he came back, we gave a shit. I don't think the NFL is going to devote the Pro Bowl to glorifying Brett Favre's career, because they're gonna be pissed when they spend all that money and he's got football fans by the balls again next season. And they wonder why fans throw batteries from the upper deck.

All of this could be avoided by Brett Favre opening his mouth and saying, "Yes, I'm coming back," or "No, I'm retiring." Exhaling three or four words isn't going to shave any time off of your life. If you were so worried about that, you wouldn't have played a violent contact sport for 16 years. 16 years that's likely to turn into 17. Or 18. I need a drink.

All of this Machiavellian scheming just so he can stick it to Packers GM Ted Thompson. Now, how petty is that?

Brett Favre. Because we can't be bothered with anything else.

If Wilt Chamberlain was considering a comeback to the NBA next season, that would be news. But because people don't generally come back from the dead to play basketball, we have to settle for the Brett Favre soap opera to lead off every SportsCenter. Why are we still talking about this?

I blame Brett Favre for it all, of course. I can't blame ESPN for following Favre around to high schools and doctor's offices, because that's what they do. They're just trying to sniff out a story that might be there, during a slow news period. Let's face it, the NBA players just aren't embarrassing themselves enough to sustain press interest.

It's Brett Favre's fault because all he has to do is stop throwing footballs with kids 30 years younger than he is. All he has to do is stop listening to offers from Mark Wilf, then Mark Clayton and Len Pasquarelli won't have anything to write about. It's not like they need this to keep their jobs. I hear Pasquarelli's on his way out, anyway.

It's also Brett Favre's fault because he already set the precendent by coming back last year after he "retired." Now, every time he tries to retire after this won't be taken seriously at all. Which means, whether he plays this season or not, we'll probably hear "rumblings" about a comeback all through the next two seasons.

So I can't blame ESPN for Brett Favre leading them around by those nose. It's what reporters are supposed to do; follow the story. If reporters for the major news outlets worked this hard, Bush might not have ever been President.

But I can blame ESPN for the wild speculation. Since an actual hit of news might come once every three days or so, they've gotta fill up the time with something else. Expecting them to talk about the NBA and NHL Playoffs is a ridiculous notion, so that's why they talk about how Brett will be "a good fit" for Minnesota, and think about what kind of offense they might run instead. And about how the players would love to have him. And how they love him already, even though he's not there.

Look, when Tavaris Jackson is your quarterback, just about anybody would be a better fit. Joey Harrington would light it up compared to Tavaris. And all this talk about Brett coming to town really isn't helping Tavaris's self-esteem at all. If Jay Cutler was the Vikings' QB, he'd have stopped taking his insulin weeks ago.

But since we're under 24 Hour BrettWatch, we have to sit through these things to get to the stuff that we actually care about. And truthfully, Ron Artest's love for Subway commercials is more important to me than whatever Dr. James Andrews told him about his shoulder. I'm sure Dr. Andrews told him what we already knew: It's all screwed up. He didn't need to fly to Birmingham to figure that out, because those Jets gametapes already told the story. Something else we've figured out about Brett Favre: He's the most indecisive 40 year old we've ever seen. I've had girlfriends that could decide what they wanted off of the menu faster than this.

It's something that his body has been trying to point out to him by completely breaking down. Shoulders falling apart is a sure-fire sign that he might be too old to keep doing this. So, just go on and retire, Brett. Unless you're completely attention-starved, there's no reason to keep this up. The way it dominates the newscycle, you'd think ESPN was testing interest for a new ESPN channel. ESPN-B. All Brett, all the time. To keep up the un-retirement theme, John Madden will come back to host it.

Just stop it, man. The sooner you retire, the sooner we can see you getting voted off of "Dancing With The Stars." You look like a guy who has no business going near a dance floor.

How I Hated Brett Favre

I was living in Biloxi, MS when Brett Favre rose to prominence in Green Bay.

God, I hated him.

This was 1994 or so. I don’t remember the exact year, but I do remember that his time at Southern Miss in Hattiesburg was still fondly remembered. I remember that back then, he still hadn’t gotten his teeth cleaned, so his smile still looked like he was eating chocolate. I remember that he was almost always on the front page of the sports section in the Sun Herald. Biloxi is about an hour and a half away from New Orleans (at least, when I drive), so normally, everyone in the area was a Saints fan. We were so close that our Fox affiliate was based in New Orleans. My football memories during this time were tainted with a chorus of “Saints on Fox 38!” being sung by a zydeco band. But also during this time, everyone was talking about the Packers like Lambeau Field had been right next to the Grand Casino for the last 50 years.

It bothered me, because I couldn’t (and still can’t) stand bandwagon fans. Yes, I understood that he was from Kiln, which is about 60 miles north of Biloxi. I understood that he was the last worthwhile thing to happen to Hattiesburg that someone outside of Hattiesburg would know about (at least until that episode of “My Super Sweet 16). But the Packers, a team that’s at least 1000 miles away, were getting more love than the team that was right down I-10. Yeah, the Saints were still being called the “Ain’ts” and had no hope of reaching the playoffs. But what about team loyalty, or at least being loyal to the team that’s closest to your town? Jim Mora was giving Biloxi a free show every Sunday night by blowing up in front of the cameras and somehow, that wasn’t enough to hold Biloxi’s attention.

On top of that, people just wouldn’t shut up about Favre. I couldn’t escape from him. I’m the kind of person that tends to avoid following trends and rebels against whatever is the hot thing at the time. If everyone else likes it, I ignore it until it goes away and discover it on my own. It’s why I still haven’t listened to Alicia Keys’ latest CD. But I wasn’t allowed to do that with Favre. He was forced down my throat as the greatest thing since someone decided to put air inside of pigskin and throw it at people.

And to top all of that off, my girlfriend around that time had a friend across the street that was related to Brett Favre. They were distant cousins, but cousins nonetheless. They were closely related enough to where they shared facial features and she knew he was related to her, but distant enough that their names were spelled differently (Farve). Surprisingly, she was like me. She was sick of this guy.

I didn’t want to hate on the hometown boy, but it just became ridiculous down there. For one, he wasn’t even a hometown boy, like Ronald Dupree or Chris Jackson. He was from Kiln, MS, which is all the way over in the next county and really, isn’t even on the Coast. He didn’t go to Mississippi Gulf Coast CC or even Perkinston. He went to Southern Miss. He had no real ties to the Coast, and yet was embraced as the biggest start to ever come out of there. It just didn’t make any sense to me.

So when the Packers would play, I’d almost always root against them. Besides, that’s back when the Cowboys and 49ers were still good, so I’d support those teams, mainly because they were the only ones I really knew. Eventually, Favre overpowered my personal vendetta and the Packers won the Super Bowl. It was a sad day in the Martin household, or at least, in my bedroom. I doubt my parents really cared about my player-hatred.

After that, I would move on to Jackson State University, about two hours north of Hattiesburg (provided you’re obeying the speed limits). Up there, they didn’t care about Brett Favre. They had their own colleges in Jackson, like perennial powerhouses JSU, Belhaven, and Millsaps, whom you might remember from a famed ESPN clip where a football team lost a game after the opposing team scored a touchdown after about 30 laterals were thrown to get the ball in the endzone. That was Millsaps. It’s the only way Jackson colleges ever get on TV. Millsaps Fever! Catch it!

Also, we were close enough to Ole Miss and MS State to where they got most of the attention.

Being away from all of those fake Packers fans gave me the opportunity to see what everyone else had figured out years before me: That Brett Favre was a great football player. It also gave me the chance to learn the hard way that one should never bet against Brett Favre. I lost way too much money doing that.

Ironically enough, when I started betting on him, the Packers were stinking up the joint. Karmic justice at its finest.

Along the way, I watched him teach the top, fall off, almost get run out of town, turn a hater like me into a fan, and almost reach the pinnacle again. Not a lot of players in the NFL get the chance to do that. John Elway might be the only other one in my short football memory.

But aside from all of the records he broke and amazing games he played, the lasting memory that I will have of Brett Favre is of him throwing snowballs at his teammates in the middle of a playoff game. And maybe his brown teeth, but mostly the snowballs. I mean, here was one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever throw a spiral and he was wasting his Hall of Fame arm beaning his teammates in the back with poorly packed snowballs. His Mississippi upbringing was showing through.

Two months later, he shocked the world by walking away from the game after his team was a win away from going to the Super Bowl. Surely, they’d be in contention again next year. Why didn’t he walk away during the three years that the Packers weren’t worth the chalk that marked the yards on their historic field? Why now, when he had turned the football world on its ear by making the Packers a legitimate team again at the age of 37?

He just didn’t want to play anymore. That’s all there is to it. But he went out on his own terms, and as an athlete, that’s really all you can ask for. No one made him go and his body didn’t betray him. And while I’m sad he’s gone, I’m still happy for him. I’m happy that he walked into his retirement press conference and I’m happy that he found such joy in doing something that it made him cry to stop doing it. What more can you ask for in life?

I guess maybe a chance to start an NFL game. At least, that’s what you’re asking for if you’re Aaron Rodgers. Be careful what you wish for, kid. You’re about to get it.