My Official Green Bay Packers blog

I would imagine that it’s hard not to think of yourself as the King (thankyehvurrymuch) of Green Bay. From the moment he filled in for the injured Don Majkowski in September of ‘92 (and conducted his first of 40 come-from-behind/OT wins), Brett Favre has been treated like royalty. As he was winning, putting the shine back into the Titletown moniker, he tore up the town and even the state with his drinking and pills. And you’ve gotta believe that when he ran with former buddy Mark Chmura that they tapped more than just kegs. But as long as the Packers kept winning, he still sat atop his throne, answering to none.

Or so he thought. What Favre didn’t realize is that he didn’t own the title to the throne he sat on. It was leased, just like the ones built for Montana, Elway and Starr. And when the lease is up, the throne is disassembled, turned to velvet scraps and kindling while a new, royal ass-holder is commissioned for the incoming King of Titletown. So when Favre’s reign as king was over, with the title also went Green Bay’s willingness to overlook all those things we’d overlooked in the past. When Brett used a Packer-issue cell phone to call Vikings coaching staff, he either was not smart enough to realize that the phone records could be checked and his cheatin’ ass would be ratted out, or he thought he was still King of Titletown, The Man Who Can Do No Wrong. But he did plenty wrong.

• It’s reported that Deanna Favre is unhappy with Packer management (what’s new) that somehow Brett was “being played” over the weekend with the will he/won’t he show up for training camp hoopla. Huh? Whatever. When he had his 13-part interview with Greta Van Susteren, he forgot to mention any of the secret communications via text and cell phone with Vikings’ coaching staff. I mean, in that interview he did say he wanted to lay out the whole truth, right? So is the current truth, as Favre is saying now, that he just made repeated calls and texts to Brad Childress to find out if Childress thought he should still play? Really? Does it go something like this? beep-boop-boop - Hi, Brad Childress? This is Brett Favre. Do you think I’m still good enough to play? Okthxbye. boop-beep-boop - Hi Rod Marinelli? Am I still able to fool your corners with my no-look passes? boop-boop-beep - Lovey? Is Brian still wishing I’d retire? And then he’d start all over with Childress? Shut the eff up, Brett. Either he’s lying, or he’s a 12-year-old girl in need of constant reassurance. Oh yeah, that’s right.
• That Brett would do this, talk to a team within our own division, one of our biggest rivals, speaks to what Favre really thinks about the people in Green Bay. He’d just as soon stab you in the face as play for your team.
• There was other stuff, too. A lot of it. But I’m just so tired of this and I’m pretty lazy, so I’ll stop listing stuff now.

And why is it that Favre isn’t showing up to camp? Hold on there, speed racer. You’re screaming “Because Ted Thompson told him not to” at the monitor and getting spit all over everything. Go get a paper towel and settle down. What I’m driving at is this: for all of Favre’s physical tenacity, I think the guy really, really hates interpersonal conflict. That’s why he uses his mommy and brudders to leak word about being angry about the Randy Moss no-deal, his unretirement and his second unretirement. For all the beatings he took at the hands of guys twice his size, terse words might be Favre’s biggest fear. Because if he’s really tough, I’m thinking he faxes in his letter on Friday and shows up at the Don Hutson center at mid-day on Saturday and says to Thompson: I’m here. Deal with it.

But he didn’t, either because personal conflict is scarier to him than 400 pound D-lineman who can run as fast as he does, or he really is just trying to keep this as calm and civil as possible for the Packer organization. And that’s about as plausible as the Packers wanting to protect Favre’s legacy. Favre went on freaking Greta’s show to spill as many beans as he had so he could cast himself in a good light. And he’s the first to the media whenever he and Thompson discuss anything. Do not misconstrue - Favre is looking out for Favre. And it’s unseemly to see a former King flailing in the mud like this.

Before I wrap this up, a couple other notes - in my interaction with John Q Packerbacker, there seems to be a class split in how people feel about the Favre/Packer ordeal. If you’re a person who has ever been responsible for anything, like a staff of a few (or many) people, ran a crew, or in general your job included managing egos, you’re siding with the Packers. If you earn your living at the bottom of the totem pole, responsible only for what your own two hands get done in a day (unable to see the big picture, maybe?), you’re siding with Favre, and usually talking about how the Packers owe something to Brett. Like he’s entitled to something more. Entitlement in most of it’s forms is for the weak and the lazy, waiting for a handout. You get what you get, and if you don’t like it, go out and get something else, but don’t lie around bitching about wouldas and shouldas. Brett Favre has amassed bazillions because Ron Wolf took a chance on a reckless gamer. If Jerry Glanville had had his way, Favre would never have seen the playing field on Sundays. And Holmgren reined him in to make him the QB he became. But that’s all a part of football, and nobody owes anyone else a damn thing, except to honor your contracts.

Oh, and it’s good to see national sports talk guys coming around to my way of thinking. It seems as though Steve Czaban drank the Kool-Aid on my Hillbilly Orchestra theory. He didn’t give me credit, of course, but chug the Kool-Aid he did. Big choking gulps, in front of millions of Wisconsin listeners of the Bob and Brian show. Welcome aboard, Czabe.

Oh yea - and the Packers aren’t going to have that whole retirement ceremony thing. Glad they took my advice.

As Player #2 in the Brotherhood Fellowship basketball tournament in White Men Can’t Jump might say - “This is too damn easy.”

Technorati Tags: Brett Favre, Ted Thompson, Green Bay Packers, retirement papers, Have a Sip of Kool-Aid

Chris Mortenson is reporting that Brett Favre has told the Packers that he intends to report to camp this Saturday.  Asphinctersayswhat?

I need a few minutes to digest this, and after one additional nugget was added to the report it started to make sense.  The nuggets?  His Favreness has been granted permission to speak with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the New York Jets.  So Favre’s stay in Green Bay may only last a few days.  Or a few hours.

When the story first broke I was stunned, because while I’ve always seen Favre as almost impervious to physical pain, it’s become clear in the last 6-12 months that his mental game is pretty soft.  I know, I know - “You try  being Favre!” you spurt from behind weepy eyes and a runny nose.  The thing is, I’m checking right now and…yup.  I still have a pair of huevos.  Neither my mom nor my wife keep them in a jar with the peanut butter.

And I never thought he’d report to camp.  After the things he said about Ted Thompson and the teen girl waffling on his retirement and the effect that’s had on the whole of Wisconsin, I never thought he’d have the stones to come back to GB for training camp.  So I was forced to reconsider my earlier position on Favre’s mental toughness.  But if he’s moved to another team in the next 2-10 days, then it’ll be clear that he came to camp only because he had to as part of his unretirement, and not because he was going to face down his perceived oppressors.

Time will tell.

Technorati Tags: Favre, Again

Every day this week I’d listen to sports talk radio, watch Greta, then take a few notes about what I wanted to post about. And then by the next morning there was enough crap added to dung heap that has become the Brett Favre situation that I had to scrap my plans for the previous post and change direction. First I was going to title this post “The Fargina Monologues.” Then, “How to Throw Away a Career of Good Will in 10 Days.”

But with all the piles of information to sift through and post about, there’s no way I’m going to be able to write a coherent post (do I ever?). So I’m going to just punch through this thing like a freaking tommy gun of bullet points.

• Brett’s gotta stop listening to the women in his life, including his mother and his wife (and brothers, too, I suppose). Brett, in case you didn’t notice all the johnsons dangling from your teammates in the showers after the games, this is a man’s sport, dude. Unless you were the shy nerd of questionable sexual orientation on the team who would always come up with some reason why you couldn’t shower with the team, preferring the comfort of your bathtub and rubber ducky at home, you had to notice. And dudes? They don’t skip lightly from one idea to the next in an interview like a scatterbrained teenager at a Sadie Hawkins dance. So taking advice from mom and Deanna about football and public relations is always going to be a bad idea. You have millions. Hire someone. Someone that is not named Favre; someone who doesn’t pronounce P.R. “Purrrrr.” The more you talk, the more you appear to be taking your undergarment advice from Nuke LaLoosh. Or Susan Sarandon.
• Liar, liar. In part 13 of the Greta Van Susteren interview Brett said he thought Ted Thompson was telling lies. Err, untruths. Err, whatever you call it when someone disagrees with Brett’s take on something. His example was Ted claiming Brett hadn’t lobbied hard to get Randy Moss into a Packer uniform. I’d like to introduce Brett to a concept I know he’s unfamiliar with. It’s called discretion. Discretion can occur when someone decides not to lay out the full story for the media about an issue out of concern that the media coverage may make the issue disproportionately large and take time away from the business of running the Packers. And when Brett was on David Letterman - wouldn’t that be considered a lie as well? The retirement? (change of heart, my ass) Brett’s insistence that the rumors of him wanting to come back were just that? Rumors? So Brett, you need to drop the liar talk. You’ve lied as much as anyone here, and probably more.
• Oh, and what about Randy Moss? If memory serves, when we ditched Mike Sherman, Brett really wanted Steve Not Coaching Anymoriucci, too. Well, we ended up at 13-3 with the coaching talent Ted Thompson brought in. Sure McCarthy would sooner kick Favre’s testicles than caress them as Mariucci may have, but as Brett told Greta, the proof is on the football field.  2007 was some pretty solid proof that Ted Thompson knows what he’s doing.
• And what about Donald Driver, Greg Jennings, James Jones, Ruvell Martin and Koren Robinson? Are you trying to tell me there was a better collection of wide receivers on the planet in 2007? Was there a single team running 5-wideout sets last year, other than the Packers? Mofo better have had 4,000+ passing yards last year, because he had more skilled hands at his disposal than any woman beating, Mary Jo Wanna smoking, locker room cancer, early quitting wideout could have ever brought to the team. Stop going all Mark Messier, thinking that because you’re the lead dog on the field that you’re in charge of player personnel, coaching staff and ticket prices. You’re the organ grinder monkey. And a great one at that. But shut up and dance, monkey.
• Why would Brett ever choose Greta Van Susteren for his interviewer? Oh yeah. Brett’s boss sent Greta an email and told Brett to do the interview.  Does anyone think this interview would have gone differently if Vince Lombardi had done it?  How ’bout John Madden?  You know that at the very least they’d have known the team to our northwest is not called the Minneapolis Vikings.  Again, this is a man’s sport.  By not selecting someone of the male persuasion who was also involved at some level in football, this either looks like Brett Favre truly is an egomaniac thinking his situation should be national news, or that his nuts wear a diamond-studded collar with the name “princess” engraved on it, tied to a leash toted by his wife, or his mom if Deanna’s busy.  Watching an icon of the most manly sport in America act like an emasculated sissy is just uncomfortable for me.  Please stop talking, Brett.
• And Brett probably thinks the fans are behind him, and he’s right.  Well, at least 130 of them, as 100 showed up at Lambeau and another 30 at a Milwaukee rally for Favre.  To those 130 all I can say is that I know how hard it can be when you’re unemployed.  For those of us who do NOT dumpster dive for our meals, Favre’s name is pretty much mud.  And when I say mud, I mean poop.  And when I say poop - ah, screw it.  Nevermind.
• Even my dentist thinks you’re acting ridiculous, Brett.  I had to stop him and settle him down because I was worried he was going to drill through my brain he was so pissed off.
• And now, Brett has yet to file papers to unretire and the latest from Bus Cook is that there are no immediate plans to do so.  Kind of like in March when I believe Favre first convened the hillbilly orchestra to hatch a plan to get out of Green Bay, he may be doing so again.
• And if you are among those who want to see Brett come back, keep in mind Ted Thompson is a grinder.  He has not made his mark in the NFL by making blockbuster, 100-point font deals.  He’s done it by churning through libraries of data to select and sign people for about half their market price.  Getting Favre back is a media relations problem Thompson can’t manage.  If it were Jerry Jones, there’d be billboards from Slinger to Antigo and a full page ad on the cover of the Green Bay Press-Gazette announcing Favre’s return.  Thompson does great things with small amounts of money, but this is outside of Thompson’s depth.
• That being said, what Thompson is doing is on the mark.  No employee of mine is going to tell me how to run my company.  Or if he does, he’ll soon be eligible to join the others at the Favre rallies.  I don’t think Favre owes the Packers.  I also don’t think the Packers owe Favre.  What I do think is that the Packers have Favre under contract and that contract is valid and should be enforced, and in Brett’s case, honored.  The Packers have Brett by the shorties - the sooner he comes to grip with that, the sooner he’ll be able to either move on with his life outside of football or have a partial egoectomy and get to camp to kick Rodger’s ass in earning the starting slot.
• If there’s any hope for Brett to reclaim his status as a dude, when he gets into town to induct Frankie Bag-O-Donuts into the Packer Hall of Fame, he’ll tell the media he has nothing to say, that this day and this event are for Frank and Gilbert (Brown), and that he won’t answer any questions.  If he does anything other than that, I’ll expect him to be wearing a white, full-length mink coat and a pink fedora with a peacock feather sticking out of it when he gets off the plane, because it’ll all mean that Favre is loving pimping him some Favre.

It is my sincerest hope that this is the last post I’ll make about Brett Favre for awhile. Because I’d much rather write about Aaron Rodgers’ media missteps or Noah Herron beating an intruder senseless with a bedpost.

Oh - I almost forgot.  Brett was scheduled to be at the Resch center in person on August 13th for a motivational seminar.  Checking the website,  I see that “due to possible commitments Brett Favre may appear live via satellite for this event.”  Right.  Commitments like having to avoid living through someone saying something bad about him to his face.  Dude is not made of iron.  He’s got sensitivities, you know.

Technorati Tags: Brett Favre, Brett Favre, Brett Favre, Alotta Fagina