I tried, Bubba.
I really did try to resist.
I’d be lying if I said I’ve ever had a soft spot for Brett Favre. Maybe it was my conviction that real gunslingers don’t wear braces, or the fact that I spent most of the late 90s watching No. 4 abuse my 49ers. In any event, I could never quite bring myself to jump on the Favre bandwagon—and I certainly won’t feel any abiding sense of loss when the season rolls around in September.
But still:
Here I am, on bended knee before Him Our Great Lord Cheesehead.
Oh well. At least I’ve got plenty of company.
Word of Favre’s retirement hit the wires on Tuesday morning. By Tuesday afternoon, the sports world was awash in maudlin sentimentality. Children wept. Hound dogs wailed. The phrase “frozen tundra” got so much mindless play that John Facenda spit on his own grave.
Silly?
A little.
Vain?
Of course.
And he who can get by without either silliness or vanity is welcome to cast the first stone at his leisure.
It’d be easy to play the cynic here—to rant and rave about historical perspective, or career interception records. But let’s be serious Bubba: This is what we do. This is who we are. To wax hyperbolic about an overexposed and underscrutinized quarterback is—alas! hooray!—to wallow in one’s utter and irredeemable Humanness.
Some species seek their cosmic order in the rhythm of the sunrise, or the turning of the seasons.
We, on the other hand, were saddled with the gift of language.
One of these days we’ll figure out what exactly we’re intended to do with it.
It’s a curious thing, this Need to Comment. By any measure, it speaks a lot more pointedly about the Commenter than the Commented Upon. If we weren’t here to talk about him, Brett Favre would be just another aging assemblage of inanimate carbon atoms. And God forbid it should ever come to that.
In the beginning was the Word; in the end will be the Silence.
In between it’s up to you and me to fill the dead air as best we can—which I suppose means there are more odious sins than to be only just saying, is all...
6 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Andrew Kneeland about 1 year ago
The unofficial count of Brett Favre articles published here at Bleacher Report in the last few days is now at 31.
I'm tempted to rant and rage about this ridiculous number...but I just published one myself.
Your article rings true, Ryan.
Nice work.
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Bob Warja about 1 year ago
Nice work as usual Ryan. You know, I'm a Bears fan and no one hates the Pack as much as a Bears fan. Yet I respect the heck out of No. 4. Mostly for his toughness and I've always liked his gunslinger mentality. Still, the people praising him as the best QB ever have got to stop...top 10 maybe, but the best? I don't think so bro.
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will schmidley about 1 year ago
Different and insightful, as always, Ryan. It's mind-boggling to think a player can be such an icon that his retirement sweeps another future hall of famer's under the rug completely. Sapp is one of the better interior lineman in football's modern era, yet Favre's retirement nearly completely wiped it out.
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Scott Fender about 1 year ago
He killed the 49ers in almost all his playoff games and we could not find an answer until butterfingers T.O. caught a pass like the little kid in Little Giants where Young threw it so hard I thought the ball would make Owens fly like the receiver in the Nike (or was it Gatorade) where Mike Vick bullets passes to him. Farve was a great one and he played with such life in his soul we couldn't help but watch and he played like the kids on the street or in the park. I always wanted him to be in the middle of the play and yell, "CAR!!!" and everyone step to the sidelines. He loved the game and played at a human level (we see his record for most INT's) maybe thats why we all love Farve. He is the icon we can all relate to. The average joe in the NFL, the Grey hair in the later days and the stubble of a man who just likes to relax and have fun. Farewell Farve it was a pleasure watching you.
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Janita Hickman about 1 year ago
Only Favre could throw an INT and walk off the field laughing about it and then come back and throw for a touch down, Thats what makes Brett the best. He hold the record for the most INT's true,but he made watching football fun. Sundays will never be the same. Hopefully, someday in the near future my little Brett will be gunslinging for the packers. (Yes, I named my son after Brett, Brett Marshall Favre Hickman). Have a good one
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Rich Tandler about 1 year ago
In sports media these days--in all media, for that matter--the philosophy is that if anything is worth doing, it's worth doing to wretched excess.
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