Favre From Over: No Answer in Sight in Another Offseason Of Drama

If you woke up this morning expecting to have some clarity regarding when, where, how, or even if a certain “retired” quarterback is going to play in 2009, you should go back to bed.

As soon as I heard yesterday that Brett Favre was meeting Dr. James Andrews regarding surgery my first intuition was to cry “BS.” Okay, maybe I didn’t use such kind words, but the point is that if Brett Favre wants someone to know he’s having surgery he isn’t going to call Charley Walters in St. Paul (no offense Charley), he is going to call Peter King.

If we have learned one thing from the Brett Favre retirement period (it has moved beyond a saga and has now taken hold as an entire period of history in the NFL), it is that No. 4 cares about 1 thing: No. 4. He doesn’t care about his legacy, the fans, the NFL, the Packers, certainly not the Vikings, or even his family.

I mean the guy has played enough games in December at Lambeau to know all that blaze orange means Packer fans are gun owners. If you ask the right people in Wisconsin, they’ll tell you the kind of treason Brettidict Arnold has planned is grounds for capital punishment.

But Brett doesn’t care. That is clear.

Last summer, when the Packers rejected Brett’s pleas to return (that’s after they accepted his pleas and he reneged), I insisted that Ted Thompson give the most famous Packer in history his spot back.

Ted Thompson made the right call and gave the Packers the best chance to move forward, while giving Brett Favre what he wanted, one last ride as the gunslinger.

But the cowboy decided his rodeo wasn’t quite finished. Not until he had one last shoot-out (actually two, one at Lambeau and one in the Metrodome).  He couldn’t simply ride his tractor into the sunset knowing that his body couldn’t handle it anymore.

Again, Brett doesn’t care.

When Ed Werder reported that Brett did want to come back and play (for the Vikings), surgery was still not an option he was leaning towards. Bus Cook, Favre’s agent, came out over the weekend saying that there was “nothing” to the reports that Favre was looking into a comeback, but that should he change his mind that it was a possibility.

Favre may very well have called Charley what’s his name from the St. Paul Pioneer Press. I can’t imagine what two sources he would have taken to his editor otherwise. That is exactly the problem: he holds every key.

When he wanted back in last summer, all he had to do was say he was going to show up, and before Favre had even unpacked his bags for training camp, he was on his way to Manhattan.

The people in Minnesota are clamoring for the Vikings to sign Favre. He has ripped their hearts out enough over the years that they are clearly willing to stomach his presence on their team if it means he helps the Vikings return the favor to Packerland.

If Favre decides to stay retired, even if it is because of an injury, there will be hell to pay for Zygi Wilf and Brad Childress because it will seem as if they simply didn’t try hard enough. That is the picture Brett painted of Ted Thompson last year and in order him to maintain his integrity with the media and NFL fans at large, he’ll have to spin a similar story.

Last year I compared Brett Favre to an ex-girlfriend. Well she’s turned into an angry vengeful ex. Sometimes you break up with someone and afterwards you learn things about them you wished you never did. You wish they could have just stayed on that pedestal in your mind where they are wonderful and things just didn’t work out.

If Favre puts on purple and gold, regardless of the circumstances, that pedestal is not only gone, but its been broken up and made into torches to storm Favre’s ranch in Mississippi.

Brett doesn’t care.

The cowboy has turned into a traitorous outlaw. Ted Thompson’s story looks more and more plausible and Favre looks more like just another petulant super-star whining to get his way.

I did learn something else from all of this: I’m going back to bed, wake me in August. Maybe, by then we’ll know something. I won’t set an alarm.