Just Saying, Is All... | Brett Favre's Worst Nightmare

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It takes a grown man to make a graceful exit.

Brett Favre is a living legend. He’s also a dying hero. After a tumultuous offseason, the born-again Viking seems to have made a fresh start in Minnesota—which would be better news if that fresh start made the bitter end any less inevitable.

Glory means defying the sands of Father Time.

Greatness, on the other hand, means embracing the dust of Mother Earth.

I’m not out to criticize Favre. His passion for the game is beyond reproach, and he certainly has a knack for persevering against impossible odds. But there’s a fine line between perseverance and perversity. In a league where clock management wins championships, you’ve got to question a quarterback who runs his final two-minute drill for three consecutive years.

You’re only as old as you feel.

You’re only as wise as you act.

If there’s an inference to be drawn from Favre’s indecisive behavior, it’s simply that No. 4 is still a kid in his own head.

NFL stardom is a state of perpetual childhood. Daily study sessions, weekly play dates, annual trips to summer camp—our idols have followed the same routine since preschool, as if life were an exercise in infinite repetition. The truth, of course, is that youthful illusion can’t last forever. Favre fanatics will argue that Brett’s eternal boyishness is endearing. I’d counter that boyish endearment is a rather poor substitute for adult endurance.

It’s good to hold on while you can.

It’s better to let go when you must.

Favre has every right to cling to his career, but his résumé won’t be complete until he finds the courage to lose his grip.

Fear is the essence of maturity. To be young is to believe that there’s nothing to be scared of; to come of age is to learn that nothing is the scariest thing of all. Brett Favre’s worst nightmare is the one where he wakes up unemployed on a Sunday in autumn, and discovers that the real terror begins after the dream is over. Every mortal is haunted by the specter of permanent retirement. The savvy veteran understands that his angst won’t be soothed by anything so juvenile as another temporary comeback.

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Dylan Thomas never got teary at a farewell press conference, but he did know a thing or two about the desperate pain of parting :

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a Green Bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Which is a fitting dirge for a gunslinger determined to go down shooting.

Because tomorrow is always a little bit dimmer than today, and anyone who claims to be unafraid of the dark is either shining in the Metrodome or only just saying, is all...

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