Will We Miss Brett Favre?

Jason Whitlock of FoxSports.com, wrote earlier this week that “football fans don’t know it yet, but they’re going to miss Brett Favre.”  Never one to ignore the media’s role in shaping the opinions of the fans, in the same article, Whitlock conceded that “unfortunately, we, the media, ruined the Favre story.”

Who knows if Whitlock is correct regarding the first point.  Maybe once Favre truly does retire and fans get a much needed break from constantly being told that he was a gift from the football heavens, we will realize that having a charismatic, “love him or hate him” type of player who dominated headlines throughout the sport for the better part of two decades was a good thing. 

We all have our opinions as of now, but only time will tell whether Whitlock’s prediction comes to fruition.

One thing that is indisputable is Whitlock’s second point – anyway you slice it, the media truly did ruin the Favre story.

For years, the backlash towards Brett Favre wasn’t aimed so much at him as a player, as it was at the constant fawning over him by the national media.  And there was plenty of fawning to go around. Chris Berman has gone on the record as claiming that rooting for Favre is like “rooting for America” and that his birthday should be “a national holiday”.  Terry Bradshaw wasn’t satisfied gushing about his game and began to praise him for how “refreshing” his Wrangler jeans commercials were.  Sean Salisbury openly proclaimed that he loved Brett Favre, and, when he did, the hype was at such a ridiculous level that viewers didn’t assume that he simply enjoyed watching him play, we genuinely believed Salisbury was in love with Brett Favre. 

It was like we were an unknowing party in a practical joke expertly coordinated by the national media.  Because they couldn’t seriously believe some of the garbage they were spewing about this guy could they?

So after an ill-advised interception in the final pass of what could (again) be his final game on Sunday, it took only a few minutes before we got yet another offering that reaffirmed the gap between what we were seeing on the field and what the media was seeing when it came to Brett Favre, this time from a borderline teary-eyed Tom Jackson on ESPN.  That or the practical joke was still going strong…

“What I will take away from this game, and yes it’s a team game, but the story really was Brett Favre.  The courage that he showed on the field, the pounding that he took, the way he kept standing up, bringing this football team back.  The way he almost won a football game when they actually offered the ball up to their opponent 8 times, lost 5.  5 turnovers and still almost won that football game.  If that’s the last image that I have of Brett Favre, then that’s a great image to have.  Even in a losing effort, the courage that he showed today.”

There you have it, sports fans.  According to at least one prominent football analyst, the story wasn’t Drew Brees leading the Saints to a Super Bowl in the building that just a few years ago was used as a tattered shelter for hurricane victims. The story wasn’t the Vikings offense doing everything within their power to give the game away including an inexplicable 12-men in the huddle penalty with seconds left on the clock that knocked them out of field goal range.  The story wasn’t Brett Favre throwing a horrible interception on the play following the penalty that kept his team from even attempting a game winning field goal at the end of regulation. 

Nope. The story was Brett’s courage.  The courage to make yet another throw that a Hall of Fame quarterback should never make, and get it picked off. 

And with his emotional soliloquy to the fallen gunslinger, Jackson offered up a perfect example of the media’s often irrational love affair with Favre that ultimately turned so many fans against him. 

Maybe Jason Whitlock is right and, when he is gone, we will miss Brett Favre, the player.  But I can assure you that most football fans will never miss Brett Favre, the sports media obsession.

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