Open Mic: Should Brett Favre Stay (Retired) Or Should He Go?

In the 80's song Should I stay or should I go by The Clash, there is a line in the song "if I stay there will be trouble and if I go it will be double". That is the dilemma that all athletes face at some point and the one that has dominated the sports headlines recently with Brett Favre at the forefront.

Favre should just walk away the naysayers opine, never mind that most of the fans I have heard express that opinion have been saying those same words annually for 3-4 years. While it would be almost unthinkable for Brett Favre to don colors other than green and gold if he plays in 2008, NFL fans are faced with the very real possibility of just that.

For those who say Favre is through, I can think of 4,000 reasons that is not the case. One for every yard passing the man compiled in 2007, with 28 touchdowns. It was the best year Brett has had in awhile and much of it was done with no running game before the midseason discovery of Ryan Grant.

Far from hanging on as Willie Mays did in the 70's with the New York Mets, John Unitas with the Chargers or Joe Namath with the then LA Rams, #4 can still fling it with the best QBs in the NFL. While a case could be made for Favre "going out on top" after coming so close to the Super Bowl last season, if he wants to play and the team wants to "move on" with Aaron Rodgers, why should Brett Favre retire? The man certainly benefitted from coming back "one more year" a year ago.

As much as fans with the attention span of a 12 year old boy (I know, I have one at home) would like for most athletes to hang it up at a prescribed age, there is no one size fits all prescription for retirement. Bert Jones, Terrell Davis and many other athletes were done in their early thirties, mostly due to injuries, but others like Jim Brown and Barry Sanders walked away from the game while still in their prime. Still others like Jerry Rice and yes, Brett Favre, have excelled near their fourth decade.

Whether it's money, fame, or simply ego that motivates these men who refuse to go off into the good night, as long as any quarterback can still play, or any player at any position for that matter, more power to him, I say. There are too many David Carrs, Brody Croyles and whatever member of the witness protection program who figures to start for the Dolphins still in the NFL for a quality QB to be in the Fox studio or at home on Sundays in the fall.

In case you missed it, 53 year old Greg Norman just came out of years of inactivity on the PGA Tour, and just weeks after his honeymoon with little preparation, the Shark devoured all but two opponents in the British Open. The fact that most of Norman's competitors were young enough to be his sons should not be lost on the world of sports.

Brett Favre at 38 is still better than all but a handful of signal callers in the NFL. As strange as it would be to see Favre in a Tampa Bay uniform, or Baltimore or any team that doesn't play on the "frozen tundra", the NFL needs Brett Favre and if Green Bay no longer wants his services, hopefully the Packers' loss is some other teams' gain.