The Green Bay Packers' Management Needs To Wake Up!

Derek Lofland, NFL director for Fantasy Football Maniaxs.com

Since this annoying story broke at the beginning of July, I have tried to maintain the position that Brett Favre made a mistake by retiring early in March.

It would be wise for the Packers to try to make the best of a difficult position and either accommodate their legendary quarterback by bringing him back to the roster or trading him as soon as possible.

“As soon as possible” has since passed, and I am now at the point where I believe that if I were going to assign blame in this situation, I would say the Packers' management is 75 percent to blame, and that Brett Favre is about 25 percent.

The longer this story keeps dragging out, the more I am swayed into raising that percentage of blame on the Green Bay Packers. Here is my list of things that I think the Green Bay Packers have completely mishandled in this trying situation.

1) The Packers did not encourage Brett Favre to comeback in March

It is abundantly clear that the Packers did not really care one way or the other whether Brett Favre came back in February. They have moved on way too quickly and are way too comfortable with Aaron Rodgers at this point for that to be a credible idea. That is something I will expand on a little later when I discuss mishandling No. 5.

I want to be clear on something. I am not accusing Ted Thompson of telling Brett Favre that he did not want the quarterback on the Packer roster in 2008 and that he had to retire.

What I am saying is that I believe he did absolutely nothing to convince him to stay. He gave him the bear amount of encouragement to come back. He communicated to Favre’s camp that the Packers were lukewarm to the idea of him returning, and that they just wanted a decision one way or the other to be made as soon as possible.

People that disagree with me will point out that before the draft, the Packers were willing to take a private jet to Mississippi and bring him out of retirement, and that Brett Favre is the one that canceled and changed his mind.

My counter to that would be that around the same time Favre was telling Mississippi papers that he might consider coming back if the Packers asked him and Aaron Rodgers had gotten hurt.

Favre may have changed his mind because the Packers had not demonstrated that they were fully committed to him, and he had reservations about what his role would be with the organization.

At the time, my position was that Favre shouldn’t be making comments like that because it was speculation for the sake of speculating. Knowing what I know now, why would he have been saying that if there wasn’t some truth to the fact that the Packers had already moved on before he retired?

He was saying things in the papers within a month of retiring. Favre has been waffling. The Packers, in particular Ted Thompson, have not been honest. I don’t know exactly what to believe about why they were going to Mississippi for in March. For all I know, it could have been to convince him to stay in retirement or to come back as the second stringer.

This whole sob story that the Packers wanted him back until after the draft is nothing more than a public-relations position. When Favre had ankle surgery last season and couldn’t fully participate at the minicamps, I didn’t hear Ted Thompson complain once that this vital missed practice time would set the Packers back for the season.

I haven’t heard Tony Dungy say that Jim Sorgi will start the season at quarterback for the Colts in 2008 because the team can’t go on with a Peyton Manning that didn’t play in training camp.

The Packers want to spin it that they wanted Favre back all along but his waffling and indecision became too much, so they had no choice but to go down this road. They will try to spin it that they are past the point of no return. There is no way they are even close to the point of no return.

Not one game has been played since he retired, and Favre wouldn’t have missed a day of training camp if the Packers were not dragging their feet. Their actions and reasoning over the last four months are not very consistent with the view that they would have loved to have him back in March.

2) The Packers have been dragging their feet since June 20

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