Brett Favre, Tony Dungy—Who's Next? The Unhealthy Obsession with Retirements

I had a front-row seat for the biggest NFL retirement of the decade.

Well, not quite front row. It was actually the seventh row in the Legends Club, located in the Lambeau Field Atrium. At 23 years old, I was easily the youngest reporter in the room to watch Brett Favre put an end to his 17-year NFL career.

The scene was unlike any press conference I had been to before or since. Risers lined the back of the room, stacked three levels high and packed from end to end with cameras. ESPN had a presence there, as did every major news station in Wisconsin. Green Bay's local newspaper, the Green Bay Press-Gazette, had its four-man Packers coverage team sitting up front, just feet from Favre and his wife, Deanna.

When Favre entered the room, I could not see him until he took his seat at the table in front of the 100-plus reporters there. Cameras clicked and flashed as if the Pope had stepped into the Legends Club.

I arrived early, and Favre's late-arriving flight made my 35-minute wait into something in the ballpark of an 80-minute wait. As I sat waiting, I celebrated the end of the ridiculous hoopla that was the Brett Favre Retirement Saga. 2008 was the third, and apparently final, year of the annual event.

But the Fourth Annual Brett Favre Retirement Saga kicked off days after the Jets' season ended.

Shortly after, ESPN turned the story of Tony Dungy's possible retirement into an annoyance of Favre-like proportions. As if there wasn't anything else happening... like the NFL playoffs, college bowl season or the midway point of the NBA schedule.

For a solid week, every NFL-related story ran on this premise: Will Dungy retire or will Dungy return?

I got sick of hearing about Dungy. I felt he would retire after this season and I was right. But unlike Favre, he didn't waste time and drag his team down. Unlike Favre, Dungy won't be back. Ever.

With Favre set to take weeks to make a decision, Jets fans and New York sports fans will likely experience what we in Green Bay experienced in each of the last three off-seasons. There will be countless Favre stories, countless attempts at speculation and one overdue decision.

The question has been asked time and time again, but I've never heard an answer: Why can't we just leave these athletes alone and stop writing speculative stories?

We know the situations. We know the possibilities. Let's wait and see what happens. Favre may retire. He may come back for season No. 19. He may retire and come back for season No. 19. We get it.

Why are we so obsessed with every intricate detail about an athlete's decision-making process? What will it take before we leave retirement stories alone until there is actually a story there?

The biggest detriment to journalism is the tabloids that tell us every unnecessary detail of the lives of our biggest celebrities. That trend seems to be leaking into the world of sport journalism, and I couldn't be more let down.