The Media Circus

Don’t let the mainstream media fool you, overcoming an addiction to Brett Favre is not as easy as it seems.  They may be as convincing as ever in saying that they’re sick of the Brett Favre stories, but we assure you, they’re still angling to score more of them wherever they can.

One of the more notorious Favre-addicts proved this yet again in his Monday Morning Quarterback column this week. He couldn’t resist reacting to what appear to be new rumors out of Minnesota: that Favre is possibly interested in coming back and playing with the Vikings. It would have been easy to ignore the story until it became crystal clear that it was in fact a story, but Peter King just had to get that fix one more time:

“I know you’re sick of this story. We all are. But my gut feeling is Favre never completely got this Vikings fixation out of his system. Now we wait for the smoke signals from chimneys in Eden Prairie, Minn., and southern Mississippi, to see if Favre wants to play again, and to see if the Vikings want him. If he returns, the dream game of this season won’t be Pats-Colts. It’ll be Vikings-Packers. Twice.”

(Drawing courtesy of Alex Fritz. It’s Peter King at his “column wheel”. Now you know how ole Petey decides what to write about.)

It’s a familiar tale – one minute an addict claims he free from his drug of choice and the next minute he’s scouring the streets looking for more.  In this case, it takes just 50 words for King to go from proclaiming that he’s sick of the story to declaring that if Favre were to play in Minnesota, the Vikings games versus the Packers would be the “dream game of the season”.

And Peter isn’t alone either.  Favre’s name is popping up all over the internets in story after story about him as a possible candidate to take over the Vikings QB position now that he’s been granted his formal release from the Jets.  Some say it is due to Favre’s obsession over revenge on the Packers (link 1), some say he’s dead set on destroying his own legacy.  We tend to feel like its Favre’s own addiction to the spotlight that causes this yearly dance.

So you’ve got a quarterback that is addicted to attention, media that is addicted to giving him attention and, now that we look in the mirror, the Media Circus column is addicted to ripping on those two addictions.

This dude better retire for good one of these days or we might all find ourselves on Intervention in the near future.###MORE###

Crap that actually came from Brett Favre’s mouth

“NO.”

The word of the day is NO. Brett Favre’s text message to Trent Dilfer said “NO.” It was an answer to Dilfer’s question as to whether there was any chance Favre would play in 2009. This came Tuesday morning and more details can be read right here if you really want to read them.

Alex Marvez of Foxsports.com seems to think that’s a smokescreen, however. In fact, he wrote a column titled “All signs point to Favre returning.” Ed Werder at ESPN wrote something similar. Werder has a “source” that says Favre will talk with Brad Childress and the Vikings about playing. The story is particularly hilarious because of the following graphic …

“According to a source with direct knowledge of the situation?!?!?!?!?!?”

Okay, there needs to be an international law prohibiting sports media clowns from reporting the words of “anonymous sources” and those sources “with direct knowledge of the situation.” We say any media outlet that credits various reports to the aforementioned sources receive 10 minutes in the cage with Chris Berman.

Oh, that graphic is also fun because the exact same graphic ran at this exact time last year on ESPN.com, per JoeSportsFan’s source with indirect knowledge of the situation.

One other thing: why would the Vikings want Favre? He faded down the stretch last year, he’s 39 and he’s a selfish attention whore. Why pay the extra money to sign a guy with transcendent capabilities of blowing games when you already have Sage Rosenfels as the supposed starter? That guy did a hell of a job choking away victories for the Texans last season. Ask the Colts.

SportsCenter Anchors take advantage of chance to flex more personality

In our wacky, ever-changing Internet world, the powers that be try to invent new ways to get us closer to the game and the minions covering it. Even then, the suits behind the desk can get overlooked. That’s no longer the case for the SportsCenter anchor team, thankfully.

At the (relatively) new SportsCenter.com, fans can see the personal side of guys like Jay Harris, Robert Flores and the other team of anchors. Such personal information, such as …

In the event you didn’t know Jay Harris was a male, now you know. But what about the ladies?

Whewww. That’s a relief. The basic information of each anchor is accurate. See because Chris McKendry is a female and “F” stands for female. Fellow anchor Neil Everett has a little more to say to his peeps, however.

Sure you had to click on the “Anchors” tab to read the anchor fan pages and sure, you were doing so an ESPN site, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that everyone here knows that people like Neil and Chris and Jay work for ESPN as anchors. Know it and learn it, people.

When breaking news breaks too soon …

The NFL’s incessant love affair with the NFL is well documented. When love grows so deep, it leads to bold ventures. Case in point the league’s quest to broadcast a future Super Bowl on foreign soil. Though that quest is one that takes time, it doesn’t mean the NFL PR machine can’t begin the hype.

“After two sell-out regular-season games at Wembley Stadium and a third scheduled for Oct 25, there is a commitment to bring the championship game to the capital in 2014.

The NFL’s special events team, headed by Frank Sopowitz, has looked at Canada, Mexico, Germany and the UK as potential destinations outside the United States but identified London as the outstanding candidate. It is expected to announce officially within the next 12 months that a Super Bowl will be staged across the Atlantic.”

As a refresher, the league will announce within 365 days whether a Super Bowl will be played across the Atlantic. It makes for funny looking headlines, if nothing else.

Keep that in mind going forward football fans. Next time you see that 2015 calendar on sale, you may want to rethink passing it up.

The Media Circus is written by Josh Bacott and Patrick Imig. They heard a report that the location of the 2019 Super Bowl will be announced in the next 48 months. Email them at [e-mail].