The King is Dead, Long Live the King

When the Eastern Sports Programming Network twitters a Brett Favre fart, who can blame them? Though they might want to check their spelling - a bonafide superstar’s fart is spelled Phooowmmm, right? - those major-network media guys know that if you attach a few words to superstar's fart and then yank it out into day-to-day stories of thousands of words, you’re safe for another day.

To stay employed, most NFL media types must mention Favre every 48 hours or so. Otherwise, their bosses will think those danged reporters are going out and actually gathering news.

The latest twist in the Favre farts-and-we-write, -tweet, -talk, -blog, -text, and -smell it-saga is to criticize Green Bay Packer fans.

The current clichéd story is Favre owes nothing to Green Bay Packer fans and, in fact, raised a once moribund franchise into glory, glamour and a Superbowl winner. He gave the fans the best days of his life; played every down like it was his last; played like a kid out there; and played until he puked.

Green Bay fans have somehow become the villains in the 'Favre Farted Frenzy'. Green Bay fans are said to “have made it personal” or “turned on the old gunslinger” or “fail[ed] to realize what they had in the future Hall-of-Famer.”

How can the Packer fan base not understand what they owe to Favre?

Yes. Favre doesn’t owe the fans anything, but according to the reporters who must file Favre stories or probably lose their jobs, the fans owe Favre.

Apparently, Green Bay Packer fans owe Favre their undying devotion, adoration, and worship. No longer can a fan root for a community-owned team in the smallest market in professional sports or for the team their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents paid for and nurtured.

Nope. You have to root for Favre no matter which team he suits up for. 

Part of this attitude by most of the major NFL reporters, particularly those Boston Red Sox fans who now work for the biggest monopoly in sports, is because they want, seek, beg, and pant for Favre in a Vikings uniform.

What else would they write or talk about? Whether the President of the United States should earn less than the third-string quarterback of an NFL team? How much money each taxpayer pays in infrastructure costs for each new NFL stadium? Why the majority of so-called expert NFL reporter/analysts can’t ever pick the right Superbowl winner? Why the NFL, an entity supported by the ticket, tax, and buying power of the U.S. fan for more than a century, can even think about moving the penultimate game of the league to a foreign country? Are NFL stars given harsher or lesser sentences than the average citizen? Would any NFL star ever consider entering the U.S. military like Pat Tillman did? If Brett Favre farted in the woods and no one twittered about it, would it still make a sound?

Lust is too puny of a word when it comes to the image of Favre in purple and gold as envisioned by certain reporters and certain television networks. If a network could soil itself, it would do so in purple boas, leather, limbo contests, and “He Looks Like a Kid Out There” tattoos. (Mandatory for all employees.)

Figuring out Favre owes nothing to Packer fans while not figuring out Packer fans owe nothing to Favre is like saying Boston Red Sox fans must hoist the banner for Babe Ruth as the greatest that ever was, like writing French folks have to cry Viva Le Lance every day, tweeting Chicago Bulls’ fans must dye their Jordan jerseys Charlotte Hornet blue, and no one should care about their local high school football team because the players puking into the spit bucket are not ranked on rivals.com.

Somehow, because some Packer fans will jeer and sneer if Favre treads on Lambeau Field ground in a Vikings uniform, Packer fans will be called unfaithful, unworthy, bad, unknowing fans who don’t understand Favre was and is the best thing that ever happened to Green Bay.

Nope.

The best thing that ever happened to Green Bay was a bunch of folks who got together and said we are gonna have us a football team and, when money gets tight, we are gonna pony up among ourselves and keep this ol’ football team going. And we are gonna believe. Hell, and high water, and wars, and free agents, and big pocket owners in cities a hundred times our size aren’t going to smite our faith.

Kings in sports are like kings in history: praised while they live and reviled as soon as they fall or are perceived to fall. Remember the summer of Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa in baseball? Remember the stories about Michael Vick as a quarterback who would forever change the essence of NFL football? Remember the proclamations of this man or that man as the greatest sports player ever, until he proved to be a mere man?

As a Packer fan, I owe nothing to Brett Favre. He was paid an extraordinary salary, his family—especially Big Irv—were embraced, cherished, and nourished by Packer fans, his charities supported, his completed passes cheered, his interceptions explained away.

Favre was the most prominent Packer for a lot of years, beloved, in part, because he was like us: he had great days and bad days, good and bad habits, had to take care of his family, liked being the life of the party, and liked being wanted.

If I root against him if he becomes a Viking, it is not because I’m unfaithful, or turncoat, or disloyal or don’t understand football. 

In fact, just the opposite is true.

I support my community-owned, tiny-market Green Bay Packers like a rock against time.

I don’t root for individual players, I root for my team. It’s sort of like the U.S. — I might not always like it, but I’ll always love and stand by it, no matter the president. 

Former Packer General Manager Ron Wolf, the man who made the trade with Atlanta to bring Favre to Green Bay, said, after the Packers lost the 1998 Superbowl, the team was a one-year wonder, “a fart in the wind.”

Favre’s moved on. He isn’t a Packer anymore. To me, he’s just a Ron Wolf metaphor.