Six Reasons Why Brett Favre Will Never Join the Buffalo Bills

Brett Favre banter is fun, isn’t it?  As a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan, and as a person who feels he has a clear understanding of how the team operates under Ralph Wilson, I’m here to give six reasons why Brett Favre isn’t coming to Buffalo. 

 

Why six?

 

Because that's how many I ended up with.

 

 

1. Dick Jauron is the coach, and, more importantly, Turk Schonert is the coordinator.

 

This is not your mama's West Coast offense. Whoever picks up Favre, and wherever he goes, it will be to a place with a West Coast offense similar to what he has run in Green Bay. Nobody is going to ask Favre to learn a new playbook from scratch, and Favre isn’t going to want to.

 

 

2. He controls his own destiny.

 

“Hi Brett, it's Ted Thompson. You’re out of retirement, right?  Our best deal is with Buffalo, so we’re going to send you there.”

 

“Yeaaaah, about that, Ted. I’m staying retired. I have some errands to run. Thanks anyway.”

 

It's Buffalo. The Bills. They haven’t made the playoffs since Y2K was a scary thought. He doesn’t need to be a savior because he doesn’t have the skills to carry a team on his own anymore.

 

Packer fans are crazy because they idolize Favre. Buffalo fans are psychologically damaged from sports trauma and controversy. 

 

Favre wouldn’t be a hero in Buffalo unless he won a Super Bowl, and that wouldn’t be fair to him. He would be analyzed, overanalyzed, and ultimately compared to Jim Kelly.

 

He would not be able to live in the city because of the high expectations and fans' craziness. He needs to be in the best situation to win, live a life, and leave a positive legacy. That place isn’t in Buffalo.

 

 

3. Favre needs a city that can handle a big, small-market personality.

 

The major media ignores the Bills today, and despite the media attention Favre will bring, fans will complain that the Bills are only getting attention because of Favre, not because of the Bills (yes, this is how the Buffalo mind thinks). 

 

And it will be true. Favre doesn’t stay "The Man from Smallmarketville" by going to another small market. He needs a stage with a microphone where No. 4 will always be plastered everywhere. Sure, that will happen in Buffalo, but as stated earlier, it's Buffalo. 

 

This has been the QB situation in Buffalo:

-Flutie/Johnson

-Bledsoe

-Bledsoe/Losman

-Losman

-Losman/Edwards

-Edwards

 

Buffalo fans are tired of rotating QBs, they’re tired of QB controversies, and they’re tired of being sold a QB as a savior. They’ll see through Favre as another savior, and they already back Trent Edwards as the leader of the young core. 

 

 

4. Finances

 

Edwards as the starter saves the Bills mucho dinero, and will for a long time. He isn’t the starter just because they think he is better than Losman. He is the starter for contract reasons as well. Ralph Wilson is a cheap-expletive. 

 

Bringing in Favre quickly adds $12 million to the books that the Bills don’t want.  It reduces a $78 million Toronto payday down to $66 million pretty quickly. It hurts with negotiations for young, key players Jason Peters and Lee Evans. 

 

The Bills have sold the most season tickets in years and all games are a lock to sell out. Does the merchandise sales of Favre memorabilia add enough to offset his enormous salary from what is set to be the most profitable year in Bills history?

 

 

5. Weather

 

Favre isn’t leaving Green Bay to play in Green Bay lite. Lambeau might be colder, but I’ll be surprised if Ralph Wilson Stadium isn’t the windiest stadium in the league. Yes, Favre has a cannon, but every QB ever, from Kelly to Marino to the Mannings to Favre himself, has been humbled by those winds. 

 

Does the most intercepted QB in league history really want his swan song to be at wind central station?

 

 

6. The Patriots (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the AFC).

 

By now I hope we have seen common themes in the article—Favre coming back should be looking for a good fit for himself, wanting to leave a legacy and win a Super Bowl. 

 

The Patriots own the AFC East, which happens to be the Bills' division as well. I’m serious. I’m pretty sure Bob Kraft has licensing and trademarks on “The AFC East, brought to you by the New England Patriots.”

 

Add in how strong the Colts, Chargers, Jags, and Steelers are, then the Browns, who surprised last season, and the fact that there are always one or two surprise teams (Ravens? Jets? Raiders? Broncos?), and where do the Bills, built around a core of young draft picks and young free agents, fit? 

 

If Favre is smart, and there is no conclusive evidence that outside of the football world he is, he should stay in the NFC. 

 

 

There they are. Six reasons. Hopefully that was more fun for most than reading the calculation for pi.