Brett Favre Decides To Hang Up His Wranglers. . . Or Does He?

Brett Favre has finally filed his retirement papers. 

After an astounding 20-year career, the “Old Gunslinger” has decided to hang up his Wranglers.

It includes such prestigious records including all-time passing yardage, all-time touchdown passes, and most times the term “sext” was used when describing anything not involving tweenagers going wild.

Favre’s career will be remembered for many things. 

He’ll be remembered as a strong-armed, passionate football player who seemed ready to suck every drop of enjoyment that he could out of his 302 game career. 

He’ll be remembered for throwing interceptions—a whole bayou boatload of ‘em. 

He’ll be fondly remembered by the media, who seemed to collectively have a bigger crush on Brett Favre than the hordes of soccer moms that tuned in on Sundays, “just to see Brett in those football pants.”

But how will you remember Favre?

A part of me wants to remember Favre from his Super Bowl win—hurling a beautiful, lofting spiral deep to a sprinting Andre Rison on the second play of the game. 

Rison was blasting through the night, running like his house was on fire...hmmm, maybe a different simile would be better there...and Favre’s throw was nearly flawless. 

And that’s what Favre could be, at times: nearly flawless. But he always seemed to be an uncut diamond that the size of your fist.

You knew what was there, how valuable he was, and yet his decisions seemed inherently jagged and as un-smooth as 29 interceptions in a season.

Another part of me wants to remember Favre’s waffling—his flip-flopping like a soon-to-be-burned-in-effigy politician.

He couldn’t decide whether to walk into the sunset after a great year in Green Bay, and he appeared to not even know which way was West this past offseason as he appeared as decisive about his future career as a 14-year-old girl is when she’s prom dress shopping.

Whether Favre discussed his future career with his wife, sexted his options to some unknown mistress who has yet to file suit, or simply spun the Magic 8-Ball in his local Wal-Mart—he eventually decided to come back and give it one more go.

Favre looked every bit his 41 years of age this past season.

From his gray-bearded stubble, to his myriad of injuries, the iron-man of the NFL looked to be rusting over before our very eyes. 

Finally, with a painful and underachieving team gasping for air, Favre’s career came to end. In fits and jerks, like a car running on fumes, Favre’s legacy ground to a halt.

Make no mistake, Brett Favre’s legacy will get him enshrined in Canton. And if nothing else, his career was a tantalizing ride full of loop-the-loops and hairpin turns. 

As Brett Favre trotted off the field for the last time he looked like a grizzled, graying vet, part-football player and part-“Old Man and the Sea.”

Perhaps it’s only fitting that a player who so treasured, his “all or nothing” attitude went down with the ship in his final season.

Unless, of course, Favre was just pump-faking one last time before he goes deep with a come back as the quarterback of my favorite NFL team—the San Francisco 49ers. 

I, for one, hope he files those papers and does as one Michael W. Tyson once said, “Fades into Bolivia.”