Brett Favre Admits to Talking with Detroit Lions, Matt Millen About Packers

In a press conference today, Brett Favre addressed the latest controversy that has put him at the center of the football news cycle: the report by Jay Glazer of FoxSports that Brett Favre gave the Detroit Lions information about the Green Bay Packers leading up to the Packers-Lions game earlier this year.

The picture to the left is not from today’s presser, but you can find it at newyorkjets.com.  I just recently looked at two reports from a couple of pretty popular sports websites. Curiously, the reports paint drastically different pictures of Favre’s remarks.

According to the ESPN.com account, Brett Favre maintained his outright denial that he helped the Detroit Lions. It is a very short blurb and only includes one quote from Favre. As reported on ProFootballTalk.com, this is the first time that ESPN has touched the story — they refused to report anything about it up until now. It appears that they continue to not embrace the fact that Glazer’s original report could be true, based on how they shade the report of Favre’s news conference.  (Update: And, in fact, PFT appears to have thought the same thing about the ESPN.com account.  Upon checking back at PFT after posting this item, we saw this new post lambasting ESPN.com for using just the one quote and not reporting the entire story.)

ProFootballTalk.com, however, issued a much different reaction to the Brett Favre news conference, with much more detail included. While the ESPN.com story only quotes Favre as saying that he didn’t “given them any game-planning” and that he hasn’t been in the offense for over a year, ProFootballTalk.com breaks down some other quotes that they claim probably seemed “innocuous” to Favre as he was saying them — but that seem to contradict his statement to Peter King on Sunday night that the report was “total B.S.” Head on over to ProFootballTalk to read their post for yourself. It is pretty interesting.

So what the hell are we to believe?

We know that Brett Favre did, in fact, talk with Matt Millen and that there were other people in the room. And we know that he discussed football matters. It seems reasonable to believe that he was providing information that could be at least peripherally useful to the Detroit coaching staff as it prepared for the game against the Packers.

So why did ESPN.com fail to acknowledge this in its report? Is there something more to ESPN’s seeming position that Glazer’s original report is false? I am beginning to think that the reporting of the story is starting to become an even bigger and more interesting issue than the actual story itself.

One thing is for sure: the mere fact that Brett Favre discussed whatever information he had regarding the Green Bay Packers with the Detroit Lions would piss me off if I was a Packers fan. I realize that things did not end well with the current Packers regime, but shouldn’t a two-decades-long career that included many more highs than lows compel Brett Favre to take the high road and just not get involved in this mess? Besides, his beef is with management, not with his ex-teammates, or so I would presume. By helping the Detroit Lions out, regardless of how specific or current or useful the information was that he discussed, isn’t he basically taking a knife and figuratively sticking it in the backs’ of his former teammates?

Ryan Russel was right in one of his first posts on Midwest Sports Fans, that Brett Favre has made a habit late in his career of tarnishing his legacy. Even as a non-Packers fan, I was always a fan of Brett Favre and took his side, for the most part, with regard to the way his exit from Green Bay happened this offseason. Now I am just getting sick and tired of the constant coverage of Brett Favre for things that are not related to his actual play on the field. And he is by no means a victim — he brings it upon himself.

Who knows why ESPN.com is taking such a different slant on this story from ProFootballTalk. And Who knows what the full truth is either. All we do know is that Brett Favre has become newsworthy again for off-field, behind-the-scenes antics that are in dispute by the parties and reporters that are involved. For that reason alone I fault him, and I wish that he would either just go away for good or give us all a break and keep his mouth shut off the field.

(And by the way, I just realized that I typed an entire post about Brett Favre without mentioning the name “New York Jets” once. That must make Jets fans real happy. Yeah, the focus of “their” quarterback is definitely in the right place.)

[tags]brett favre, detroit lions, green bay packers, espn, profootballtalk[/tags]

Tags: brett favre, detroit lions, espn, Green Bay Packers, profootballtalk

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