I have ESPN on in the background right now since I am working from home today to take care of the pooch. Highlights were just shown of Brett Favre working out with a high school team yesterday. After showing Favre toss the ball around a few times, they interviewed him and he explained that he felt okay, but that (to paraphrase) “okay is not good enough in the National Football League.”
Favre then proceeded to drop the following nugget of brilliance on viewers everywhere: “There’s time, but there’s not time, if that makes sense.”
Should I really answer whether that makes sense?
Obviously I could be a douche and point out the obvious contradiction of his words, but I’d rather do that for a statement that Favre made later, one that makes even less sense.
As to the time element, Favre is right. There is time before the season starts for him to get his arm strength back, but the Vikings need a decision soon. And as Favre said, just like he’s said for the last two (three? four?) offseasons, “I don’t know if I’m going to play or not.”
Great. Would it kill you to make up your mind before the speculation about you playing drags on for months? I suppose since he’s a former NFL MVP and the all-time leader in every QB stat imaginable, and I’m just a clown with a computer, Favre can do whatever the hell he wants and my judgments mean about as much as what Brad Childress instructs his punters to do on Sundays.
But he saved his most…humorous? ironic? ridiculous? nonsensical?…comment for the end of the brief on-field interview, and I have highlighted it below:
“When I’m done and I’m done, and you can’t go back.”
We will now pause for a seconds while it sinks in that Brett Favre said that.
Over the last half decade, if there is one thing we have learned it is this: Brett Favre is never done and the possibility will always exist now and seemingly until the end of time that he could go back.
Obviously he’s not going to be playing into his 50s, but do you really think that if he’s not on the Vikings roster on Opening Day, and their QBs struggle this season like they always do, that the rumor mill won’t continue to churn about a possible midseason gallop-in-on-the-white-horse by Favre? I’m sorry, maybe for a lot of players the “when I’m done I’m done” quote is apt, but history has clearly shown us that it is not for Favre.
And for the record, I like Favre and want him to come back. Sure the endless coverage about his comebacks get a little bit old, but I still find something compelling in the overall story. Certainly, watching Favre and Adrian Peterson in the same backfield would be exciting. If I didn’t feel like Favre just craved the offseason attention as much as he really is undecided, I wouldn’t feel the need to comment about quotes like the one mentioned above.
But at the end of the day I still think the NFL is more exciting with Brett Favre, and no amount of irony will make me want to not see him on the field in 2009. As to the actual possibility of seeing Favre play in 2009, Vikings owner Zygi Wilf recently said that the decision is Favre’s and that the legendary QB controls his own destiny. According to AP reports on ESPN.com:
Wilf told a group of very interested season ticket holders that the possibility of Favre playing for the Vikings next season hinges on Favre’s surgically repaired right arm.
“Right now, it’s all up to Brett Favre in terms of where his future is at,” Wilf told about 1,200 fans gathered at the State Theatre for a “State of the Vikings” event. “I’ll just leave it at that.”
The comments echoed Favre’s statement in an interview with HBO two days earlier. Favre said then that he is considering a return if his throwing arm will allow it and that the Vikings are the only team has has spoken to about a comeback.
This guy must be absolutely thrilled.
As fans, all that we can do is sit and wait and have the remote control ready when today’s Favre story comes on, because it either won’t be true (or at least disputed) or will be filled with information we already know — like this morning’s “latest.” The reality is that Favre will either be on the Vikings come the preseason or he won’t; either way, speculation about his future won’t stop.
Because despite his own quote, Brett Favre can always go back.
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* – Brett Favre photo above by Cory Hollenhorst found at The Purple Trojan blog at MVN.com
For that reason, I blame Chilly far more than I blame Brett. Favre is a QB, not a blocker. Â And I realize the Vikings want to incorporate some Wildcat this year with the dynamic Percy Harvin on the roster, but why not do it with Brett Favre on the sideline? Or, at worst, tell him to run out wide and then stay as far the hell away from any defenders as possible.
