Legend Lost

Put your arms down Brett - You have nothing to celebrate

I'm an absolutely gigantic fan of football. I have been pretty much all of my life even though I've never played it as an organized sport at any point in my life (although I would have made an absolutely killer linebacker or tight end). Growing up and even today my favorite team is the New England Patriots, but I have a lot of love for all of the greats.

I was a big Barry Sanders fan, I respected the hell out of all of the Niners greats like Joe Montana (best football name ever), Steve Young, and Jerry Rice, and was amused by the hijinks of ridiculous stars like Deion Sanders and Michael Irvin. The one star that honestly shined above them all from the 90's and today has to be Brett Favre though. For the past 15 plus years, Favre has been Mr. Football in what many consider the heart of all football: Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In recent weeks though, both Favre and his fabled team have lost a bit of luster. After his best (and their best) season in a few years, Favre retired not on top but with every bit of his legend intact and proved that he could make good players great once and for all. When he won his championship, he did it with a great lineup featuring talents like Reggie White, Antonio Freeman, and the Devin Hester of yesteryear, Desmond Howard.

This past year, he showed everyone that with him at the helm you could dominate with an undrafted free agent at running back, question marks at receiver, and a mostly young (but extremely talented) defense. He was the glue like he always was, except he willed them to be better than they should have been. So like I said, he didn't retire on top but he added a new chapter to his gleaming legacy.

Now it's like he's adding a nightmarish epilogue that no one wanted to see. This is like the Wizards years for Michael Jordan, where everything isn't as good as it was before, it all gets ugly, and no one comes out unscathed. You have Favre wanting to unretire, the Packers wanting to move on with Aaron Rodgers after months of thinking Favre was out of the picture, you have the Vikings drooling over the concept of starting Favre instead of Tavaris Jackson, and you have a slew of football fans wondering "what happened to our hero?"

How could Mr. Football want to leave his home and play for another team? How could he unretire and throw his entire legacy and former/current team into complete and utter turmoil? These are the questions that I ponder as I try to wrap my head around the concept.

Everyone has an opinion on this subject, but I think Favre should just stay retired. It's looking like he's now going to battle Rodgers for the starting spot at the QB position for the Packers, and anyone who thinks he won't get it is lying to themselves. What does this mean for the Packers? It means they get another year, maybe two with Brett, their living legend and the king of Green Bay, with very little chance to make it out of the NFC let alone to defeat the monsters of the AFC.

So another couple years of unrealized dreams for what likely will end up being the destruction of the psyche of another talented young QB in Rodgers, a player who could grow up with their young and very talented nucleus and lead them to Super Bowls in years coming.

In my opinion, Favre coming back is one of the more selfish moves in recent sports history, and that's with clowns like Chad Johnson and Terrell Owens parading themselves around the NFL. In a present state of the NFL that features holdouts and outrageous behavior, it's the favorite son who just wanted to keep playing who takes the cake.

And I just don't understand why it had to be that way.