Brett the Jet

Last night was my wife’s last night home before a trip. I had readied myself for the normally amorous encounter such an occasion usually invites. Instead, Crystal asked if Brett Favre was on TV. When I told her he wasn’t, we proceeded to use the wireless laptop to search—from our marital bed—through espn.com, YouTube.com, and finally NFL.com to get the footage of Brett’s press conference.
The NFL only comes on my wife’s radar screen when some NFL celebrity is dating someone my wife follows on PerezHilton.com, People.com, or one of her other gossip sites. So, this soap opera made it not only into consciousness and then conversation; but Crystal even wanted to watch highlights, while sitting on her duvet.
This Brett Favre deal is that big.
In billable hours, I’ve spent hundreds of dollars of extended lunch breaks watching the coverage, especially the press conferences. Fans are used to business in the free agency era. We’re used to fungible heroes and shrinking windows of championship opportunity.
But this took ridiculousness to a new level. While Brett is doing his fitness tests today, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell needs to have the IQ’s of Ted Thompson, Mark Murphy, and Mike McCarthy tested. At the very least, he should have required them to answer media questions while tethered to a polygraph.
I give them credit for delivering their lines with a straight face—for making the answers seem less rehearsed than they had to have been.
You bribed one of the best players in recent and all-time NFL history not to play for you? You spun your ultimatum to make him a backup as his noncommittal attitude? You picked a fragile, green kid—with no substantive backup—to replace one of the most wily, dependable leaders in the history of the sport? You expected to win the PR battle in a blue collar town?
Despite all the years with good reason to choose a team to hate (the Dallas-blowout Super Bowls, the Music City “Miracle,” the Tuck Rule), I’ve almost always chosen the high road of fandom and just rooted for the good competition and my favorite teams. But now, the Packers are the team I’ve chosen to disdain. I hope the trifecta of stuffed shirts gets railroaded out of town the second weekend of January, 2009.
I hope NFL owners learn that, in an age when free agency makes Favre an anomaly, we fans want and need the greats to build dynasties. We need Tony Gwinn to retire a Padre and Cal Ripken, Jr. to finish in an Orioles uniform. It’s the player’s responsibility to prevent a Jordan/Wizards debacle but the team’s responsibility to field a winning team with willing, able, and devoted Hall of Famers. (If the Packers didn’t think him able, the Vikings deal should have been on the table.)
So, even though it saddens me to see Brett play anywhere but Lambeau Field, I asked Crystal for a Favre Jets away jersey for Christmas—not because I plan to follow or root for the Jets, but because I want to be part of the movement, the throng, the statement.