It's Come to This: a Brett Favre Post

Brett Favre might retire, again, for realsies this time, as was first reported this morning by Adam Shefter. (Who, by the way, direct messaged me on Twitter last night! I replied to a tweet he made, and then he responded in direct message form, which I have set to get sent to my phone, so it was practically like Adam Shefter texted me! I was super excited about it last night but didn't know how I should brag. If I had tweeted "OMG @Adam_Shefter DMed me!" he might have seen it and been like, "Nerd!" If I'd put up a status update on Facebook, almost all of my friends would have been like, "Who the crap is Adam Shefter? What a nerd!" And if I'd just gone into the other room to tell my husband, he would have been all, "OK, but why did you wake me up? I've got to work in the morning." And he probably wouldn't have called me a nerd, but it might be implied.)

Do I believe Favre is actually going to pull the trigger this time? No. Does anyone?

It's possible that his ankle really is bad and he really doesn't think he can play another season. It is, however, far more possible that he cannot stand that nobody's been reporting on him all off season and that this is yet another narcissistic ploy to get attention. It's totally working, too. Sports Illustrated is running all this stuff about his greatest games and his amazing stats (my favorite: all time high interceptions), ESPN is (apparently, I don't have cable) doing All-Favre Coverage, and hey, even I am writing this Brett Favre post.

Another factor is the "it's just a ploy" theory: we already know the guy really hates training camp. Maybe this season he doesn't want to do pre-season games either. That's why I'm not buying that he's done until and unless I see somebody else start for the Vikings against the Saints on September 9th. (Some people think that he might stage a "heroic" mid-season comeback if things look favorable in November or so, but I don't think there's any way he's giving up the iron man streak until he's done for good.)

Now, if he does finally go ahead and quit, Vikings fans should be quite unhappy that ol' Brett didn't figure this out at the beginning of the off season, when there were numerous decent-to-middling quarterbacks available. But if Favre ditches them now, they're stuck with Tarvaris & Sage. Which, incidentally, sounds like a cocktail my cocktail-inventing friend would invent. I'm no mixologist, but obviously, it would be purple and have a sage leaf stuck in it; ideally, it would be served in some sort of drinking horn; and as for taste, I'd go with bitter, bitter defeat.

In conclusion: I think he'll play this season. He won't show up in Minnesota until mid-August (likely after the Vikings have upped his salary a bit). My mind might change a little bit if he gives a press conference instead of just texting teammates and encouraging rumors to swirl, but it's not like he hasn't given retirement press conferences before. I feel a little bad for the Vikings for having to deal with the uncertainty, but on the other hand, that's what they get for signing him in the first place.