Favre factor on the lines

Las Palmas Sportsbook and Casino (conveniently online and licensed in Costa Rica) has the early odds on the NFL. The Packers are listed at 30-1 to win the Super Bowl. Where would they be if Brett Favre was the quarterback? The over/under for wins is eight. The Jets are 60-1, but the over/under is 8. I gotta believe there's a Favre factor in the line.

The Dallas Cowboys are listed at 7-1 with an over/under 10.5. The only team with shorter odds is the New England Patriots at 3-1, o/u 12. The longest shots of the season are the Miami Dolphins and the Atlanta Falcons at 200-1.

What channel is showing the New York Bretts?

WFRV, of course. Just as Packerama predicted (at the new website), the Green Bay CBS affiliate wants to show as many of the New York Jets' games as possible.

I predict the novelty will wear off and they'll revert to their normal game by the third week.

He's got electric moves, and athletic shoes

Dan Deibert wants us all to sing along.
B-B-Brett is a Jet.

Favre's leavin' on a Jets plane

I had to use that title before Chris Berman stole it. But it is true, sports fans. Number 4 in your playbook, number $12,000,000 in your salary cap, Brett Favre has been traded to the New York J-E-T-S. He follows in the great quarterbacking tradition of Joe Namath and... Joe Namath.

Meanwhile, the Green Bay Packers are stuck with Aaron Rodgers. I wonder if Joe Namath is still available?

Even Eugene Kane is writing about Brett Favre

No, seriously. And there's nothing in Kane's blog post about racism. Instead, give him credit for the quote of the week:

When did Deanna Favre become Yoko Ono?

Peace in our time

Reuters photo

Irresistable force travels to immovable object

Brett Favre is on his way to Green Bay:

ESPN's Ed Werder reported Sunday morning that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has reinstated Favre.

Werder reports that Favre and his wife, Deanna, are headed to Green Bay, where Favre will show up to training camp Monday morning. He is expected to land in Green Bay by 5:30 p.m. and expected to report to training camp by 1 p.m. Monday.

It seems that destiny has taken a hand.

Running the nice team

Dr. Bear points out the folly of building and running a football team by making all the right P.R. moves.

And I don't think it's a good idea for a football team to make moves based on what the fans will think. That way lies madness, elderly quarterbacks and the Green Bay Packers from 1968-1992. Cliff, you covered most of those teams, back when Bart Starr was drafting for character, not talent, and the Packers hung onto Starr for PR, rather than football success. (Do you think Dan Devine would have been given as many years as Starr was?) Follow that with another "alumni" coach in Forrest Gregg, and you can see how "PR" worked as a system for putting together a team.

I think the Favre situation could get uglier just because it's in Favre's $12 million interest to get uglier. And while I think Green Bay is nuts to trade Favre, it's in the in the best interests of the Packer organization to actually get something for him. That means it's in the interests of the team, too, for the situation to get uglier before it gets better.

I'm not there yet. . .

Favre Trade Rumors

Alright, I admit Brett Favre is acting like a doofus. I admit that Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy were paitent with him and made every reasonable effort to let him make up his mind. . . but I don't care. He's Brett Favre. Sure, there will come a day when I reach my limit with Favre's annoying behavior. . but I'm not there yet.

This will solve everything

Ted Thompson finds a team to take Brett Favre.

It must be true. I read it on the internet.

James Wigderson and his critics

Jeff at Five Points offers his permission for me to weigh in on the Favre controversy:

I guess we all chimed in when his team signed TO or Pacman Adam Jones and we all had opinions back in the 90s when Michael Irvin was doing coke in hotel rooms with hookers and assaulting other teammates.

Which is fair because I was offering opinions when Mossy Cade went to jail, James Lofton hung out in hotel stairwells, Brett Favre was getting extra pills from somewhere for his Vicodin addiction, Mark Chmura was with underage girls and booze in a hot tub, Antonio Freeman and his friend had an interesting ride through Green Bay, and the Green Bay Packers drafted a defensive back who finished his college career by shooting at a car full of people. What a bunch of interesting characters, hey? I had plenty of opinions each time.

I realize Jeff probably didn't mean anything by his comment, but some Packer fans need to open their eyes a bit about professional sports and the men that play them. The "G" on the helmet doesn't stand for "good guys."

Revolution number 4

Should the Packers bring Brett Favre back as a starter? Heck yeah. In this week's column for the Waukesha Freeman* I lay out the reasons Brett Favre should be brought back as a starter, not the least of which is that Aaron Rodgers will cost me money.


* Still hot on the rack at your favorite gas station for only 50 cents.

Bring back Favre and party with the Boogie Men

From their website:

Adam and Erick Rolfson of www.bringbackbrettfavre.com will be attending the Boogie Men Wednesday Night Live concert at State Fair Park . They encourage all Green Bay Packer fans to attend the concert as well as participate in a pre-concert rally supporting Brett Favre. This rally is only a lead up to Sunday’s big Tailgate Party at Lambeau Field in Green Bay . Wednesday’s rally starts at 6pm with the Boogie Men concert beginning at 6:30pm.

Supporters should enter through Gate 5 (off 84th Street). Parking cost is $5.00, and the concert is free.

Best man

By now, most of you have read or heard the Green Bay Packers' response to Brett Favre's request for his release.

The Green Bay Packers are aware of the latest developments regarding Brett Favre.

Brett earned and exercised the right to retire on his terms. We wanted him to return and welcomed him back on more than one occasion.

Brett's press conference and subsequent conversations in the following weeks illustrated his commitment to retirement.

The finality of his decision to retire was accepted by the organization. At that point, the Green Bay Packers made the commitment to move forward with our football team.

As a retired player, Brett has the option to apply for reinstatement with Commissioner Goodell. If that were to occur, he would become an active member of the Green Bay Packers. As always, the Packers will do what's right and in the best interest of the team.

As with all Packers greats, Brett's legacy will always be celebrated by our fans and the organization, regardless of any change in his personal intentions.

Brett and Deanna will always be a part of the Packers family.

The lovely Doreen from Waukesha wants to know why the Green Bay Packers don't allow comments at their website. She would like to tell them they are full of... natural field fertilizer.

As a somewhat disinterested observer, I think that a team's management is just insane if it pushes out the door a once-in-a-lifetime quarterback when he can still pitch the ball downfield and isn't hearing imaginary footsteps in the pocket. There's probably 12-16 decent starting quarterbacks in the NFL. There's 32 teams. Somebody in the Packer organization needs to ask the Chicago Bears what it's like to field ten men and a cheerleader on offense. So far what the Packers have seen out of Favre's replacement is that if Aaron Rodgers sneezes he's likely to break a rib. Meanwhile the current job holder takes punches better than Rocky Balboa.

As for Favre's decision to un-retire, it's pretty easy to understand. Nobody in his family wanted him to retire, and he has fifteen million reasons to show up at training camp. Maybe the price of gas for his lawn mower was more than he planned. Whatever the reason, the Packers owe it to their fans to field the best team possible, not just the players Ted Thompson drafted.

The Packers may be ready to retire the number 4 jersey, but the wearer isn't ready yet to turn it in. Meanwhile, there are plenty of teams around the league ready to field number 4 for one or two more seasons. So don't be surprised to see fans at an NFL stadium pro-shop near you buying number 4 jerseys to wear to their team's game.

Given the Packers' statement, how will number 4 look in purple?

This must all end

According to CNN, Senator Hillary Clinton will drop out of the race for president on Friday. Is Chris Mortensen now working for CNN? Because this is beginning to sound a lot like Favre retiring/not retiring.

Just food for thought: Supreme Court Justice Hillary Clinton. (I just gave Rick Esenberg nightmares.)

Blatant Brett Favre bid for blog traffic

Did you see Brett Favre on David Letterman last night?

Update! OnMilwaukee.com has the transcript.

Favre of the faithful

Brett Favre will welcome Pope Benedict XVI to the United States in a taped statement when the Pope appears at Nationals Stadium on Thursday. The Catholic Herald talks to some of the priests that knew Favre in Green Bay. And did you know that Brett Favre was listed as one of the top ten Catholic heroes of the Super Bowl?

Here's an interesting contrast of Favre's life with the more flamboyant and hedonistic Tom Brady:

Deanna Favre's memoir offers a Catholic rebuff to the secular celebrity culture exemplified by Brady and Bündchen. She and Brett were still in college and unmarried when she became pregnant with their first child. Friends pressured her to have an abortion, but she insists that "there was no way I could destroy an innocent life." She told her friends that having premarital sex was "a bad choice, and for every choice there's a consequence." When Brittany was born, Deanna writes, "I knew I'd made the right choice." Certainly this story holds appeal for Catholics and evangelical Protestants alike. Yet in narrating her struggles, Deanna - a self-described "quiet Christian" - never quite manages an evangelical level of effusiveness. Don't Bet Against Me! begins with an unsettling account of its author in a hospital bed, being prepared for breast cancer surgery; beneath its gaudy pink cover, the book brings readers into a world of guilt, responsibility, and suffering bodies.

The Favres' Catholicism became a somber counterpoint both to the joyous hedonism of sports stardom and to the exuberance of the evangelical athlete. When Sports Illustrated asked Brett to recount his favorite football memory, he seemed to channel Walker Percy, or Job: "If I were to make a list, I would include the interceptions, the sacks, the really painful losses. Those times when I've been down, when I've been kicked around, I hold on to those. In a way those are the best times I've ever had, because that's when I've found out who I am. And what I want to be." As it happened, the last pass of Brett Favre's career was an interception late in the conference championship game, a bad choice of throws that cost his team a trip to the Super Bowl. For every choice there's a consequence. Wisconsin's Catholics understand this, and weep. (ht: RomanCatholicBlog.com)

Update! I should add, Favre is the #2 Catholic Super Bowl hero of all time. The #1 Catholic Super Bowl hero is Roger Staubach. I didn't make the ranking. I just agree with it.

The return of the idiots

Yep, it’s that time. Okay, I forgot to post last week’s, which was written but never posted. So by default, that makes me last week’s political idiot of the week.

We have plenty of candidates again this week. Is it Barack Obama’s (now ex) foreign policy advisor Samantha Power who called Senator Clinton “a monster” and then asked the newspaper to put it off the record? D’oh! That’s up there, but not a winner.

Was it the Obama economic policy advisor, Austan Goolsbee, who told the Canadians that the NAFTA rhetoric was just politics and don’t take anything Obama says seriously? No, but it’s a goodie.

Samantha Power becomes the first idiot to earn a re-nomination in the same week with her remarks to the BBC that Obama also doesn’t mean what he says when he claims he’ll pull the troops out of Iraq in 16 months, and that would only happen in “a best case scenario”. However, accidentally telling the truth in an interview does not make you “idiot of the week”, it just means you could never be a Clinton spokesman.

Of course, Senator Barack “Fear Bomb” Obama earns a nomination just for having these idiots on his campaign team and taking their advice seriously. But even the “Fear Bomb of Hope” himself does not make the number one slot.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was running away with idiot of the week when he complained about custom paint jobs on guns from an obscure dealer nowhere near his violent city, worrying that “Hello Kitty” Glocks might encourage sixteen-year-olds to try armed carjacking. While having Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer hunting rifle may seem a little silly, I don’t think there’s a demonstrated demand for pink Saturday Night Specials among the members of the Latin Kings. I can’t imagine a member of the "3rd Street Posse" deciding he can’t pull a drive-by assassination because he’s still waiting on his Yosemite Sam AK-47. The Milwaukee Mayor was running away with the prize this week until…

Republicans held a press conference this week to protest the lack of action by the State Senate on the proposed constitutional amendment to require a photo id when voting. While all of the Democrats look like idiots after the Milwaukee Police leaked a report detailing the amount of voter fraud the flatfoots were able to find in Milwaukee, two Democrats stand out for their idiocy. State Senator Spencer Coggs and State Senator Russ Decker actually confronted the Republicans holding the press conference, ensuring coverage of the issue despite the entire state’s attention focused on the retirement of Brett Favre. For that remarkable display of idiocy, Coggs and Decker win the prize as the Idiot Politicians Of the Week for the week ending March 8th.

(Send your nomination for the "Idiot Politician of the Week" to Jamesmdw@yahoo.com. The idiots will be identified every Sunday for the previous week.)

Favre's retirement means...

Governor Jim Doyle could announce he's secretly a polygamous space alien who only became governor because the voices in his head told him to run and nobody would notice.

Now starting for the Green Bay Packers...

Aaron Rodgers?

WTMJ-AM's Charlie Sykes is talking about it right now.

I know there's going to be a lot of wailing and screaming in Packerland today, but if anything Brett Favre was under-appreciated. Beyond the stats and raw talent, there is a special "x" factor that so few quarterbacks have. Ask the Chicago Bears. You can't draft for it. You can't trade for it. But when a team finds that special quarterback, he's an extremely rare and wonderful player to have.

Update! Packerama reports nobody has been sighted yet looking to jump off the Leo Frigo Bridge. Meanwhile, ESPN's Chris Mortensen might have an explanation which sounds more like throwing a tantrum than coming to the end of the road.

Mortensen reported that Favre, who wanted the Packers to obtain Randy Moss when he was a free agent last season, had once again pushed for Moss to join the Packers. Favre had spoken to Moss late last week and was willing to commit to more than just this season if Moss and the Packers could come to an agreement. But the Packers did not pursue Moss, who re-signed with the Patriots on Monday.

It is Chris Mortensen, so take it with a grain of salt.

Update 2! Brett Favre's brother confirms that Brett will retire. Scott Favre also announced that he will be the Libertarian candidate for quarterback.

Update 3! It's official. ESPN's Chris Mortensen changes his story again. Packerama quotes from the Press-Gazette:

Mortensen said Favre told him his decision to retire was based on the “mental wear and tear” of another NFL season, and that he couldn’t commit to it again. He said Favre was “mentally worn down” from the intense game preparation demanded during the course of an NFL season.

According to Mortensen, Favre also said he and his wife, Deanna, agreed that “anything short of winning a Super Bowl would be a disappointment” and not worth the time.Favre said his relationship with McCarthy and Thompson was good, and played no role in his retirement decision, Mortensen reported. “It’s more about the mental wear and tear,” Mortensen said.

Update 4! I just heard someone tell Jeff Wagner on WTMJ-AM that Favre retiring is like the day Elvis died. I think a little Prozac may be in order. Speaking of perspective, Brats & Beer has a blog rundown of reactions to Favre's retirement. Meanwhile, I think there's an election in Texas and Ohio today.