What the Favre is he thinking? Pt. 1

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Let us inaugurate this here Green Bay Packers blog by considering the most famous Packer alive, who is in fact an ex-Packer, but who will always be a Packer, even if he ends up a Viking. Friends, I’m talking about Brett Lorenzo Favre.

A brief recap: He retired. He un-retired. He re-retired. He thought about un-retiring again, but he needed surgery first. He decided against the surgery. He got the surgery. Which brings us to the current state of affairs: He might play this year, or he might not.

Plus ça change.

To the casual observer, all this back-and-forthing might look like ambivalence. It’s not. Favre has wanted the same things all along. He wants another Super Bowl ring to erase the perception of the latter half of his career as a plodding pursuit of records, punctuated by the occasional playoff meltdown. He wants to spend his off-seasons playing golf and uprooting tree stumps, not lifting weights and learning the names of guys who probably won’t even make the roster. He wants to play, but not for just anyone. He wants to play for an organization that shares his own self-appraised sense of worth.

How can a would-be coach or GM demonstrate that he groks Favre’s specialness? For starters, by mortgaging any future prospects in favor of assembling a win-now lineup, as Ted Thompson was never willing to do. By publicly humiliating the QBs you already have, signaling your willingness to throw them over at a moments notice should a FUTURE HALL OF FAMER become available. By excusing said FUTURE HALL OF FAMER from all those pesky minicamps and OTAs and what have you, and not making too big a deal of his physical conditioning, of course. But, above all, by planting one’s knees firmly in the turf and begging him to play.

Yes, like a needy lover, Favre doesn’t want what he wants so much as he wants to be wanted. You’re hearing a lot of talk these days about how Favre’s comeback fantasies are all about revenge. Revenge for what? you might reasonably ask. Thompson and Mike McCarthy, after all, made it clear that Favre was welcome to stick around and play as long as he wanted. They might as well have signed an open letter in the Press-Gazette calling him washed-up. You don’t humor a legend. You don’t tolerate his presence. You don’t expect him to mentor his successor, and you certainly don’t get on his case about interceptions. (Eggs and omelets, people!)

No. You court a legend. You romance him. You make whatever concessions he asks for, not because he deserves them or because they’re a good idea, but because you’re just grateful for any opportunity to signal your appreciation for him.

Clearly, Favre wants to play in Minnesota this year. He would never have consented to surgery if he didn’t. But if Brad Childress, Rick Spielman and Zygi Wilf are serious about getting him there, they’d better swallow any ambivalence they’re feeling and start pitching some industrial-grade woo. Otherwise, they’re liable to find themselves the next entries of Favre’s revenge list.