Some of you may know that I follow football.  Ok, by “follow,” it’s closer to the truth to say that I read almost as much as I can about football, can’t wait for the season to start, and that my particular team has not been to the Super Bowl in about 10 years (which is more recently than MM’s team, but his team still has the single largest margin of victory in a Super Bowl over my team, so that’s something).  Some of you have asked my opinion on the Favre Fiasco (“FF”).  Here it is.

When the first rumors started about him coming out of retirement and the whole “I felt pressured to retire” my reaction was that he should stay retired.  The man is 38 years old, has spent his life under pressure, the last five years of it under pressure to retire (seriously, does anyone remember the last time there wasn’t a “Is this Favre’s last year?” retrospective at the end of the season?).  As a 38-year old football player, I’m not buying “the management pressured me to retire” argument.  I think the management may have pressured him to make a freakin’ decision before June to avoid the circus of last year.  That seems to have backfired.  Favre made his decision because he was tired, old and wanted some time to himself.  But he made a decision and needs to own responsibility for his actions and decisions.  Isn’t that what we teach our kids?

In any event, once it became clear Favre would be reinstated, there was no way he was going to play for the Packers again.  There was also no way the Packers were going to release him and let him sign with the Vikings, Bears or Lions.  The quickest way out of the situation was to find someone to take him NOW.  That seems to be the case.  Chad Pennington is looking for a new place to land, I’m sure.

All of this said, I loved the double meaning of the headline on nfl.com: “New Jersey for Favre.”  Even journalists occasionally get creative.  (For non-football people: the New York Jets actually play in New Jersey, creating the second (or first) meaning.)