Brett said that this coming season will for sure be his last one. “Twenty years and I’m done,” Favre said during his presser.
I actually think we can believe him this time. This is the first time he’s announced his pending retirement before the season began. I think Favre will officially hang up the cleats after this year.
Brett basically said that he’s coming back because of his teammates. He said there are still problems with his ankle, and after visiting with Dr. James Andrews last week he found out that there is a new bone spur that he’s going to have to deal with. He said at his age it’s probably impossible to be 100%, though.
Brett would like to play Sunday in San Francisco, but coach Brad Childress said he wasn’t sure if that would happen or not.
I would be shocked if Brett DIDN’T play Sunday night.
The Vikings appear to be pulling out all the stops in their quest to convince Brett Favre to play a 20th NFL season. That much became clear as the Vikings began the morning practice on Tuesday at Winter Park without defensive end Jared Allen, offensive guard Steve Hutchinson or kicker Ryan Longwell on the field. All three were at practice Monday and haven’t dealt with injuries of late.
It’s believed the trio was sent to Hattiesburg, Miss., to try to convince Favre to return. Sources confirmed the three were not at meetings earlier this morning either.
The Vikings want Brett Favre to play this year. Can’t blame them for that.
It appears their latest effort to get Favre back in Minnesota is sending three of the guys that Favre got closest to last year to Mississippi to bring the Silver Fox back to Minnesota.
Remember, last year Favre started practicing with the Vikings on August 18th.
Nothing like celebrating that anniversary by showing up at practice again, right?
He also said that money is not an issue with the upcoming year.
Personally, I believe him. I believe that he didn’t tell anyone he was retiring, and I believe that it has nothing to do with money.
I realize this is pure speculation at this point, but if I had to guess what happened, I’d bet that he told a teammate that his ankle was still bothering him, or something along those lines, and the media got ahold of it and ran with it.
At that point it’s like a game of telephone… the first person says that Brett’s ankle is bad. The next person says that because of the ankle, he’s not sure if he can play. By the time it hits ESPN, it becomes “Brett has told Vikings officials that he is retiring”.
Last year, we heard Brett wasn’t playing (that time directly from him) while he and his wife were looking at places to live in Eden Prarie, MN. He obviously showed up to play eventually.
This year we hear that Brett isn’t playing (not from him, though) while we hear that his wife is renewing gym memberships.
The media knows that Brett Favre is a story. It’s true. No matter how many people say they are annoyed with it, they keep coming back for more. Yesterday I had the best traffic that I have had on this site since the end of the season in February, all because I talked about Brett Favre all day. Colin Cowheard (who admittedly annoys the heck out of me most days) commented on his radio show today that yesterday’s numbers were huge yesterday because he talked about Brett Favre all day.
Unfortunately I think the enticing nature of numbers, figures, and ratings get the best of places like ESPN and FoxSports, and they’re so desperate to break big stories that they run with rumors hoping that something big eventually comes from them.
• Jan. 30, 2006:Brett Favre’s personal friend Mike Sherman was fired as Green Bay’s head coach. Brett told reporters that he didn’t know if he wanted to return for his 16th year in the league. His quote was: “If I had to pick right now and make a decision,” he said, “I’d say I’m not coming back.”
• April 25, 2006: Favre says he’s coming back to the Packers.
• Dec. 31, 2006: Favre doesn’t want to say whether or not he’ll come back for the next season. He said “If today’s my last game,” he said, “I want to remember it. It’s tough. It’s tough. I’ll miss these guys, I’ll miss this game.”
• Feb. 2, 2007: Favre commits to coming back for a 17th season against the Packers. “I am so excited about coming back,” he said. “I’m excited about playing for a talented young football team.”
• March 4, 2008: Favre announces his retirement from the Packers. He says that he didn’t have anything left to give
• April 25, 2008: Favre admits to having “second thoughts” and won’t rule out a possible comeback. He tells David Letterman, “I mean it was never a clear-cut decision. I can’t expect people to understand. I think people have all faced decisions at times where you never know.”
• Aug. 7, 2008: Favre formally un-retires and arrives in Green Bay for training camp. The Packers trade Favre to the New York Jets, who make him their starting quarterback.
• Feb. 11, 2009: Favre retires again, saying it is “the real deal” and saying he didn’t want to have surgery on his torn bicep tendon.
• Feb. 13, 2009: Favre tells ESPN “there’s no way” he’ll play in another NFL game.
• April 28, 2009: The Jets grant Favre his unconditional release. Favre says again he is “retired” and has “no intention of returning to football.”
• June 15, 2009: Favre admits that he is interested in playing again in an interview on HBO and says he had surgery to repair his torn biceps tendon in late May. “I know people are tired of it, really,” Favre says. “My intention … isn’t to create controversy.”
• July 28, 2009: Favre tells the Vikings he plans on staying retired. In what he calls the “hardest decision” he ever made, Favre says, “I didn’t feel like physically I could play at a level that was acceptable.”
• Aug. 18, 2009: Favre decides to play and joins the Vikings. He says he wants to “bring a championship to Minnesota.”
Fran Tarkenton made a comment about Favre on Facebook after news started breaking about Brett’s upcoming retirement:
Tarkenton said:
Vikings fans: Farve will play this year.
No inside scoop, just my hunch. Let’s wait and see, shall we?
Interesting coming from the guy who was very critical of Favre last year. Last year I wrote a post talking about Fran’s comments about Brett Favre: Let’s get READY TO RUMBLE! Fran vs Favre
The vast majority of Vikings fans assume Brett Favre is returning to the Minnesota Vikings for the 2010 season. There are some eternal pessimists out there that always assume the absolute worst, and a lot of us writers, both professional and amateur, try to seem impartial by saying things like “if Favre plays” and stuff like that, but most of us expect number 4 to be under center in New Orleans on September 9th.
But what happens if we are all wrong? What happens to the Minnesota Vikings if Brett Favre is not their quarterback in 2010?
Most fans’ first thought would be “there goes the season”.
It is probably my first thought.
But trying to look at the situation more logically, is that the case?
In 2008 the Vikings split their quarterback time between Tarvaris Jackson and Gus Frerotte. The Vikings finished 10-6 that year, even after starting the season 1-3. Their worst loss of the year was a 13 point loss to the Tennessee Titans, who finished that season at 13-3. They beat the Panthers who were 12-4. The beat the Cardinals who were the NFC Champions.
If Brett Favre doesn’t play this year, besides him, the only significant starters that the Vikings would not have from that 2008 season are Darren Sharper and Matt Birk. Every other position would either be the same, or improved (like Loadholt over Ryan Cook). Sidney Rice has improved significantly since that season, and the Vikings did not have Percy Harvin that year.
The big question would be Tarvaris Jackson at quarterback. While it’s very true that none of us really want to see that after getting to watch Favre last year, it’s hard to imaging Tarvaris Jackson got worse after playing behind one of the all-time greats for a season.
The downside to all of this is that the Vikings have a very tough schedule this season. Because of the schedule rotation, the Vikings are stuck playing arguably the two toughest divisions that they could be matched up against in the AFC East (Patriots, Dolphins, Jets, and Bills) and the NFC East (Cowboys, Eagles, Redskins, Giants).
But because of that, the Vikings might not be as good as they were last year even WITH Brett Favre. I’m not taking anything away from last year’s Vikings team, but keep in mind that the did have a schedule that featured the Rams, Seahawks, 49ers, and Browns.
I think the big problem that the Vikings would face without Brett Favre would come in the playoffs. Last year the NFC playoffs featured teams that had great quarterbacks: Brett Favre, Tony Romo, Aaron Rogers, Kurt Warner, Drew Brees, and Donovan McNabb.
Tarvaris Jackson is not in that class of quarterbacks. While I do think that he could get the Vikings to the playoffs, I really have my doubts that he could get them very far.
All in all, I do expect Brett Favre to come back. But if by chance he was wrong, I don’t think that Vikings fans are looking at having to endure a losing season with Tarvaris Jackson under center.
Sometimes the ankle on which he had offseason surgery hurts too much; sometimes it feels like not too bad at all. Sometimes he feels like his mental edge is there; sometimes he thinks he’s too mentally fatigued. Something he feels like a nut; sometimes he doesn’t.
“Hell, you gotta quit sometime,” Favre told scribe Jon Saraceno. “Then again, maybe I will be doing this when I’m 50 years old, who knows?”
Many of you may remember Brett Favre’s Super Bowl Commercial showing him win the MVP award when he’s 50 years old. Now he says that’s a possibility.
Well, he may not have been completely serious, but with Brett you never know.
Brett Favre says he feels like he owes it to the guys to come back.
Then he feels like he’s waiting for someone to make the decision for him.
Um… Brett… if you owe it to the guys, and you want someone to make a decision for you… all of those guys you “owe” it to would decide for you to come back.
A reader named Jack Follman sent me this email the other day, and I found it to be pretty interesting:
I thought that Vikings fans might find this interesting. Despite the fact that SportsNation’s poll found that 69% of more than 4,200 participants were annoyed by the news that Brad Childress visited Brett Favre, co-host Colin Cowherd disagreed. A sarcastic Cowherd joked, “These media guys who complain about Brett Favre, you know, they’re right, let’s instead break down the National League Central, that’s much more fascinating”. “Right or wrong, Favre is interesting and baseball mostly isn’t”.
After I read the email, I thought about it a bit.
Vikings fans (sometimes including myself) complain about all the Favre “drama”, yet when I write about it, or other bloggers write about it, people read it. My traffic slows waaaaaaaaaay down in the offseason, but when I have interesting things to write about Brett Favre, people come back to read it.
If Favre does ANYTHING the could even be slightly viewed as being noteworthy, ESPN is all over it. Think about that for a minute. ESPN is in the television and radio business. That means bottom line, the only thing that matters to them is TV viewers and radio listeners. If people around the country really didn’t care about Brett Favre, ratings would be terrible when they talked about him during ESPN shows. If ratings were terrible, ESPN wouldn’t spend as much time covering it.
Instead, if Brett wears purple underwear one day, ESPN spends the afternoon analyzing whether or not that’s a good sign or a bad sign for the Vikings.
Why? Because people tune in. No matter how tired vocal sports fans say they are about Brett Favre… the majority of people want to know what’s happening with him.
I follow the RSS feed for Vikings articles on BleacherReport.com. Of the 9 most recent articles, 5 of them have the name Brett Favre in them.
One of my favorite Vikings blogs is VikingsGab.com. Adam Warwas from Vikings Gab (who is one of my favorite Vikings writers on the planet) has been openly annoyed with Brett Favre and is not slow to criticize him. But I just looked at his RSS feed as well, and out of the 9 most recent articles from the site, 4 of the titles mention Favre.
For me, I get tired of the Brett Favre drama as much as anyone else… but I fully admit that I go running to any Brett news I can get my hands on. No matter how long he makes the team wait, I want the Vikings to be great this year, and I know their chances to up dramatically with Brett Favre under center. The reason I get tired of it is because the Viking fan in me is just dying to hear the words “I’m coming back”
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