Happy Fourth Annual Brent Favre Retires Day

Posted by Jayme Joers on January 18, 2011   Jump To Comments

The Annual Brent Favre Retires Day is in some ways like Easter, it always falls on a different day each year, but it always happens.  But unlike Easter, each previous year it has been shortly followed by a soul crushing “Just Kidding” Annual Brent Favre Un-retires Day.

But this year “feels” different.  There was no crying man on my television.  Ed Werder or Chris Mortensen weren’t staring me in the face reading text messages.  It was quiet.  Perhaps, in fact, the way a person actually should retire.  You think about it, discuss it, and then file the papers.  If people have questions after that, then you talk.  Could it be, is it possible, that Brent Favre is finally doing the right thing?

In my last piece, I pleaded with Favre to fade away, and it is quite possible that he might actually be.

The timing of his non-announcement, Ted Thompson’s birthday, the day that the Packers start to prepare for the Bears in the NFC Championship, could be suspect.  He eventually did touch base with his bff, Werder, to let people know that he now is believing that the Packers can win it all this year.  And, woah, the receiving corps could be the best ever? (side note: he really likes to throw around the phrase best ever, doesn’t he?)  I could sit here and say, look at #4, he can’t stand to be out of the spotlight at all.  He needs to remind all of us football and Packers fans that he still exists and his opinion matters.

But at this point, I’m beyond that.  And part of me thinks he is too.  If he really wanted to be a distraction, he would have.  At the same point I do also view his “reaching out” to the Packers as half an attempt to rebuild his image and half an attempt to stay in the conversation.  More than anyone, he must know that if Rodgers and the Packers win the Super Bowl this year, his light will dim even more so.

So here were are, as the Packers prepare for their 2nd NFC Championship appearance in 4 years, with one quarterback on the rise to potential greatness and a former one on the decline.  It’s been talked about on twitter for some time now, what would it take for the healing to begin, for the Packers, organization and fans, to re-embrace Favre, to bury this whole thing?  Is it him routing for his former team?  Is it him possibly retiring early in the off season and fading away?  What else would it take?

For me, I’m not quite sure.  But I’m sitting here and listening to Colin Cowherd describe Packers fans as people with low self-esteem who still spend more time hating a former player than supporting their current team.  While I find this statement to be incredibly outrageous, as I think most of us have moved on from hatred/dislike to overall ambivalence, it does bring up the question: when will the hatchet forever be buried?  A friend on twitter jokingly stated that forgiveness will be granted when Favre shows up at mid-field, gets on one knee and kisses Rodgers’ Super Bowl ring.  While said in jest, will it take a grand gesture like that?  Or are the small steps of simply saying “go pack go” to Ed Werder enough?

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on Favre forgiveness, email me at Jayme@brentfavre.com or find me on twitter @jaymelee1.  Also make sure to listen to me rant on CheeseheadRadio on Thursday nights and at the Packers Lounge.