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| Enough Of The Hating On Brett Favre |
Go ahead. Hate me. One day you'll realize just how good I was.
What is wrong with you people who can’t go a day without trashing Brett Favre?
The disdain and outright jealousy shown a man who already has his slot reserved for a Hall of Fame acceptance speech is not only insulting to an exceptional athlete, but reveals the truly ugly side of our sporting society.
Like it or not, Favre is a legendary player we have the good fortune to watch in action. While having a bit of humor at his expense for all the retirement frivolity, this seeming obsession with mocking him has gone way overboard and spilled into red-face bitter jealousy.
Brett Favre led the Green Bay Packers to the Super Bowl for the first time since footballs were constructed of something other than real pigskin. He was the central factor in the Packers being a dominant NFC team from 1995 to 2002, and it might have been extended were it not for Favre and mates being saddled with a pair of completely ineffective headset wearers in Ray Rhodes and Mike Sherman.
From 2003 to 2006, he did what every football fan called for. Sucked it up, didn’t whine, and kept playing despite a run of misfortune few of those gorging brats in the stands could handle if it was a video game.
His father dies of a stroke, and Favre goes out on a Monday Night and tears the guts out of the Raiders in Oakland. He still doesn’t remember throwing a touchdown pass against the Giants in 2004 after suffering what is casually called a concussion, yet is in effect a bruising of the brain tissue by jagged peaks of bone inside the skull. His brother-in-law dies in an ATV accident on Favre’s property. His wife is diagnosed with breast cancer, thankfully to later whip this insidious disease. His family home is decimated by Hurricane Katrina. He stays three more seasons in Green Bay and STILL gets the Packers to the NFC Championship Game despite team management torching the roster with key free agent defections and injuries trashing important offensive weapons.
And the guy still played the game. Gutted out the internal pain. Injuries that would have turned some other big name players into bed-wetting game day excuses.
Exactly what we demand of our stars.
After all this, once loyal fans and the dirt-digging media throws as many spades of dirt on Favre as they can muster when he hints, talks, wonders, muses, and finally retires. Plenty of other athletes break down before the cameras and we call it an “emotional moment”. Favre does it and radio talk show hosts and producers, most of whom break a monster sweat only carting their Buick sized buttocks out of chairs to snare another free drink or meal on remote broadcast, bring out baby noises, mocking dubbed audio, and sounds of bodily functions to card a cheap laugh or two at his expense. Making sport of a guy who resurrected a dismal franchise. One that before he got there only got their drunken ticket price jollies watching five Head Coaches leave a stench on Lambeau Field from 1968 to 1991.
And the gullible fans fell for it.
Note to Packers GM Ted Thompson. How’s that decision to put Favre in his place by playing foosball with his career to inflate your ego and slap Aaron Rogers at the helm? Two seasons, nine TD passes, 23 fumbles, a 17-15 record and a defense that couldn’t stop opponents with the football athleticism of Rod Blagojevich.
If Brett Favre did pull the retirement card just to make Thompson look like a rube, Packers faithful should be bowing down to him for exposing yet another black hole in the team front office.
Packers faithful, Brett Favre owes you nothing. Zero. He played his heart out for you when he was there and left only because his remaining career was questioned by a GM who hung his reputation on a below average quarterback. A General Mangler who was partly saved only because the defense buckled up in 2008 before being torched in the Arizona playoff sun.
His one season in New York and yet another retirement can be forgiven. The Jets knew Favre was playing with a torn biceps tendon in his right shoulder, yet still allowed him to go down the stretch in 2008 when they should have pulled him. While the team was dumping 4 of their last 5 games, Favre took all the heat, and not all of it deserved. Let’s not kid ourselves. Favre was getting older and the body couldn’t recover like it once could. But the Jets didn’t help with softball-tossing Kellen Clemens as the backup and Eric Mangini starring as the worst Head Coach for Gang Green since Rich Kotite.
Favre didn’t retire from the Jets. He escaped.
Which brings us to the broken down, rapidly aging, gray-haired slinger who was run out of Green Bay by a dysfunctional ownership and slipped out of NY before Mangini’s game plan and personnel decisions made him eligible for prosthetics.
Packers fans rail at Favre for joining the dastardly Vikings, proving once and for all he just wanted to leave Wisconsin in order to exact a twisted revenge against the franchise he left behind.
Favre did find a team with the right makeup and pay check to give him another solid shot at hoisting the Lombardi Trophy, something he would never see in the Thompson mess. But I have no doubt he also will always look back at 2009 and consider October 5th and November 1st as highlights he’ll be watching when he’s pounding bayou caught crawfish, beer in hand and kicking back on the Mississippi porch.
So here we are for another season. Brett Favre (supposedly) has to be talked into playing one more time by a small group of teammates who traveled south and bagged themselves the prize catch they knew was their only chance to contend for a title.
The guy with the word “Most” on his NFL record resume 22 times. The only NFL QB to defeat all 32 teams in his career. Who this season will hit 70,000 passing yards in a career. And the one other teams still fear.
And the worst these jealous sycophants can do is make fun of him for wanting to win. Again. Just like he’s done his entire career.
The haters should be ashamed of themselves. At the very least have stamped on their collective foreheads "Knows Nothing About How to Appreciate Greatness".
I hope Favre gets that chance to hoist another Trophy just one more time to rub it in the faces of those who can’t stand to see one of the future greats succeed.
Pop another cold one, Grandpa. And keep on slinging. Show the haters how a redneck becomes a legend.
