Say it ain’t so!

By Tony Petersen | October 4, 2009

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This Monday on ESPN’s Monday Night Football, the Green Bay Packers travel to Minneapolis to play their hated rival, the Minnesota Vikings. This game will be different, however, because of the fact that Brett Favre, longtime Packers quarterback, is now leading the purple and gold Vikings. Naturally this has piqued some interest. ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons put it this way: “This is really a sporting event unlike any other. I can’t stop thinking about Packers fans; if Larry Bird had ever played against the Celtics, I would have wandered the streets of Boston for weeks and probably ended up trying heroin.”

Well, I may not end up trying heroin by the end of the night, but I am indeed a Packers fan.

Just so we’re clear, Favre was always my favorite Packer (wasn’t he everyone’s?). His poster is on my wall, I have his bobble head, two number four jerseys (one of which I bought for like five bucks because Favre was spelled “Farve” on the back), and his rookie card. I have the book he wrote after the 2003 season as well as the tribute book Sports Illustrated put together on him.

Hell, how could you not love the guy? He was the ultimate gunslinger, the guy who wasn’t perfect except you loved him for that very reason. I will never forget attending the Oakland Raider vs. Green Bay Packer game on December 22, 2003, the day after his dad died, and him throwing for 399 yards and four touchdowns. That pretty much cemented my sports love for the quarterback.

I even defended him last year, after his first retirement. The Packers front office is stupid, I argued. I didn’t understand why they didn’t take him back. Who cares if it’s a little late for him to be coming back, it’s Brett Favre for crissakes! He’s a three-time MVP, a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer, a legend in Green Bay, and, simply, a better quarterback than Aaron Rodgers. But they shipped him out of town to New York, and with the same exact team and a different quarterback, we went from 13-3 to 6-10.

I was ready to put this whole thing to rest. He’ll retire, we can retire his number, name a street after him, and everything will be put behind us. As we all know, things didn’t quite work out that way.

And now it’s the equivalent of seeing an ex-girlfriend with her new boyfriend. Maybe you loved this girl, maybe you didn’t, but things just didn’t work out. You want her to be happy, but you do not, under any circumstances, want her boyfriend to be better looking than you. And right now, the Vikings are better looking than the Packers. And then when that happens, it makes you wonder if Favre (the ex-girlfriend—yes, I’m still on this analogy) wasn’t pulling a David Letterman the whole time.

Let’s just say that I’ll be watching Monday night’s game with some trepidation and angst. I don’t know what my first reaction will be when I see Brett Favre playing against the Packers. Will I be mad? Sad? Indifferent? I don’t know. I’m confused. All I know is that I’ll be tuning in along with the other millions of people who will be. Kleenex in hand.

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Comments

2 Responses to “Say it ain’t so!”

    Steve Fox:
    October 6th, 2009 1:08 am

    Favre pulled it out. If it is like last year he will get hurt in the final game and the Vikings will go into the playoffs without him. He still has a good arm.

    Luri:
    October 6th, 2009 6:04 pm

    Favre, THE ONLY QB ever to play against and beat all 32 NFL teams. AND at almost 40 years of age, it’s all good baby!