So we can get on with our lives now. ESPN has quit beaming aerial surveillance of Brett Favre’s travels into our homes. The stakeout has ended.
Attention-starved Favre is back with Vikings. He returned after teammates flew to Mississippi and begged him to play another year.
This can’t make Minnesota quarterbacks Sage Rosenfels or Tarvaris Jackson feel good, but they are just bit-part actors in the Favre melodrama.
Here is how some of our favorite sports pundits responded to the news:
Ray Ratto, CBSSports.com: “Please let it be that Jared Allen, Steve Hutchinson and Ryan Longwell went to Hattiesburg, Miss., grabbed their reluctantly prodigal teammate Brett Favre off his tractor while it was still running, threw him in the trunk of their rental car and hauled him to the airport. Please let it be that Allen, himself an avid hunter, threatened to put a couple of pounds of buckshot into Favre's recalcitrant behind if he didn't make up his mind. Or that Longwell offered to kick him into submission. Or that Hutchinson just grabbed him and fireman-carried him, kicking and screaming, to the car. Please let there be just some level of humiliation for the man who forever melded the words ‘drama’ and ‘queen’ into the vernacular of the already terminology-riddled NFL. It's the least they could do for a nation that long ago wearied of Favre's offseasons, no matter what they might have thought of his seasons. We deserve at least this.”
Jay Mariotti, FanHouse: “To call him a drama queen is to underplay the infuriating, suffocating absurdity of it all. In truth, Brett Favre is a freak show, a pampered, self-centered, 40-year-old child who at least is acknowledging that the sports public is universally disgusted by his annual play-or-retire tease. He used to be cool and unassuming, a country boy who showed up for camp without fuss and spent every season aw-shucking his way to more tales for his folk legend. Now? It's as if he just discovered the new media down yonder in Mississippi and wants to squeeze every agitated sigh out of our tweets, chat rooms, comments sections and talk-radio audiences.”
Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports: “At long last, Brett Favre is back on the practice field, meaning it is once again safe to come outside in the great state of Minnesota. Purple-faced Minnesota Vikings fans can exhale, Brad Childress can stop pulling out what’s left of his hair, and Ryan Longwell can auction off his black BMW SUV to help feed the homeless – or, better yet, to help his groveling employers pay for the non-materialistic quarterback’s reported contract adjustment. In other words, despite recent insinuations from the Favre News Network to the contrary that some of us reflexively disregarded – ahem, ahem – it’s all good at Winter Park. Unless, of course, it isn’t. For as good as Favre was in his 19th NFL season, and as close as he came to leading the Vikes to their first championship, Part Deux has the potential to be a colossal failure that could send this proud franchise into disarray.”
Michael Rosenberg, SI.com: “Well, that was a heck of a day, even by Brett Favre standards. First he mixed things up by practicing before he came back to football. Then he pre-emptively retired again! Yes, Favre said this will be his last year in the NFL. Come on -- the man couldn't decide about this season until the third week in August. Are we really supposed to believe he has made a decision about 2011?”
MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE
Questions to ponder while John Mozeliak searches for a third baseman:
Are the Brewers hitting rock bottom this season with their promotional nights? Why is that team honoring a Yankees star?
What could possibly be more fun than a seat-throwing fight at a Russian soccer match?
Shouldn't NFL players do a better job of planning out their personal lives? Isn't it sad that some of these guys struggle to keep track of their family life?
Will the Red Sox manage to scrounge up another outfielder?
Is Denzel Washington really a sensible choice to star in "The Kurt Warner Story" on the big screen?
What's worse than having a Cowboys fan in your neighborhood?
DAN GILBERT, JILTED AT THE PROM
ESPN.com columnist Patrick Hruby had this take on LeBron’s emotional distress:
“It's official: LeBron James is the luckiest man on the planet. Not because he's rich, or because he works and plays on South Beach, or even because he can talk about himself in the third person without being instantly and irrevocably pegged as having a Rickey Henderson-ian ego. No, James is lucky for one simple reason: He clearly has never been dumped.
“In an interview with GQ magazine, James said he didn't think Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert ‘ever cared about LeBron.’ The evidence? Gilbert's now-infamous missive, released to the world just hours after James jilted the Cavaliers for the Miami Heat, a Comic Sans mini-emo masterpiece in which Gilbert takes James to task for:
- “Being his ‘former hero.’
- “Carrying out a ‘cowardly betrayal.’
- “Being ‘self-promotional’ and ‘narcissistic.’
- “Taking a ‘curse’ to Miami.
“Um, LeBron? Gilbert cared too little? Nuh-uh. More like cared too much. Hello! Gilbert's letter was a classic post-breakup move, the equivalent of bad teenage poetry, seven-stages-of-grief phone messages, wildly making out with the first girl you see right in front of your ex. Heck, the original draft likely was stained with tears and gin, composed to Gloria Gaynor on repeat.”
MEGAPHONE
“I'm a good person. Just because somebody cusses or whatever doesn't make them a bad person. Just because a guy doesn't cuss doesn't make him a good person. So, I'll stand by my merits.”
Profanity-prone Jets coach Rex Ryan.
