Hey Brewer

Word out of Green Bay is that Brett Favre has officially announced he’ll be retiring.

“I know I can still play, but it’s like I told my wife, I’m just tired mentally. I’m just tired,”

Now we get to hear every sportscaster in America tell us about how great Favre was. We will be regaled with stories of his “aw shucks” upbringing and persona, his “gutsy” performances during his time at Southern Miss and of course his warrior like play on the gridiron.

Frankly, I could do without it. Don’t get me wrong, I think Favre is a good quarterback, he did some good things for football and he definitely resurrected a forgotten franchise in Green Bay. But today these are some of the headlines I’m reading on my usual daily sports haunts:

• Is Favre the best, or among them?
• Rank Favre
• Vote: How will he be remembered?

These stories are all flanked by pictures of a grizzly bearded Favre standing on the sideline wearing a beanie and a big smile. We have to remember how much fun he was having on the field, he was a gunslinger and a risk taker and when the game was done, whether he won or lost you know he left it all on the field. This is the kind of crap that the sports media is going to be feeding us for the next few weeks. Then when the NFL season starts up again we’ll have to see tribute videos, signs and posters from the Lambeau crowd, live feeds of Favre in the crowd, Favre at the state fair the night before, etc. Aaron Rodgers could put up Manning/Brady numbers next year and people will still be talking about how much they miss Brett.

Here’s the thing though, at this point anyone not named “die hard Packer fan” can see that now is the time for Favre to retire. Blinded by his “rejuvenation” last year, fans apparently forgot about the two miserable seasons that Favre had in ‘05 and ‘06. QB ratings in the low 70s, TD/INT stats of 20/29 and 18/18, fans won’t brig it up now but let’s not forget that Favre had essentially retired after both of those years and came back at the last minute. Hopefully this time it’s a real retirement and not one of these new trendy semi-retirements.

A lot of people said he would not retire, there was no way he was ending his career with an INT as his last pass. I was not one of those people, I don’t think there could have been a more appropriate finish to his career. After all, he is the all time NFL leader in INTs, and truly his “guts” and “risk taking” were nothing more than bad decisions and overconfidence. Like I said before, I think he’s a good quarterback, but I don’t think he deserves to be placed on this pedestal of greatness. Off the top of my head, I can think of 5 quarterbacks I would take over him in a heartbeat:

1. Joe Montana
2. Dan Marino (even without a ring)
3. Steve Young
4. Peyton Manning
5. Tom Brady

I don’t think you’d find too many GMs who given the choice of having any QB in their prime, wouldn’t take any 5 of those guys before Brett. People talk about Favre like he is this elite QB who lived in the Super Bowl, but he was only there twice and only won it once. Furthermore, both appearances were early on in his career in 1996 and 1997, when his arm strength and athleticism could still hide the fact that he was a terrible decision maker.

So Brett, congrats on a great career and I hope that this retirement is the real deal. We don’t want to hear about you changing your mind in 2 days, or calling a press conference the week before preseason to announce that the fire is still there. Stay retired, hand the team over to Aaron Rodgers and continue living as a Wisconsin icon.