Today is a very sad day in Wisconsin and for Green Bay Packer fans around the world. Today Brett Favre was traded to the New York Jets. It was bad enough that we had to deal with him retiring for the last three years but right when we started to move on to Aaron Rodgers we get news that Brett wanted to come back. Fantastic! Or so we thought. The news then began to go downhill, and quickly. Favre wanted to come back but he wasn’t sure, Green Bay didn’t know what to do so they were moving on, then he was sure but Green Bay didn’t believe him, next it was going to be an open competition, and finally he (according to the Packers) wanted to play but not for Green Bay. Talk about one big mess. Well personally this Packers fan is angry; the problem is I am not sure who to be mad at Brett Favre or the coach and general manager.
Let me start with Favre. So he retired and then changed his mind. Ok I can accept that. From all indications the Packers pretty much said we need an answer now and at that moment he just couldn’t say he wanted to play so he retired. After some thought he decided it was still in him to play again. For whatever reason, the love of the game, the money, just being bored at home, whatever, he decided he wanted to play again. Might he have actually thought about playing somewhere else? I guess that is possible and even somewhat expected, who wouldn’t. Did he think about playing for the New York Jets? That one I would say is a long shot at best. So he comes back and says I want to play but the Packers don’t want me. Really? Coming off one of his better years, leading the team to the NFC title game, and having a great young team to play with and the Packers didn’t want the face of the franchise? I don’t believe it. The Packers are a publicly owned team, the only one in major league sports. Do you really think the majority of the Packers fans and owners didn’t want him back? So what is the deal? Did he really want to play for some other team like the Vikings and was just using all of this to make the Packers look like the bad guys? I would hope not, so that brings us to the coach and general manager.
Coach McCarthy and General Manager Ted Thompson are both relatively new to the Packers. This fan has been pretty unimpressed with the lack of what the General manager has done and the coach, before coming to Green Bay, had a less than stellar record. Brett was here longer than both and I get the feeling that they never really felt like it was their team, rather it was his. I can completely understand how they must have felt that they were being strung along each of the past few years with Favre waiting so long to see if he wanted to play again or not. They felt they needed to move forward and even drafted two rookie quarterbacks this year. However, if they found out Favre wanted to come back and simply told him they didn’t want him, then they might possibly be the worst decision makers of all time. The Packers do not have one quarterback on the roster who has started an NFL game. Rodgers himself has been ok when he has played but he has also shown that he is not nearly as durable as Favre as he has been hurt twice already. So they have a chance to have Favre come back and in fairness to everyone, mainly Rodgers, they say it will be an open competition. Please, between the two or even four quarterbacks we all know who should be starting even though competing for the job should happen every year. But once again that changed and after five hours of meetings and Brett never practicing once they trade him to the Jets. If he really wanted to play they should have kept him on the team, if he didn’t want to play with the Packers and they were forced to trade him then this falls back to Favre again.
Well, here I m right back at the beginning. I know Favre is gone to the Jets and I know I am upset but I still don’t know who to blame. Could Favre possibly be playing everyone and have forced the team into looking so bad and having to deal with this for so long? Could the coach and general manager really be that arrogant to trade away on of the best quarterbacks of all time despite how much the fans wanted him back and him saying he wanted to play? It is simply unbelievable. I guess the one who we should feel sorry for is Aaron Rodgers. After all, if he doesn’t at least take the team to the playoffs people will hate him. I don’t know if we will ever know the truth to this twisted mess. I can’t believe I am writing this but for the first time I really wish Brett Favre would have just retired.