RealClearSports: Why So Outraged? Favre's Entitled to Do What He Wants
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
If we are to interpret this correctly, Brett Favre is to be condemned because he decided to get out of football and then, while a lot of people were ruminating about his career, decided to return to football. After a lot of vacillating and momentum shifts.
This business disturbed a lot of people, many of them sporting journalists, who thought Favre was being disingenuous and, even worse, using them to stay in a spotlight he not only hesitates to leave but in truth deserves a hell of a lot more than most other quarterbacks.
To which one must scream, who cares? What's with us? Brett Favre hasn't shot himself in the hip, hasn't been convicted of running down a pedestrian while intoxicated. But we're making a bigger issue of Favre's indecisiveness than of people guilty of felonies.
If it bothers you that Favre doesn't know how to exit gracefully, tough beans. Sure he's like the Packer who cried wolf, or cried literally if you remember those scenes from a couple of years back. Unless you've been there, you'll never understand.
Joe Montana, who knew a thing or two about quarterbacking, and about winning Super Bowls, having led the San Francisco 49ers to victories in four of them, kept trying to stay on when some thought he ought to depart.
Hey, the columnist said to Joe in more of a statement than a question, what do you have to prove? Go out play some golf.
"Easy for you to say,'' Montana responded. "You can retire and come back in two years. I can't. When I'm done, I'm done. So I want to stay as long as I can. I know someday I'll have to leave.''
Favre left. Then returned. Then left. Now is returning. He's 39, and one of these times, he won't be coming back. When a man has played football since the age of 8 or 10, or thereabouts, the end is traumatic. One day your life has changed forever. Favre is fighting against that change as long as possible.
A man who's been involved with the NFL for 40 years or so told me that Favre was being urged to play by those around him, especially the Minnesota Vikings. Come on, Brett, they said in so many words. This is where you belong. You're a football player, aren't you?
He's a football player and an actor, as we've seen in the Wrangler commercials, and a self-promoter. None of the above is an indictable offense. If Favre has troubles making a decision and sticking to it, that's a victimless crime. Why are we so outraged?
If you want to argue that, at age 39 and after a torn biceps, Favre no longer is either the competent leader or the presence he used to be in those glory days with the Packers, that's legitimate. But the Vikings obviously believe he's better than anyone else they have, and until proven differently, he is.
The critics complain Favre is selfish. As if that trait makes him different from any other athletic star. To be great, you have to think you're great, think you're special, have to ignore the skeptics or, in a quarterback's case, the defensive ends.
Brett Favre and Joe Montana and John Elway don't think the way we do. They just wanted the ball and enough time on the clock to get the job done. If it was the rush and self-gratification they needed, it was also the chance to do what was required of them.
It's always difficult for the fans when a longtime favorite ends up on another team, especially -- as the Vikings are for Favre's original club, the Packers -- a rival team. No, they're not overly pleased these days in Green Bay, and Brett is being referred to in terms as traitor and turncoat. Mercenary is more accurate.
All athletes in team sports are mercenaries. They get paid to play, but not without an affiliation. If the Packers don't want you, then maybe the Jets. And if not the Jets, then now the Vikes.
Too many headlines about sports figures allude to jail time and arrests. Plaxico Burress is off to the clink. Only Thursday, Tampa Bay cornerback Aqib Talib was jailed on charges of simple battery after he punched a cab driver.
All Brett Favre can be accused of is making statements that perhaps had no basis of fact. Politicians do that all the time and nobody seems to mind.
"The guys know I'm in it for the right reasons,'' Favre said on his return. Right or wrong, it isn't important. He doesn't know how to quit. The only issue is whether he still knows how to play football.
As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.
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http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/08/21/why_so_outraged_favres_entitled_to_do_what_he_wants.html
© RealClearSports 2009
For RealClearSports.com
If we are to interpret this correctly, Brett Favre is to be condemned because he decided to get out of football and then, while a lot of people were ruminating about his career, decided to return to football. After a lot of vacillating and momentum shifts.
This business disturbed a lot of people, many of them sporting journalists, who thought Favre was being disingenuous and, even worse, using them to stay in a spotlight he not only hesitates to leave but in truth deserves a hell of a lot more than most other quarterbacks.
To which one must scream, who cares? What's with us? Brett Favre hasn't shot himself in the hip, hasn't been convicted of running down a pedestrian while intoxicated. But we're making a bigger issue of Favre's indecisiveness than of people guilty of felonies.
If it bothers you that Favre doesn't know how to exit gracefully, tough beans. Sure he's like the Packer who cried wolf, or cried literally if you remember those scenes from a couple of years back. Unless you've been there, you'll never understand.
Joe Montana, who knew a thing or two about quarterbacking, and about winning Super Bowls, having led the San Francisco 49ers to victories in four of them, kept trying to stay on when some thought he ought to depart.
Hey, the columnist said to Joe in more of a statement than a question, what do you have to prove? Go out play some golf.
"Easy for you to say,'' Montana responded. "You can retire and come back in two years. I can't. When I'm done, I'm done. So I want to stay as long as I can. I know someday I'll have to leave.''
Favre left. Then returned. Then left. Now is returning. He's 39, and one of these times, he won't be coming back. When a man has played football since the age of 8 or 10, or thereabouts, the end is traumatic. One day your life has changed forever. Favre is fighting against that change as long as possible.
A man who's been involved with the NFL for 40 years or so told me that Favre was being urged to play by those around him, especially the Minnesota Vikings. Come on, Brett, they said in so many words. This is where you belong. You're a football player, aren't you?
He's a football player and an actor, as we've seen in the Wrangler commercials, and a self-promoter. None of the above is an indictable offense. If Favre has troubles making a decision and sticking to it, that's a victimless crime. Why are we so outraged?
If you want to argue that, at age 39 and after a torn biceps, Favre no longer is either the competent leader or the presence he used to be in those glory days with the Packers, that's legitimate. But the Vikings obviously believe he's better than anyone else they have, and until proven differently, he is.
The critics complain Favre is selfish. As if that trait makes him different from any other athletic star. To be great, you have to think you're great, think you're special, have to ignore the skeptics or, in a quarterback's case, the defensive ends.
Brett Favre and Joe Montana and John Elway don't think the way we do. They just wanted the ball and enough time on the clock to get the job done. If it was the rush and self-gratification they needed, it was also the chance to do what was required of them.
It's always difficult for the fans when a longtime favorite ends up on another team, especially -- as the Vikings are for Favre's original club, the Packers -- a rival team. No, they're not overly pleased these days in Green Bay, and Brett is being referred to in terms as traitor and turncoat. Mercenary is more accurate.
All athletes in team sports are mercenaries. They get paid to play, but not without an affiliation. If the Packers don't want you, then maybe the Jets. And if not the Jets, then now the Vikes.
Too many headlines about sports figures allude to jail time and arrests. Plaxico Burress is off to the clink. Only Thursday, Tampa Bay cornerback Aqib Talib was jailed on charges of simple battery after he punched a cab driver.
All Brett Favre can be accused of is making statements that perhaps had no basis of fact. Politicians do that all the time and nobody seems to mind.
"The guys know I'm in it for the right reasons,'' Favre said on his return. Right or wrong, it isn't important. He doesn't know how to quit. The only issue is whether he still knows how to play football.
As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.
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http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/08/21/why_so_outraged_favres_entitled_to_do_what_he_wants.html
© RealClearSports 2009