Favre turns everybody off ... and keeps everybody watching
With only 13 shopping days to go until Brett Favre comes out, sees Ted Thompson's shadow and un-retires again, a lonely nation turns its eyes to anyone else.
And hey, he's the one who brought it up. Again. "Thirteen days to more me," was the announcement. You just want to chase him with sticks sometimes.
|
|
| Brett Favre has a knack for staying in the public eye while annoying said public. (AP) |
• Favre one of the guys at Oak Grove
Other than the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, which apparently put out a special Favre section even though he hasn't officially become a Minnesota Viking yet, the general feeling across the nation has been a resounding "feh." He overplayed his hand, again and again, knowing only that there would always been a team hungry for what he used to have in spades -- competitiveness, improvisational skills, an arm that was strong and mostly accurate.
And of course, he was right. There was another team out there for him, one close enough to Target Zero -- Thompson's heart. Thompson, who as general manager of the Green Bay Packers wouldn't let Favre be the general manager of the Green Bay Packers, has been Favre's great white whale since the day Thompson passed on Randy Moss. And over the years, Favre has become less the great athlete who can't say no and more the modern-day Captain Ahab with every passing year.
In short, the audience is largely gone. There are the gawkers, of course, who still cover this story as though it is Neil Armstrong returning from the moon. They helped turn Favre into a national punch line by reporting his every visible deed as though he were the Pope on a week-long bender in South Beach. But in doing so, they wore out the customers.
In contrast, Jeremy Mayfield enhanced and wrecked his public profile in about two days.
There's a strange lesson in that. America will look at a guy who does something impetuous, turn it into full-bore crazy, and he will be regarded as, well, crazy. But do something over and over again over an extended period of time, and the house will walk out. Favre's issues with Thompson were a local story -- and had they both played their cards right, it would have stayed that way.
Instead, Favre dithered on retirement, frustrating the Packers. Then he dithered again, and they committed to Aaron Rodgers. Then he went to the Jets and led them to another Jet-like year. Then he dithered yet again, waiting for the Vikings to tire of Tarvaris Jackson, which of course they did.
And dithering is a terrible way to maintain ratings. Or interest.
That he wants to play again is fine, I guess. Someone wants him, and few enough athletes get to chase their dream to the end. Favre has earned the right to keep going if he so chooses.
But when he announced that he had 13 days to make up his mind about going to Vikings camp, he reminded us why we largely don't give a damn any more. It was the latest contribution to his plaque in the Compulsive Procrastinator's Hall Of Fame. One of his journalist-stenographer friends asks him what's up today, and he says, "Something soon. Or not. I don't know."
And that is breathlessly reported as the latest advancement in a story that makes glaciers seem hyperactive. "Favre Still Mulling, Shoots Three Ducks," followed by a panel of former players who discuss for the 733rd time what this means for the Packers, the Vikings, the NFC North, the NFL and Favre's legacy. No new answers, but delightfully skull-crushing repetition.
So yes, we should give this story a pass once and for all, but we don't. That he knows that, and still plays us, that's on us. The interested parties are fewer, but he has made himself a cliché with the care and precision he once gave to studying game plans. That's the part that fascinates us -- the un-Favre-like methodical side of his personality. He wants Ted Thompson on a stick, and he has already devoted almost half the decade to achieving it.
Kind of makes you almost admire Jeremy Mayfield, who blew it all up in 48 hours instead of 48 months.
Almost, that is.
Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.
