You Will Not Find Purple In This Household

Sigh. Okay, let's get this out of the way....

Yes, Favre signed with the Vikings. No, most NFL fans are not happy about it. Affirmative, I'm done with the furbelow that is a Brett Favre press conference where he flips and flops about whether he should grace a team with his presence again.

The worst thing about this whole Farve second comeback is the death of an ideal for so many NFL fans. It's like the storyline where a kid finds out his hero is a self-centered jerk; the "say it ain't so, Joe" moment.

Favre likes to spin his decision as the dilemma of a competitor who just couldn't stand to watch others play the game he loves without him. I'm sure Favre still thinks he can play and maybe he can, but there are too many facts involved for me to give the old man any benefit of the doubt.

-First of all, his change of heart comes amazingly towards the end of training camp. Favre doesn't like camp, no player does. It's physical work on the field and hard studying off the field. Yet, camps are needed so that the constant revolving roster of players can get on the same page before the games count. I guess Favre just figures everyone will somehow make it work.

-Favre is getting well paid. It's not like he's coming back for the love of the game, he's getting a truckload of garunteed money to suit up.

-Favre still wants to get back at Green Bay for not taking him back. Seems like a nice classic case of revenge until you look at the facts:

Favre retired on his own.

The Packers moved on and gave the offense over to Aaron Rodgers who had been waiting patiently for years.

Favre later decided he wanted to come back, but the Packers were already moving forward with the new quarterback and didn't need to crush Rodgers by flirting with a half-assed Favre comeback.

Favre then demanded to be released so he could go to the Vikings and make the Packers pay. Green Bay traded Favre to the New York Jets to get him away from the whole situation while still allowing him to play.

Favre then retired a second time so the Jets would release him.

Favre now has signed with the Vikings which is what he wanted to do in the first place just because the Packers wouldn't completely stop moving forward with operations the minute he got cold feet about his own retirement.

It's hard to feel any love for a man who is so selfish, he somehow has created a rivalry between himself and the team he played with forever simply because he couldn't hijack its future based on his own whims.

Now Packer fans have to sit and watch their legendary quarterback come back in a rival uniform. They'll boo him. And they should.

Meanwhile, the Vikings fans now have a team with two shattered quarterbacks who basically have been shown how little the organization thinks of their abilities and a nation of football fans that now don't like their team due to one person.

As for me, I won't be wearing any purple when the Vikings and Packers meet this season, but I might be wearing some cheese on my head. Probably not though, because that would be gross and my dog wouldn't leave me alone.

It's Like Foxboro With Barbeque

So you hate everything about the New England Patriots from the tuck rule, to the mangled Belichick sweatshirts, to Vince Wilfork and his poking fingers, to the stunningly good personnel moves.

Well, then you probably want to avoid eastern Kansas/western Missouri over the next several years.

When new Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli was hired away from the Patriots, everyone assumed he'd build the Chiefs up the way he learned. I'm not sure if anyone realized that creating a team "the New England way" meant actually using the Patriots players.

First Mike Vrabel comes over, now the future of the Chiefs have been put the hands of one Matt Cassel. Now the Chiefs just need to scoop up Teddy Bruschi and Rodney Harrison whenever they get released, coax Willie McGinnest out of retirement, trade for Adam Vinatieri, and teach Todd Haley how to behave like a complete curmudgeon for the transformation to be complete.

Obviously there are worse teams to model yourself after, say Detroit (after drafting 12 wide receivers, you should sign a free-agent quarterback well past his productive years), but with most of the country thoroughly sick of all things Patriots, are you sure you want your team looking like a carbon copy of them?

I've already gotten texts from friends hoping for nothing but failure by Mike Vrabel. Cassel won't have that kind anger directed at him, but he still represents another link to New England.

These two first moves are actually good moves for Pioli, but I'm just hoping that he doesn't get too pedantesque with his teachings from New England. There is a point when it's your team and not the one in Foxboro.

I keep wondering how the Minnesota Vikings didn't get in on the Cassel sweepstakes since they are in such need of a quarterback. But I like the nice little circle-of-NFL-life this move has made:

-Jared Allen is traded from rebuilding Kansas City to Minnesota and makes the Vikings a legitimate, but quarterbackless Super Bowl contender

-The Chiefs grab Matt Cassel from New England to rebuild the team around while Minnesota is stuck with Sage Rosenfels

-Cassel is the big named quarterback on the market only because Tom Brady got hurt....while plalying against the Chiefs.

It's all a rich tapestry of NFL life. Now let's see of the Chiefs can cut the umbilical chord from their New England mommies and get on with football in Kansas City.