PantsCast April 12 2011

Has the term douchebag been watered down? Sideline reporters, texting your junk, baseball talk, NBA vs NHL playoff formats, and an unfortunate clean up in the grocery store in What's Wrong With Humans.

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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.

Favre Had To Ruin One Final Thing

No doubt you heard the cheering in the streets and sports bars last night. Brett Favre, who has tried his best to go from NFL ironman to NFL irresolute, finally decided he won't try to make yet another comeback.

Packers fans can cheer because the most popular player in franchise history won't sully his Packer legacy by suiting up for the hated Vikings just because of a quibble with the Packers front office (one brought on by Favre's indecision in the first place.)

NFL fans can cheer because the man who showed us how much fun football can be isn't going to spend another year devolving into a mercenary who plays only to stroke his own ego. At least, we can cheer until the first starting quarterback goes down or the Vikings struggle since Favre's retirement plans have always been apocyphal.

That sad thing is that Favre's "retirement" shouldn't even be the top story of the day. Philadelphia defensive coordinator Jim Johnson finally succumbed to his battle with cancer. This nonsense with Favre somehow overshadowed the death of one of the great NFL defensive coordinators.

How good was Johnson as Eagles defensive coordinator for the past decade? His Philly defenses ranked second in the NFL in sacks, the defense helped the Eagles make the playoffs in seven season and sent 26 players to the Pro-Bowl. And most impressively, the only dominant player on those defenses year in and year out was safety Brian Dawkins.

Johnson created such an exotic set of blitzes designed to pressure and confuse the quarterback, his disciples populate the league today. John Harbaugh and Steve Spagnuolo are both head coaches while San Diego's Ron Rivera and Minnesota's Leslie Frazier are two top defensive coordinators.

He's a man that deserves at least a day to for fans to admire his valiant fight against a nasty form of cancer that started near his spine and for us to reflect on all of his contributions to the game of football.

Instead the top story is a wishy washy quarterback finally deciding to stay retired...for now. It should make Brett Favre nauseous that his inability to let go of the game helped take a little more NFL love away from it's rightful destination.

Oh Good God, Stop It Already!

No one flinched when the Jets officially released Brett Favre the other day. The team had drafted Mark Sanchez and Favre had retired....again.

No one paid much attention to the story except my friend who works at NFL.com. He grumbled about how much extra work he's going to have now that Favre has been released because of all the rumors that will circulate now about the senescent quarterback coming back to a new team.

My thoughts instantly turned to the land of a thousand lakes. Favre had a very public courtship with Minnesota last year and kept asking the Packers to release him. The Packers weren't about to have an angry Favre running across the division to haunt them, so the team traded Favre out of the confernece.

But now that the Jets have released him, Favre can go right to the Vikings with his buddy Brad Childress.

And sure enough, the Vikings' coach has come out and said he will discuss things with Favre. And by "things" I mean a possible second return out of retirement. There is no confirmation whether John Madden will follow Favre back to the NFL.

I thought this crap only happened in boxing.

Mercifully Over, But Still Deserves The Upward Thumb

Brett Favre has retired. Again. Hopefully for good this time.

And now let's prepare ourselves for the loads of tributes that ESPN has in the can for every year Favre retires. Followed by the dozens of curmudgeon sports writers who, desperate to play the contradictory role, will bring up Favre's interceptions and lone Super Bowl win and ask "was he really THAT good?"

Yes, he was. Maybe not in the pure stats department (all though he has plenty of those), but in the spirit of the sport department. Whenever you think of Favre you think of the guy running up and down the field after touchdowns, picking up receivers over his shoulder, getting in a defensive lineman's face after a big hit, and just screwing around on the field.

Sure he had had his pouty moments, but imagine being the biggest superstar in a town devoid of anything else. Farve was THE face of Green Bay and people wanted to know everything he did. John Elway had the same issue in Denver and he complained constantly about it. And that was Denver which is like Hong Kong population-wise compared to Green Bay.

Just sit back and think about that for a minute: Here is a guy from Mississippi who gets drafted by a team that's considered the back water Siberia where NFL players are traded for punishment, has to play in the freezing weather, becomes the single biggest celebrity of the town, and has the tool of free-agency at his disposal.

How many top-flight players stay in Buffalo these days? Willis McGahee couldn't wait to jump ship. Lee Evans remains, but he also played at Wisconsin, so the cold probably doesn't bother him as much. The point is that players, especially from the South, don't like playing in tiny northern NFL cities. Minnesota and Detroit got domed stadiums to keep the cold out which leaves Green Bay, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland as the only smaller cities in the north with open fields.

But Favre not only stuck it out, he loved it. His record just exploded when the snow came. He embraced cold weather and let his opponents flee from it.

He put Green Bay back on the map as an NFL city and didn't get high and mighty about it. He didn't constantly bicker that he was under appreciated and he didn't hold out every other year. He didn't miss games and he didn't constantly hint that he needed a bigger stage so that his skill could be appreciated. All the crap that we've come to expect from the modern athlete didn't have a chapter in the great tome of Favre.

He transcended hatred. Opposing fans rooted against him, but gave him respect. And it all would have ended perfectly had Favre just walked away.

But he broke the cardinal sin of entertainment: always leave them wanting more. He made a mess out the whole situation by retiring and then changing his mind. It's perfectly within is rights to do so, but the Packers had moved on and didn't want to keep opening that door.

So Favre goes to the Jets despite overwhelming evidence that points to the failures of aging stars on new teams. And after a fast start, he fails down the stretch. Were Jets fans honestly surprised? Maybe. Fans have a way of being talked into delusions. You want to drink the Kool-Aid even if all logic points in the other direction.

Last season was a mistake for Favre. Everyone knew it. We wanted him to succeed, but knew the chances were that he'd fail. Now he's retiring for good this time. He's not crying at press conferences, he's not being drug away kicking and screaming. He's just done. Hey, at least he learns from his retirements.

Don't believe the people who say Favre tarnished his legacy with the Jets. Does anyone remember Emmitt Smith as a Cardinal? Johnny Unitas? Joe Namath? O.J. Simps...actually forget that one. Favre will go down in history the way he should, a crazy-ass gunslinger who just liked to play football.