Seriously, Green Bay, if you can't find a taker, just shut him down. Either shut him out of the starting job (which would probably lead him to go home), or don't reinstate him. Yeah his agent will whine about it, but so what. Say it's for salary cap purposes (keeping the $13 million off that is gone with Brett retired) and be done with it. $13 million is a huge amount of money to be on the hook for, figuratively and literally, and at this point bringing Brett back will mean other guys getting released. And, right now, you need the other guys more than you need Brett Favre. That's right. It's time to let go of Favre, one way or the other. It doesn't matter if Aaron Rodgers is any good or a total bum; the sooner you get on without Favre, the better.
How could this be? Simple. Before last season, Favre had two straight years of being terrible. Three are maybe three quarterbacks in the league who would survive that kind of run and he's one of them (Manning and Brady are the others). A quarterback in his late 30s coming off two straight subpar seasons normally gets sent to the bench or released. Want some examples? Mark Brunell was banished from Jacksonville at 33 years after one injury plagued season where he missed 13 games, simply because the Jaguars were itching to get Byron Leftwich in there. Brew Bledsoe was run from New England at 29 even though no one knew that Tom Brady was going to be as good full time as he'd been as a sub. Donovan McNabb has never had a season as bad as the one Brett had two years ago and is still rumored to be on borrowed time in Philly. And before the dogfighting mess landed in jail Michael Vick was on shaky ground because he was coming off back to back seasons where his team missed the playoffs even he didn't play as badly as Brett did before last season. Normally, quarterback who play badly for more than one season find themselves on really shaky ground, and quarterbacks over 30 coming off back to back bad seasons tend to get run. Brett is the exception, not the rule here.
Now I've heard all the 'they're idiots if they don't bring Brett back' arguments, and I don't agree any more. The guy is damn near 40; you can't count on him playing great anymore. There is absolutely zero guarantee that he'll be as good in 2008 as he was in 2007, not at his age. And I wouldn't be so quick to acquire him if I was another team; how many clubs do you honestly think he improves right now? Is there one mediocre team that he'd elevate to playoff status, or on a playoff team that he would make a champion? I honestly don't think so. Anyone who thinks otherwise, please give me an example. And even if he went to team that played the packers this season, and in that one or two games he played great, it still doesn't mean it's a bad idea to send him on down the road. Yes, they'll get ripped in the short run but so what? The management gets paid to make the tough decisions, the ones that will get you ripped today but praised in two years. If they can't handle it, then they're in the wrong line of work.
Time moves on, and so does the NFL and the Green Bay Packers. The whining, diva antics of one player do not, and should not hold things up. I'm a Skins fan, and in the mid eighties I watched them unceremoniously dump several of the guys who helped them get to back to back Super Bowls in 1982 and 83. Yes, as a kid I was hurt to see Theisman, Riggins, Mark Mosley, and a few other seemingly important guys sent elsewhere or just home (OK, LT sent Joey T. home, not the Skins management). It hurt, but we all got over it. When they let Doug Williams go in 1990 two years after him winning Super Bowl MVP I didn't like it, but we got over it. The Packer fans will hate it at first (or maybe not), but they'll get over it as long a suitable replacement is found in the near future and the team keeps winning. So move on, Packer management.
We still talking about him
leave me alone