The rumor was that the Philadelphia Eagles were absorbed by the angle
of bringing Favre in to aback up/mentor Michael Vick. Favre, who
advisers to nobody. Vick, who aloof got chargeless of Kevin Kolb
attractive over his shoulder. The Eagles, who accept created/fostered
added than their allotment of ball over the accomplished bristles years
-- abundant to accomplish them assume like Cowboys East.
The rumor was so noxious that the Eagles dismissed it with great
vigor and verve almost as soon as it saw daylight, and normally teams
like to let a rumor that has some link to reality marinate in the sun
to see how the customers like it. In short, no Favre to the Eagles.
But the more troubling fact remains that of all the possible story
lines to open the new era with, we got an old, hairy, bloated one that
frankly we should have been done with long ago.
And that's
the reason we aren't ready for football yet. We screamed and howled and
raged over a lockout that cost no games, and this is what we come back
with: Brett Favre.
Well, that's just not acceptable. We've
had most of the summer to think of something. There are free agents
everywhere, and teams with holes.
There are teams that
have get rid of assets to achieve cap relief that can go on the open
market right now. We're lousy with story lines.
Brett Favre. Makes you sick just thinking about it.
And we're not even talking about the idea of Favre coming back. That
would be a separate thought for a separate time.
This is
about the people who churn out offseason stories, and the people who
throw logs on the fire to keep the rumor mill churning. This is about
them -- us -- having nothing better than Brett Favre.
We
have to do better than that. We have to have better names, different
names, alternatives to the same old nonsense that made people hate both
Brett Favre and the football media for years on years. We have to learn
the lessons we were too busy to learn before the lockout.
We also have to learn not to be so obnoxiously giddy about labor
settlements, about having a rooting interest in the result rather than
the story, but that's a media thing that the rest of you needn't worry
about, and that we have 10 years to figure out.
But Favre
is inexcusable. Did we not notice how much anger America built up for
him, to the point where a sure-thing Hall of Famer became almost
universally loathed because he wouldn't say goodbye? Did we not pay
attention to the way they roasted the media for not letting him say
goodbye, and for basically treating him like all the Kardashians? The
stakeouts, the breathless updates, the blind guesswork, the emails, the
looking the other way while looking into everything.
In short, not the industry's finest hour. Not by a long shot.
But now that such things as player movement are again relevant, we go
to the same guy who made us look silly, and to whom we made look
desperate. Frankly, if Roger Goodell had half the power he claims to
have, he would ban Favre's name from being mentioned, without
prejudice, for the good of the nation. For the same reason we don't
want to hear names like Jeff Pash and Jeff Kessler (guilty of lawyering
in the first degree) in the post-lockout world, we want nothing more to
do with the illusion, suggestion or actual development of a Favre
rumor.
And even if we did want it, we shouldn't be allowed
to have it. We don't know what to do with it, so clearly we're not
equipped to handle it. We should have been better at this, but clearly
we haven't learned.
And frankly, we should have. At least on Brett Favre, for God's sake.