Brett Favre retires. . . again

By Lou DiPietro | Friday, February 13, 2009 | ( 1 )

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"This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper."
-T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"

I was stumped for ideas this week, until something incredible happened: Brett Favre decided to retire.

OK, so it’s not really that incredible. After all, it seems that the “Will he or won’t he?” retirement talk is becoming as much a February tradition as the Daytona 500, NBA All-Star Weekend and MLB spring training.

This year, though, it actually is kind of noteworthy -- because, according to his agent, James “Bus” Cook, the message came from Favre just 10 days after the Super Bowl that he was actually calling it quits. No months-long controversy, no awkward mind-changing, no career-altering trades; Favre says it's for real this time. In fact, it's so real that the Jets have placed him on the reserve-retired list, meaning his retirement paperwork has been submitted to the NFL.

And isn’t the quote at the top of this column just so appropriate in numerous ways?

For one, the lack of controversy surrounding Favre is astonishing. The simple act of retiring definitively in a timely fashion is a mere whimper compared to last offseason, when the guy nearly needed his own reality show to chronicle his indecision.

Secondly, the manner in which he did it is rather surprising; there's no grandeur or holding teams hostage. He simply called his agent, said “I’m done; tell the Jets,” and called it a career. I’d imagine Cook probably didn’t believe him at first. It may have even looked like one of the opening scenes from "Major League"; you know, the one where Jake Taylor wakes up hung over in a Mexican hotel, thinking that the phone call he’s getting from Indians GM Charlie Donovan is really some guy named Tolbert playing a joke on him. And yes, before you ask, I have seen that movie a million times and can quote it at will.

Anyway, that’s certainly not the way we -- and by "we" I mean fans, journalists and league associates alike -- expected Favre to end his career.

Sadly, you know who’s really to blame for this whole mess over the last 12 months?

The 2007 Green Bay Packers.

That’s right, the guys who went from a 4-12, coach-less team after the 2005 season to 13-3 and overtime in the NFC championship game just two years later. If it weren’t for the fact that you all were so good, Favre probably would’ve called it quits after the mediocre season he had in 2006. But you showed improvement, he had a stellar 2007 season, and we got the drama of the century once it ended.

I mean, you can’t blame the guy for wanting to come back. Whether his retirement was knee-jerk or not, the Pack decided to go in a different direction. And Favre, coming off that great season, certainly didn’t want the final pass he threw to be an interception, one that launched the Giants into becoming perhaps the most improbable Super Bowl Champions since (ironically) Broadway Joe and the New York Jets 40 years earlier.

There’s only one problem with that, though: Everyone (but Favre) seemingly knew 2007 was an aberration.

Torn biceps tendon or not -- an injury that Favre actually called “the icing on the cake” of his retirement this year -- 2008 wasn’t exactly a surprise in terms of Favre's numbers. Sure, the Jets aren’t as talented on either side of the ball as those Packers were. In fact, they’re quite an average team that lately seems to be as good (or bad) as its schedule dictates. And while they were good in 2008, the fact is that Favre wasn’t.

So, instead of going out on a high note -- and believe me, a conference championship game is a higher note than 28 other NFL teams go out on -- he chose to come back ... and, for lack of a better word, suck. Favre put up 3,472 yards, his worst total since 1993. Granted, he had Thomas Jones, but even average NFL quarterbacks seem to throw for 217 yards per game these days. His 22-22 TD-to-INT ratio isn’t anything to write home about either -- and if you take away the Jets’ thrashing of Arizona in Week 4, he threw 16 TDs against 21 picks in the other 15 games. Look familiar?

It should. After all, he was clearly on the decline prior to 2007. Look at 2005 and 2006; sure, he threw for roughly 4,000 yards per season, but his 38 TDs and 47 INTs don't look too good -- even for Favre, who has never shied away from completing a pass or three to the opponents. His 56 percent completion clip in 2006 was the worst of his career -- in a season where he attempted the most passes of his career, no less. And retirement talk swirled after both of those seasons, too. But he never acted on it -- until 2007 happened.

And that’s why Favre’s career truly ends with a whimper. Sure, it would have been nice to be John Elway and go out on top. Unfortunately, when his 2007 season went out in a gunslinging blaze of glory, it left that one sense of doubt. "Can I do it again? Is the magic really back?"

Obviously, it wasn’t, he couldn’t, and while he’s not the first athlete to spend most of his career with one team before getting jettisoned elsewhere, Favre might be the first who forced his way into it.

I honestly feel bad for the Jets and everyone involved. Owner Woody Johnson seemed to spin it well, offering this nugget:

“With Brett, there was always the possibility that he wouldn’t play the second year. We were hoping to get one good year out of Brett Favre. We picked him based on, in our opinion, his giving us the best chance to win last season. We were disappointed not to have made the Super Bowl, but we did some very good things with Brett.”

But what else was he going to say? “We made a horrible mistake, and as a result, we ticked off our now top quarterback, watched the QB we cut -- Chad Pennington -- lead a 1-15 team to the playoffs and had to make the coach who had two winning seasons in three years a scapegoat"?

Instead of optimism, they have a mess on their hands. They have a new coach in Rex Ryan, which means a new system to learn. They have three quarterbacks on their roster -- one they’re obviously not sold on and two who have never thrown an NFL pass. They lost a draft pick and now have to possibly spend another on a new signal-caller -- but even with the 17th pick, unless Mark Sanchez or Matthew Stafford somehow pull an Aaron Rodgers, there’s no one there who jumps out at you as a franchise QB.

And, perhaps even worse, if the Favre fiasco is truly over and done with, no one’s even going to care. In a media market that has two NHL teams in the playoff hunt, two MLB teams that threw $500 million at free agents this winter, Plaxico Burress, A-Rod’s steroid scandal and Stephon Marbury still riding the pine at Madison Square Garden, the poor Jets are doomed to go back to being second-class citizens.

At least they saved $13 million in cap space.

Congratulations, Brett, maybe you finally did do something humanitarian after all. You had a great career; its just too bad you may have flushed any goodwill you had thanks to it -- not to mention set an entire franchise back a few years -- because you didn’t know when to end it.

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	About Lou DiPietro Lou DiPietro is an accomplished freelance writer who is fascinated with all things sports. In addition to his duties at RealFootball365.com, Lou contributes to TheBleacherReport.com and Pro Wrestling Illustrated magazine, and has been featured on "The Sports Buffet with Matt West" on 1080-AM ESPN...
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