Jesus Has Turned in His Cleats

Brett Favre has finally retired.

Those who know me well are aware that I am not a huge fan of Brett Favre. I appreciate and respect his talent, but that's where my adoration ends.

I am sure I'm one of the few people in Wisconsin who didn't look forward to "Favre Watch" each off-season as he contemplated whether he'd play another season. With the announcement of Favre's retirement, there are several things I won't miss:

• I won't miss watching the Wisconsin news media trek down to Kiln, Miss. to hang on Brett Favre's potential retirement announcement, which turned out not to be an announcement at all but a publicity stunt perpetrated by an assistant of Deanna Favre;
  
• I won't miss his "aw shucks" mentality when any unbiased observer can see that the man can't stand to not have his name in the news (hence the last several years of him making the Packers and the local media wait with bated breath -- far longer than they should have, and in some years this affected the search for a backup quarterback and other offensive players -- for an announcement of whether he was coming back for another season).
• I won't miss interceptions thrown from the knees;
• I won't miss game-losing interceptions thrown into double/triple coverage when there is a perfectly good receiver open who could catch a pass/win the game/send the Packers to Super Bowl XLII.

Like I said, the man had an incredible talent and was very philanthropic. Unfortunately, with his great talent came the tendency to make spectacularly bad throwing decisions -- he was either totally on or totally off. There was no middle ground with him. Coaches (up until Mike McCarthy, and Mike Sherman was particularly guilty of this) basically let Favre run wild on the field and do whatever he wanted, many times with hideous results.

And now, Aaron Rodgers would seem to be the heir apparent. Unfortunately he won't have benefited from any direct tutelage from his predecessor, because Favre has said more than once it "wasn't his job to mentor understudies." As great as Favre was, this quote shows he could also be incredibly selfish, as is usually the case with an egomaniac who doesn't want the student to become better than the master.

I for one hope that the Packers stand behind Rodgers and groom him to become a great quarterback -- he has shown flashes of it during the few times he's been able to play.

Now, if he can just get rid of the porn star beard...