uPtoWnNY said:

The guy won 1 Superbowl.....one.
I don't get it.

NDRU said:

Guy is good, I mainly dislike him 4 KILLING the Bears 4 the last upteen years.

Graycap23 said:

Nope. He's a crybaby. I wish he would stay gone. I've lost almost all my respect for him.

Graycap23 said:

i had to post this!

magnificentsynthesizer said:

Number 8 has no business in the NFL. The Bears are fools.

Graycap23 said:

i had to post this!

magnificentsynthesizer said:

Thank you for not resisting the urge . . .

Graycap23 said:

Yes he makes a few steeler qb's i've had to endure over the years
look like world beaters i.e Mark Malone, Bubby Brister, Mike Tomczak,
and Kordell Stewart. I feel sorry for you cap. You have to choose
between between grossman and kyle orton and orton actually offers you
more hope. You've already seen grossman is garbage.

Why won't the Packers release this guy? I don't get this at all.
It makes the Packers look like CHUMPS all the way around.

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP)—The bond between Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers appears to be broken beyond repair.

Packers coach Mike McCarthy said Tuesday evening that after approximately six hours of what he called “brutally honest” conversations with Favre over the past two days, the three-time MVP just isn’t in the right mind-set to be part of the team.

Even with the chance to win his starting job back potentially on the table, McCarthy said Favre couldn’t seem to get past emotional wounds that were opened as tensions mounted in recent weeks.

“The football team’s moving forward,” McCarthy said. “The train has left the station, whatever analogy you want. He needs to jump on the train and let’s go. Or, if we can’t get past things that have happened, I have to keep the train moving.”

McCarthy said he and Favre made plans to speak later Tuesday evening, but McCarthy didn’t seem to allow for the possibility that anything significant would change.

A trade could be coming next, with Tampa Bay re-emerging as a potential destination after seemingly being eliminated from consideration in recent weeks.

Packers officials have believed throughout the past month that Favre’s preference is to play for the Minnesota Vikings, but Favre could reconsider a trade to Tampa Bay—or elsewhere—if Green Bay holds firm in its commitment not to trade him to a division rival.

McCarthy wouldn’t address trade talks, but did say a quick resolution to the situation is important to the rest of his players.

“Absolutely,” McCarthy said. “The players, they want it resolved. Even talk to Brett about it—he feels bad about it. It’s time for them to talk about somebody else.”

Favre left Lambeau Field just before Packers practice Tuesday afternoon, taking a right turn out of the stadium’s back gate and heading away from the field where the rest of his teammates were assembling for drills.

Favre emerged from the stadium’s loading dock exit at 2:34 p.m. EDT Tuesday, hugging Packers senior security advisor Jerry Parins before getting in his SUV and driving away. Shortly after, an SUV driven by Packers general manager Ted Thompson left the gate heading in the same direction.

“We’re at a stalemate,” Favre told ESPN Tuesday morning. “Mike and I both agreed last night that me being out there is a distraction and will continue to be a distraction. We all know the reason I’m here is because the commissioner reinstated me so we have a lot of things to figure out. It’s simple and complicated, both at the same time.”

McCarthy said Favre was excused from practice Tuesday, adding that he wouldn’t have practiced with the team anyway because of an abdominal strain found in his physical examination Monday. McCarthy did not say whether Favre would be fined if he stayed away from camp starting Wednesday.

Favre told ESPN he doesn’t have a problem with competing with Rodgers for the starting job, and can “truly understand” why McCarthy would make Rodgers the starter. But Favre also said a competition “probably isn’t going to work” and that “the problem is that there’s been a lot of damage done and I can’t forget it.”

Did Favre not feel wanted or welcome enough by the Packers?

“That’s part of the issue with him, quite frankly,” McCarthy said. “And listening to him talk about that, you respect his opinion. And frankly, I told him, I said, ‘I’ll take responsibility because I have a voice in the building.’ I never thought he truly was going to play. I thought he was emotionally driven for other reasons.”

McCarthy said Favre was “very convincing” in their conversations about his desire to play Monday night and Tuesday. But McCarthy still seemed to have reservations about Favre’s commitment to preparation.

Would Favre continue to stay at Lambeau late at night to study film, a major factor in his success last season?

“That was a very good question for him,” McCarthy said. “He’s in a tough spot right now.”

McCarthy also didn’t seem convinced that Favre was thinking clearly about his future.

“He has a lot going through his head, and I think he’s emotional,” McCarthy said. “And just talking to him, he’s in a tough spot.”

So, of course, are McCarthy and Thompson. Correctly or not, they might end up being seen by fans as the men who drove Favre out of Green Bay.

“That’s not a good feeling, but I don’t view it that way,” McCarthy said. “I can only trust the truth. I’ve been part of a lot of conversations, and I don’t feel that’s the case.”

Rodgers, meanwhile, stuck to his mantra of not worrying about things he can’t control.

“I just know we were out at practice today, and he wasn’t there, and I’m the starter,” Rodgers said. “So that’s where we’re going right now.”

Speaking to reporters after Tuesday’s practice, Rodgers stood just a few feet away from a locker with a “FAVRE” nameplate above it, stocked with shoulderpads and other equipment. It hadn’t been used—and now might never be.

Cornerback Charles Woodson had a hard time imagining the Packers trading such an iconic player.

“Everything went kind of sour a few weeks or a month back, but you never felt like it would get to the point or to the talks of him actually being traded,” Woodson said. “I felt once he stepped back in here, he would be the quarterback. Him not being here today, I guess management has a different route. So at that point, we’ve got to go out and do our job.”

Punk ass, drama queen.

purplekitty said:

I'm inclined to agree. This basically sounds like, 'You didn't kiss my ass enough'.

violator said:

And the killing part is that he CHOSE to retire. After his awesome season I would have loved to see him play again, it was obvious he STILL had it in him. So why play the dick tease with all the retirement pomp and circumstance and playing coy and shit. Only to bitch up and wanna come back. I hope Green Bay tells that fool to kick rocks, tomorrow.

purplekitty said:

Apparently they didn't wait until tomorrow.

I can't blame him for changing his mind about retirement, but all this about 'things he can't get past' and demanding to be traded within the division, later for that...

Am I the ONLY one sick and tired of Brett Farve?

Am I the ONLY one sick and tired of Brett Farve?

Graycap23 said:

I've been sick of that guy since the 90's Gray, this little stunt he's pulling doesn't suprise me at all.

Favre to blame for nasty divorce

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Aaron Rodgers dropped back, set his feet and prepared to release a routine slant pass when he heard the squeaky voice from behind the fence. The fourth-year quarterback paused during an individual drill late in the Green Bay Packers’ training camp practice Tuesday afternoon and spied a little boy, maybe 6, among the hundreds of spectators lining the Oneida Street side of Clarke Hinkle Field.

“We don’t love you,” the kid said. “You suck.”

Rodgers didn’t respond to the taunt, nor did he acknowledge the pockets of fans chanting “we want Brett” and “bring back Favre” at sporadic points during the practice. But given the way things had played out since a certain legendary quarterback’s dramatic return to Titletown less than 48 hours earlier, there was an obvious message that should have been delivered to the kids – and the people acting like them – going to pieces over the messy divorce between the Packers and Brett Favre.

The Aaron Rodgers era has begun in Green Bay, and if you don’t like that, you’re taking it out on the wrong quarterback.

“I know people are emotional, but that’s an interesting way of expressing yourself,” Rodgers told Y! Sports after Tuesday’s practice. “All I know is we have a really good team, and we’re excited to get ready for the season.”

It’s a season which, it now seems painfully clear, will take place without Favre in a Packers uniform for the first time since 1991. And if you want to know who’s most responsible for that, Packers fans, take a look at that No. 4 jersey in the mirror above your dresser.

There have been numerous tactical missteps made by Favre and the bosses he publicly suggested are dishonest – general manager Ted Thompson and coach Mike McCarthy – during this month-long saga, and Packers fans have a right to be frustrated at both camps. But if you believe that the quarterback soon will be leaving Green Bay, most likely via trade to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, because those merciless meanies just didn’t want poor ol’ Brett around, you’ve got more than cheese clouding your head.

As McCarthy stated in his news conference after Tuesday’s practice, and as Favre himself had stated more clearly in his latest woe-is-me interview (this one to ESPN’s Chris Mortensen) earlier that morning, the reason the future Hall of Famer couldn’t come back to the Pack was that he can’t let go of his ill will toward his employers.

Rodgers, meanwhile, has every right to be bitter about the way things went down since Favre stepped onto the tarmac at Austin Straubel Airport on Sunday night. Yet he’s the one biting his lip and acting like the adult.

Let’s see it from his perspective: After waiting three years for his shot, and without much warmth or mentoring from the guy he was playing behind, Rodgers finally was told he was The Man after Favre’s tearful retirement news conference in March. Shortly before training camp, a story surfaced that Favre had the itch to return. Favre, via text message, dismissed the report as “just rumors,” which was a lie.

After floating his desire to come out of retirement, Favre waited for Thompson and McCarthy to embrace him as the reinstalled starter, just as he so often has demanded to be indulged over the latter part of his career. This time, they didn’t respond positively – partly because they didn’t believe he wanted to come back and play, partly because they already had committed to Rodgers and didn’t want to destroy their relationship with a talented quarterback they had spent years grooming, and partly because they were tired of being in a subservient position.

Favre got more and more resentful, lashing out publicly and privately demanding to be released. The team held firm, insisting that it would only trade him to a team outside its division. To force the issue – and thanks largely to the intervention of commissioner Roger Goodell – Favre secured his reinstatement, flew to Green Bay and, in a shameless bit of showmanship, showed up at Lambeau Field with his wife Deanna to watch the team’s “Family Night” scrimmage from a luxury box.

In that glorified 11-on-11 drill, with some of the 56,000-plus fans booing him, Rodgers completed just 7 of 20 passes. Afterward, he fielded questions from reporters and learned – from them – that the Packers supposedly had declared an open competition between him and Favre for the starting job.

Gulp.

“It was news to me,” Rodgers admitted Tuesday. “All of a sudden people are talking about ‘open competition,’ and I’m wondering what happened.”

For the next day and a half, Rodgers, like the rest of us, wondered what it all meant when Packers CEO Mark Murphy said the team would welcome Favre back “and turn this situation to our advantage.”

On Monday night, as Favre was staging meetings with his superiors that dragged on so long that McCarthy had to cancel a quarterbacks meeting, it certainly didn’t seem that things were working to Rodgers’ advantage.

Nonetheless, publicly and privately, Rodgers did what Favre can’t seem to do these days: He kept his cool.

“If I was going to get mad, or throw something against the wall, what difference would it have made?” Rodgers asked rhetorically. “All I can do is control the attitude I bring into every day, stay positive and think about leading this football team to the best of my ability.”

Favre, meanwhile, couldn’t overcome the negativity that apparently has been swirling inside his mind for quite some time. In that lengthy vent session last month to Greta Van Susteren of Fox News, Favre complained that he couldn’t trust Thompson because, among other things, the GM had ignored his pleadings to acquire Randy Moss and hired McCarthy over Steve Mariucci, the one-time Packers assistant and former 49ers and Lions coach with whom the quarterback is extremely close.

Think about that: Favre was affronted because the Pack’s general manager wouldn’t follow his quarterback’s decree about whom to hire as head coach.

The Packers hired former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer as a PR consultant, but in truth, Favre is the one more in need of such image management.

Consider that Favre, in another interview, said he only wanted to play for another NFC North team – in order to play the Packers twice a season. Now that’s loyalty.

Yet, for all his regrettable posturing, Favre still had the image war won when he stepped off that plane Sunday night and received a hero’s welcome and an invitation to return to the Packers’ roster. At that point, the coach of another NFL team told me, “The game’s over. There’s no way Favre won’t get his job back now. If you don’t start him, how are you going to explain it to all of those fans?”

If Favre, as some suspected, was preparing to engage the Packers in a game of chicken, be it in an attempt to go where he wanted to go (Minnesota) or to get his old job back, this is what he should have done:

1. Not attend the scrimmage. (Perhaps he and Deanna could have stayed home and rented a DVD.)

2. Apologize to McCarthy and Thompson for having called them dishonest and assure his bosses he had overcome his ill feelings and was embracing a return to the organization under any terms.

3. To prove he totally was on board, show up for practice on Tuesday, wave to the adoring fans, meet with reporters afterward and tell them, “I just want a chance to compete for my job and help this team” – even if he believed the competition was going to be a sham.

4. Quietly push for a trade or his outright release and wait for the Packers, facing the prospect of a season-long quarterback controversy and a $12 million tab for a player they had hoped would stay retired, to blink first.

Alas, Favre couldn’t help himself. On Tuesday, while still in discussions with McCarthy about his future, he took a break to call Mortensen and confirm what many of us had suspected all along: Favre, despite another public statement to the contrary (“My intentions have always been to play for Green Bay,” Favre had told the Sun Herald of Gulfport, Miss., before returning on Sunday), was the one who wanted out.

“The problem is that there’s been a lot of damage done and I can’t forget it,” he told Mortensen. “Stuff has been said, stories planted, that just aren’t true. Can I get over all that? I doubt it. … So they can say they welcome me back, but come on, the way they’ve treated me tells you the truth. They don’t want me back, so let’s move on.”

Move on is what most of Favre’s teammates were eager to do on Tuesday, even some of the Packers who’ve been most supportive of his return.

“I think it should end today,” veteran cornerback Charles Woodson said. “We should be talking about the team; instead, we’ve talked about one guy for the last five minutes. This is a situation unique to itself, and it has become its own monster.

“You’ve got fans out there yelling ‘we want Brett,’ yelling A-Rod this and A-Rod that, Ted Thompson this and Ted that. That’s not looking at the grand scheme of things. It’s not helpful at all. You’ve got fans that are die-hard Brett fans, and they’ve put that above the team.”

If Favre, by forcing the issue, did the Packers and his successor one favor, it was this: We’ve gotten a small taste of Rodgers’ demeanor under intense pressure, and to the young passer’s credit, he has kept his cool a lot better than the outgoing legend.

“Aaron Rodgers has done everything right,” McCarthy said during his news conference. Later, the coach talked about his conviction that Rodgers will succeed in his new role.

“You just have to believe in a number of things,” McCarthy said. “Number one, I think he’s prepared himself for this opportunity. I think he has the tools, physically, mentally, emotionally. I mean, you talk about what he’s been challenged with emotionally of late, this is great (training). Who’s had better training to play in the National Football League than Aaron Rodgers, and I think he’s handled it well.”

Hopefully, that maturity will start to rub off on Favre – and the fans who can’t find the grace to cope with the fact that their hero willfully abandoned them.

These Favre fanboys are like little girls at a Bon Jovi concert. Now Favre is a great QB, and a future HOFamer, but these cats make him out to be the GOAT. Please - he's not on the level of Joe Montana, Marino, Elway or Brady. But ESPN and the fanboys have elevated him to Michael Jordan/Tiger Woods status.

uPtoWnNY said:

Well, he's certainly on their level. Dude does own MOST of the all time passing records, so you can't ignore that.

But even with Favre's diva-ness, the Packers are dumb for not taking him back. The dude got them to the NFC title game and they don't want the dude back? I don't care who's fault it is with all this drama, it's about TITLES in the end. Fuck Aaron Rodgers and his feelings. He's a grown ass man, he can handle it, and if he can't, he shouldn't be in the NFL.

GB dropped the ball on this one.

MuthaFunka said:

Yup.

Ted Thompson was bound and determined to see his personal vanity project at the helm come hell or high water. Regardless of what you think about Favre and how he's handled this return from retirement, there can be no question that he presents the best chance for the Packers to win. This isn't a team that was on the cusp of rebuilding last season. They were one game away from the Super Bowl. Favre finished 2007 with over 4000 yards passing and was 2nd in MVP balloting.

From a pure football decision making perspective, this decision was beyond dumb and almost equally driven by ego by Thompson.

MuthaFunka said:

Yup.

Ted Thompson was bound and determined to see his personal vanity project at the helm come hell or high water. Regardless of what you think about Favre and how he's handled this return from retirement, there can be no question that he presents the best chance for the Packers to win. This isn't a team that was on the cusp of rebuilding last season. They were one game away from the Super Bowl. Favre finished 2007 with over 4000 yards passing and was 2nd in MVP balloting.

From a pure football decision making perspective, this decision was beyond dumb and almost equally driven by ego by Thompson.

violator said:

No one on the Green Bay team seems sorry to see Favre leave.

What does that tell you?

Personally, I hope he goes to the Buccaneers so I can boo him Thursday, August 28th at 7:00 PM in Reliant Stadium.

RodeoSchro said:

I don't know who constitutes "no one", but I specifically remember seeing a clip from Donald Driver on ESPN yesterday saying he was "relieved" to have Favre back on the team. Charles Woodson openly questioned why the Packers would even consider trading him in the first place.

If the Packers players were so on the side of management on this one, then why the issue with Favre reporting? You honestly think that the veteran players on that team, players who've played with Favre and built a rapport with him (after all, we're not talking about a locker-room cancer like T.O.) over the years were going to get on board with busting their asses on the field for the second best quarterback on the team?

Come now... don't drink all of the kool-aid.
[Edited 8/6/08 20:57pm]