Week 1 NFL picks

The start of the 2009 NFL season is upon us in tonight's Titans at Steelers matchup, and I can't remember feeling this unenthusiastic about it since 1998, the season that followed the Cowboys' 6-10 year that effectively ended their glorious dynasty of my youth. Once again, I blame my feelings on the Cowboys--after the hype-collapse roller coaster that has characterized their last two seasons, I'm wary of allowing myself to get too pumped, and when I'm not pumped about the Cowboys, I'm not pumped about the NFL.

In the pre-glory years of my early childhood, I was too young not to be hopeful, but even in the dark days of Dave Campo, Chad Hutchinson, and three straight 5-11 finishes, I couldn't wait for the offseason to end, probably a little bit because I didn't yet have a baseball habit to fill my summers, but mostly because I always felt the upcoming season would see the Cowboys finally find their way out of the rut they've been mired in since the Super Bowl years. I wouldn't be me if I weren't a little too excited about the Cowboys' chances from year to year, but the last two seasons hurt badly enough to have left me opting for an uncustomary wait-and-see approach. I'll watch every game and hope for the best, but I won't expect it. Even if I would still choose them to win the Super Bowl if you pressed me for an answer right now.

On to my picks, ranked according to the 1 (least certain)-to-16 (most certain) sliding scale we're using for some friendly wagering in the office:

Team	Winner	Points
Kansas City @ Baltimore	BAL	16
Dallas @ Tampa Bay	DAL	15
Jacksonville @ Indianapolis	IND	14
Detroit @ New Orleans	NO	13
Chicago @ Green Bay	GB	12
Washington @ NY Giants	WAS	11
San Diego @ Oakland	SAN	10
Miami @ Atlanta	MIA	9
St. Louis @ Seattle	SEA	8
San Francisco @ Arizona	ARI	7
Tennessee @ Pittsburgh	TEN	6
Denver @ Cincinnati	CIN	5
Buffalo @ New England	BUF	4
Minnesota @ Cleveland	CLE	3
NY Jets @ Houston	HOU	2
Philadelphia @ Carolina	PHI	1

I'll likely expand upon my rationale in future weeks, but for this set, I have just a couple of quick thoughts (gotta get home for the game, of course!):

• I picked Baltimore in my survival league this week, which I figured was reason enough to give them the 16. Otherwise, Dallas would have gotten it. (I can't help it.)
• Oakland got shut out through three quarters in their Week 3 preseason game. Week 3 (starters week). In preseason.
• I'm hopeful this year is the beginning of the end for the Pats' run, and I like Trent Edwards to Lee Evans/T.O., so I picked accordingly. The Pats' old-time, feel-good stalwarts are gone, Brady's 32 and returning from injury, and their corps of running backs is patchwork and aging, at best. Who's with me?

More Favre BS

Just saw on SportsCenter that Brett "S." Favre claims that the Jets knew about his torn biceps last season, and he was willing to defer to Kellen Clemens, but the Jets insisted that Favre play through it anyway. When has Favre ever given up a start to anyone? He's started 16 games a season every season since his third, playing through injuries to hold on to that lame consecutive starts record. Favre trying to defer to Clemens probably would have consisted of Favre making sure to get in his start, playing a series or two, then leaving the game. Or just staying in the game and throwing a bunch of picks. Which is what he did.

The second piece of Favre news today, because you know how much he likes headlines, is the shocker that he's predicting in advance that he "may not finish the year" because he doesn't know whether his body can handle a full season. If that's the case, then why let the Vikings pay you $12M this year? If he can't make it through a full season, what good is he? Even if he can, he'll throw a lot of picks and kill them in the playoffs if they get there, so what good is he? Sounds like cop-out bet-hedging to me.

My Favre prediction this year is 3,100 yards, 15 TD, 20 INT, and 16 starts. Because Favre would never miss a start, for the good of the team and because he loves playing football in his backyard so much. Or something.

A very (early) Cowboy thanksgiving, etc.

Over the weekend, Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman (second from left in the picture) once again made headlines for his off-field feats. Even if the accusations that he choked and "threw" girlfriend/"female acquaintance" Tila Tequila prove false, the fact that this is a story at all is reason #146 why I'm thankful the Cowboys drafted Demarcus Ware (far left) over Merriman with the 11th pick in 2005. I thought it was a "1 vs. 1A" choice at the time and very quickly came to appreciate that Ware was a much more multi-dimensional player. I'd have to say Ware won most Cowboys fans over to that opinion within his first two seasons, but fans from the rest of the league still didn't get it, and I still have friends who laugh whenever I assert this.

Here's the full comparison:

• Playing style: They both play the same position, but I'd probably characterize Merriman's play as one-dimensional beastness. He's tasked from week to week with getting to the QB, which he admittedly does very well, but that's about it. Ware, on the other hand, has been asked from the beginning to pass-rush, stop the run, drop back in coverage, do it from both sides, and he's done it all exceedingly well. Advantage: Ware.
• Intangibles: Merriman's already lost four games to a steroid suspension, performs a habitually-ridiculous celebration dance (Lights Out!), and tends to show a general lack of class (ask Jason Taylor circa January 2007). By the time this alleged Tequila incident happened... let's just say I won't be surprised if it's true. Ware, on the other hand, is generally such a nice guy that people including Bill Parcells have wondered how he can play with such ferocity on the football field. Advantage: Ware.
• Durability: Merriman's never played a full 16-game regular season, while Ware has played nothing but. Advantage: Ware.
  
• Stats: Merriman from 2005: 10, 17, 12.5, 0 sacks, respectively (39.5 career), and 190 total tackles (including assists). Ware from 2005: 8, 11.5, 14, 20 (53.5 career), and 299 total tackles. Advantage: Ware, even without considering how many of Merriman's numbers could be tainted because that's something I tend to excuse in football anyway.

Even when Merriman's Defensive Rookie of the Year award seemed to tilt the debate in his favor early on, I've counted myself among the Cowboys fans who recognize how much more than flash and sack totals D-Ware brings to the team, and it pleases me to see we're starting to become the majority. I'd take Ware over Merriman 100 out of 100 times.

With that settled, given the subject of my previous post, it would be poor form for me not to address the fact that not one, but two, more offensive coordinators were fired after Gailey last week. The Buccaneers fired former Boston College head coach Jeff Jagodzinski mere months after hiring him (which, in turn, had come quickly after BC fired him for merely interviewing with pro teams), and the Bills fired Turk Schonert before what would have been his second season calling the offensive shots.

Word is Jagodzinski just wasn't detail-oriented enough, which is something you'd hope to have determined in the interview. Raheem Morris claims he didn't feel Jagodzinski brought enough precision to the offense; it's only preseason, so you can't expect mid-season form, but sounds like it was due more to a flaw in Jagodzinski's style. More of an understandable firing because he didn't really have an NFL pedigree to evaluate beforehand. (My bad: he's got eight years of prior NFL experience. I should have done my homework, kind of like the Bucs! Looks like this misstep was inexcusable after all.)

The Schonert firing, however, seems a totally reactionary panic move in what's often ballyhooed as "a copycat league." Head coach Dick Jauron admitted he really didn't plan this move too far in advance; rather, he just went with the thought when it arose, something I highly doubt would have happened had Gailey and Jagodzinski not already gotten the hook.

Interestingly, both Tampa and Buffalo promoted assistants to fill the vacant role, which makes sense, since both Morris and Jauron are defensive guys. Tampa can barely figure out its quarterback situation and isn't really expected to do much anyway. T.O. acquisition aside, Buffalo's trying to hand over more and more of the big positions to younger players, so it's understandable that Jauron wanted a simpler (Schonert has said "Pop Warner") offense, but this move doesn't stand to have a huge impact one way or the other either.

All three of the coordinator firings speak to a set of bad teams in turmoil, but I think they also speak to the short attention span and quick trigger that has become increasingly characteristic of the NFL in recent years. This is why you see young players labeled busts if they need a few years to mature--they're usually released before they get that shot. It's why you see teams draft quarterbacks, start them too soon, then yank them for veteran has-beens the second they struggle. Teams just aren't willing to put up with a losing season or two while their kids develop, which tends to result in even more prolonged losing. One of many great things about Bill Parcells was his willingness to let young players develop. He always thought his draft classes should start to produce by the third season, not necessarily right away, and his QBs got even more time: Chad Pennington learned behind Vinny Testaverde into his third season, and Tony Romo hung around as a small-school undrafted free agent before getting his definitive shot in his fourth season (granted, in Romo's case, you have to credit Drew Bledsoe for being so downright immobile, unvisionary, and overall terrible that one more week wasn't an option). Now, after the 2008 successes of Joe Flacco (not really that good--look it up) and "handsome" Matt Ryan (better, but not great), we'll see an even more pronounced lack of patience with young quarterbacks. I shudder to think that Troy Aikman might have been dismissed as a bust after his winless (0-11 before he was yanked for Steve Walsh. Oh and eleven!) rookie season in today's league.

Good luck, Matt Stafford.

P.S. As for the other two guys in the picture at the top of this post, I'd take Terrell Suggs on my team, but Mike Vrabel's underratedness was so overrated that he became overrated, and now he's on his last legs anyway. Maybe he'll see some more touchdowns in Kansas City now that Tony Gonzalez is gone.

There's a time and a place, and other news

Chiefs remove Gailey as offensive coordinator
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Three games into the preseason, and Chan Gailey's out as Chiefs offensive coordinator. While one could argue that it's better to make this sort of move now rather than in-season (in fact, my friend just made this argument, which inspired this post), that argument misses the point that it would have made far more sense to have made this move when the new regime took over in the offseason.

Todd Haley's a first-time head coach, whose role as o-coordinator for the overachieving AZ Cardinals Super Bowl team last year made him a trendy-enough pick to overshadow a series of public personality clashes with his receivers in Dallas and Arizona. The NFL's so obsessed with the Next Big Thing; the success of first-timers John Harbaugh (Ravens) and Mike Smith (Falcons) had a bunch of teams searching for first-year guys of their own this offseason, which I think led to guys like Haley and Josh McDaniels (Broncos) getting their shot a little prematurely, particularly in Haley's case--I don't think you can just gloss over those spats he had with T.O. and Anquan Boldin (I give him until Week 8 to alienate Larry Johnson, which isn't hard to do, but still...). Anyway, I find it hard to believe that a first-timer like Haley didn't have his own guy in mind to bring with him as offensive coordinator. How does Haley get his big shot and stand pat with Gailey, the guy who coordinated one of the worst teams in the league last year (2-14 record), whose offense was seventh-worst (291 points scored), all under a blundering head coach best remembered for the fact that, hel-LO?! He PLAYS. To WIN. THE GAME.??? Maybe I'm still biased against Gailey for his inability to make the most of Troy Aikman's twilight years as Cowboys head coach in the late 1990s; regardless, I don't see how Haley didn't bring in his own guy. Now he'll really have no one to pin blame on if the offense keeps sucking, which, whether behind Matt Cassel (just injured), Brodie Croyle (really?), or Tyler Thigpen (double-really?), it probably will.

In other news, Vin Scully just broke news of two huge acquisitions during the game. Jim Thome and Jon Garland are now Dodgers. They just showed Garland being escorted from the DBacks' dugout. Thome has always annoyed me for some reason that may have no more weight behind it than the fact that I hate the Phillies and don't like the way he wears his socks, just as I've always liked Garland for reasons equally unknown. I think that one goes back to my '04 or '05 fantasy baseball team. Fortunately, the Dodgers didn't trade away anyone good, but that's more because they don't have anyone good left who isn't already on the 40-man. Gotta love Colletti's persistent approach of trying to solve holes in the roster by throwing as many players as possible at them. By that, I mean I don't love it; that's the kind of approach that leads to a close trading relationship with the Devil Rays before they were good, or inviting Esteban Loaiza to Spring Training and letting him have too many starts, or anything having to do with Mark Sweeney. At least these latest moves don't seem as half-baked as many of the others; I'm willing to see them out.

P.S. Darn it, Rusty Ryal. Who names a kid Rusty without it being short for anything? Apparently, Mark Ryal does. Dodgers down 4-3 in the 10th now. Blah.

EDIT: That same friend has already pointed out that, because Haley's an offense guy, the assumption was that the offense was already going to be largely his product anyway, or he'd be heavily involved at the very least. Yes, that may be true, but if anything, that makes the attempt to go into the season with Gailey even more questionable. If it was just a wait-and-see, maybe-this-can-work approach, then I think Gailey has a long enough track record in the NFL for Haley and GM Scott Pioli to know Gailey's and Haley's offensive styles aren't very compatible in advance of this little experiment. Either Haley should have brought in his own guy, or he should have just had full reign from the start. All I'm saying is the Chiefs shouldn't have had to make this move this close to the regular season.

Welcome back, Brad Penny?

Apparently, the Red Sox have released former Dodger (and Marlin) Brad Penny, and two of the three National League teams interested in him are in the West. I say let the Rockies or Giants have him. Welcome back, even. Apart from a couple of great Opening Day starts, he was worthless, and I wouldn't mind the Dodgers facing him a few times down the stretch. If I had to make a list of my least favorite Dodgers since 2002, he'd hold a pretty high ranking on it. In fact, now that I've mentioned it, here's the list:

A Sporting Blog's 10 Most-Hated* Dodgers Since 2002:

• Tie: 1. J.D. Drew: Give a crap for once, and stop looking at strike 3. Jerk.

• Tie: 1. Andruw Jones: @#$%&!!

• 3. Jeromy Burnitz: I like to remember him as "No-Hitz Burnitz." To be more exact, "No-Hitz-Except-for-Solo-Home-Runs-After-the-Dodgers-Have-Already-Fallen-Irreparably-Behind" Burnitz.

• 4. Shawn Green: Was it the bleach-white batting gloves? Was it the penchant for grounding into double plays? Or was it the refusal to get his uniform dirty, all of his outfield dives punctuated by a sort of weak fall forward accompanied by a grimace?

• 5. Brad Penny: Get everyone's hopes up with a great Opening Day/Week start. Get injured and suck (in interchangeable order). Repeat.
  

• 6. Mark Sweeney: How can one make an entire career out of pinch hitting when one never actually gets any hits as a pinch hitter? On top of that, he called out Matt Kemp and some of the other youngsters for not deferring to his veteran presence? I'm sorry not everyone wants to listen to you talk about how to have an OPS+ of 12. To top it off, I still have to see his bald mug on the Dodgers post-game show.

• 7. Juan Pierre: Five years. $9M per. Vin Scully once said of Pierre's arm during a game, "He tries, but he just can't do it." When will it end?

• 8. Daryle Ward: He slugged .193 with the Dodgers and always looked like he was hungry for cheeseburgers. The day he hit for the cycle with the Pirates ranks among the most high-incredulity moments of my life.

• 9. Odalis Perez: Two or three near no-hitters ruined by Shawn Green's unwillingness to make a play aside (see #4 above), no Dodgers pitcher in recent memory has come up smaller in big games, and then had the gall to blame his teammates anyway. He would define "Clubhouse Cancer" if not for Mark Sweeney (see #5). Getting released by the Nationals for not showing up to spring training seems a fitting end to this career.

• 10. Randy Wolf: He might be the most irrational item on this list. Maybe it's the resemblance to Ron Howard, but I don't feel comfortable relying on him in a big situation, even though he's pitched better than anyone else on the Dodgers' staff for the past month or so. He always seems to slip up just enough not to win. Wolf's slew of no-decisions aren't the same as Derek Lowe's slew of no-decisions the previous four seasons. It's a qualitative judgment based on my own observations, but I'll stand by it.
  

Honorable mention:

• 1. Brent Mayne: Dodgers were supposed to swing a 3-way with Arizona in the LoDuca trade in 2004 to get Charles Johnson, but he didn't want to come back to LA, so the Dodgers got stuck with Brent Mayne. What a black hole.

• 2. Ex-Rays: It's not their fault Ned Colletti was dumb enough to trade for them in 2006 (only to re-trade many of them only a few months into the season), but good grief. Toby Hall, you didn't play because you weren't better than Russell Martin at the time. Danys Baez, no one liked you because you sucked.

• 3. Luis Gonzalez: D-back pinhead.

• 4. Ricky Ledee: He sucked and had the face of a burnt lobster to boot.

*I say most-hated rather than most-disliked because, while I generally try very hard to like people and not throw around the word "hate" lightly when it comes to people (vs. things), these guys made/make me irrational to the point that "hate" is a better description. For example, I feel like if I were to meet Andruw Jones on the street, I'd kick him in the face.

More on punting at Cowboys Stadium

ESPN.com NFL East blogger Matt Mosley recaps last night's inaugural (preseason) game at new Cowboys Stadium, including some humorous notes on the punting incident: http://myespn.go.com/blogs/nflnation/0-10-259/Jerry-s-open-house-a-huge-success--owner-says.html. I'm with Jerry on this one: the board stays, and people need to punt around it. For everything Jerry may be, no one has ever questioned his knack for putting on a show.

About to head to Dodger Stadium to see knuckleballer Charlie Haeger in person. It continues to amaze me that there are still pitchers out there actively attempting to be knuckleballers because they always strike me as such novelties, curiosities even. Whatever gets you to the big leagues, I suppose.

Bigger is better and other Cowboys observations

Troy Aikman, how I've missed you. Watching the Cowboys' preseason game vs. Tennessee, and the new stadium looks gorgeous, much-touted field-length HD big-screen included. Holy cow, it's big--definitely does Texas and the Cowboys justice. As big as it is, Jerry Jones has asserted repeatedly that it's high enough never to interfere with play, but half-way through the third quarter in the very first game played on the new grounds, a Titans punt hit it and dropped dead around midfield, and I thought it was AMAZING. You'd think something like that would be considered a quirk of the field of play and ruled the football equivalent of baseball's ground-rule double (what would that be?), but instead, in what continues to become ever-more-stifling NFL protocol, it was ruled a replay of the down. That's probably the right decision--can you imagine every other team in the league putting up some huge obstruction in the name of enhancing home-field advantage? Could have had an interesting wrinkle with that. And yes, I'll readily admit you'd never hear the end of it were we talking about FedEx Field and the Redskins instead.

As for the game itself, I can't tell you happy I am to have Mat McBriar back. Bill Parcells always touted the importance of winning the field-position battle and not neglecting "hidden yardage," and McBriar's season-ending injury against the Cards last year was a hugely-overlooked factor in the Cowboys' second-half decline last year. I suppose teams can survive with mediocre punters, but once you've had a Pro Bowl punter, you recognize the difference a guy like that makes. What were the other big factors? I'd rank them in the following order:

1. Kyle Kosier's injury: No team can survive a hole at left guard. Kosier went down, and suddenly the running game declined, and Romo/Johnson got sacked more often. Good thing in all that was finally arriving at a verdict on Cory Procter: back-up.
2. Felix Jones's injury: Nothing excited me more about the Cowboys in training camp last year than watching them install plays for Felix Jones. Lots of screens, backfield motion, lining up in the slot, and lining up alongside Marion Barber rather than always spelling him. He proved his worth immediately, averaging almost nine yards per carry in the five games he played. He's more dynamic than Barber, and the Cowboys missed that element until "discovering" Tashard Choice toward the end of the season.
3. Brad Johnson: It was pretty obvious in training camp that Johnson had nothing left, so I don't know why the Cowboys went into the season with just two quarterbacks on the roster. You'd like to think your backup could at least perform serviceably if called upon--you know, go at least .500 if your starter's going to miss a few weeks--but Johnson was so unserviceable that the Cowboys had to sign Brooks Bollinger. Brooks. Bollinger. Johnson displayed about as much field awareness as Drew Bledsoe, repeatedly held onto the ball too long, and couldn't throw a pass longer than 10 yards. It was like having to line up permanently in the red zone, only without the immediate possibility of scoring: short field, receivers all crammed into the small space in which Johnson could actually throw. What a failure.
4. Tony Romo: Reason #3 makes no sense without at least mentioning Romo. Already lacking Kosier and Jones, Romo's pinky injury vs. Arizona causing him to miss four weeks basically ended the Cowboys' season in week 6. Then, he came back with the team dynamic a shambles, not completely healed, lacking run support, and unable to find decent protection from his line. Of course, still hurt and with all the pressure on him to play savior, he reverted sickeningly often to the Favrian tendencies Parcells always hoped to exorcise. Not to mention all the drama, which I won't because I think that stuff's overrated even though Troy himself disagrees.
5. Poor tackling: I like to attribute this to the fact that the Cowboys practiced without pads for most of training camp, which obviously meant no tackling. I got it from a first-hand source that some of the players appreciated the rest, but were concerned re: the lack of practice with respect to their tackling. It showed. Sloppy, undisciplined season for the defense. Why's discipline always a problem for the Cowboys on both sides of the ball? Topic for another day, perhaps.
   
6. Jason Garrett may have gone to Princeton, but he can't make adjustments: speaks for itself.
   

Anyway, glad McBriar's back. Now I'll wait and see whether Nick Folk starts landing his kickoffs inside the five.

How convenient

While listening to the Dodgers' blatantly-homer, yes-man postgame show, my thoughts naturally turned to today's hero, Russell Martin. I've spent a lot of time over the last couple of days lamenting the premature decline of what was once a promising career; after I heaped half the blame for the Dodgers' 3-2 loss to the Cardinals last night on his throwing error in the 9th inning, Martin went and made me look temporarily foolish tonight by grand-slamming L.A. to a 7-3 win over the Cubs. (In case you're wondering, 30 percent of the blame went to Clayton Kershaw for his poor start, 10 percent went to Jonathan Broxton for blowing the game following Martin's error, and 10 percent went elsewhere, obviously. This is all very scientific.)

Where the post-game show, Martin, and my lamenting come together is in the commentators' now-trite prediction that tonight's grand slam could prove the turning point in the catcher's season (.261 avg/.362 OBP/.685 OPS with 3 HR and 34 RBI before tonight). Unfortunately, I just don't think it's going to happen this year, and it wouldn't surprise me if he never turned it around. Do the math on that OPS, and you'll figure a slugging percentage of .323: he's become a singles hitter of Cesar Izturis proportions (no, really: check it out). Losing 70 points in slugging in two straight seasons will understandably set off the roider flag for a lot of people, but I honestly think we can attribute the power decline to the sheer volume of innings he's caught since coming up in 2006. It's not like his former home runs have started to fall dead at the warning track--he's almost a pure groundball hitter now, and while he still has a very good eye, he's got a much slower bat.

Martin's worn down, his workload both culminating in and exemplified by his appearance in the 2008 All-Star Game, when he caught 10 innings despite the fact that Brian McCann was still available. Ten innings in the ALL-STAR GAME for a guy whose only "rest" the previous two seasons consisted of switching to third base for a few innings here and there. Obviously, those 10 innings didn't do him in all on their own, but I remember feeling angry at the time and thinking it was a perfect encapsulation of the way his managers have abused him. This was a purely observational opinion, but the good folks at Fan Graphs recently provided statistical vindication. (If you don't regularly read Fan Graphs ..., stop reading this, and go read Fan Graphs.)

Overusing Russell Martin quickly became one of the consistencies between the tenures of Grady Little and Joe Torre, and under those two managers, Martin has caught the most innings in the majors since his call-up. I remember Torre using John Flaherty a lot more often behind Jorge Posada with the Yankees during my college years; a logical explanation would seem to be lack of confidence in Martin's backups, but Torre sure gave a lot of at-bats to guys like Mark Sweeney without any proof of performance last year. Now that the Dodgers have a viable back-up catcher in Brad Ausmus for the first time since David Ross's fluke year supporting Paul LoDuca in 2003, Martin has rested a bit more this year (fifth in at-bats among catchers going into tonight), but I don't think he can uncatch all of those innings, and I don't think I'm alone among Dodger fans who would have rather taken their lumps with Toby Hall, Mike Lieberthal, and Danny Ardoin once every 10 days than have to see our young all-star worn down so quickly.

What can the Dodgers do about it, though? Russell's one of my favorites--I'm half-Mexican, and we Mexican girls love our Dodgers catchers--but his performance has dropped off to what I think is such an irreparable level that I wouldn't be completely sorry to see him go. Unfortunately, the Ned Colletti Brain Trust threw the Dodgers' best catching prospect into the Casey Blake trade last year instead of paying $2M more of Blake's salary, and because Carlos Santana is now the top prospect in the Indians organization, I'm bracing for a lot more dead worms in the Dodger Stadium infield for the foreseeable future. At least Torre has finally stopped confusing Matt Kemp for Martin and batting Kemp eighth.

I just couldn't take it anymore

I'd been meaning to start this blog for about a year now, but deciding on a title, finding motivation to write consistently, and a few other things had gotten in the way... until this. While the picture at right, kindly sent to me by my colleague John Paul, pretty much speaks for itself, why should I let it speak for itself when I can rant about its subject at great length instead? In fact, one of my top five reasons for starting this blog is to provide an outlet for my Brett Favre tirades because I'm pretty sure everyone who knows me is sick of hearing them.

This latest flip-flop raises the same questions I've asked on an annual basis since the first time Favre threatened retirement 4-5 years ago. Can he really not stay away? Can he really not function without the hourly press conferences and all eyes focused on him? Is he afraid he'll forget what it feels like to throw carelessly off his back foot into triple coverage? A year ago, I wondered whether he just missed the outrageous, irrational lovefest that characterized Packers fans' feelings toward him, but now that he's successfully put an end to that, what's left?

It can't be concern for his legacy that keeps him coming back. Between the fact that he hasn't been a decent playoff quarterback since before the 2001-2002 season and the way he's shamelessly held on through multiple injuries to mow down every longevity-based record in the book, or maybe the way he deliberately, and very publicly, refused to mentor Aaron Rodgers, or maybe the way he has openly tried to gain revenge on the franchise--and, consequently, the fanbase--that let him hold on too long in the first place, I would argue he doesn't have a legacy left to tarnish. One Super Bowl victory 12 years ago and three consecutive MVPs in a between-era talent vacuum? Check the numbers on Kurt Warner, and you'll find a strikingly similar career trajectory for a much more humble, likable guy. If one draws out Favre's credentials over what's become a longer and longer career and examines them within the context of the extreme self-interest that has marked his last five years in (and out) of the NFL, I think he has to at least question whether Favre's a first-ballot Hall of Famer anymore. It would be hard to believe Brett Favre hasn't thought of this, but he just might be that blinded by his own self-concept. Think about it.