One colunmnist's take on the Brett Favre drama

There's no question that the one topic on many lips these days is the Brett Favre situation. While I believe both sides may have been "offsides" at one time or another during the past five months or so, the bottom line is this: Football may be a game, but it is also a business. And, like any business, the Green Bay Packers organization needed a decision about Favre's intentions. Favre is the one who ultimately made the decision to retire - not anyone in Packers management. Then within a couple weeks of his emotionally-charged, early March retirement announcement, he reportedly wanted to un-retire himself and the Packers were apparently willing to accept his coming out of "retirement." But then, Favre did yet another about-face. At that point the Packers decided to move forward - a sound business decision in any arena, be it sports, manufacturing, or the service industry. After a couple months Favre began dropping "subtle" hints on late night shows or in other interviews and conversations with the media about possibly coming back and how something might happen once training camp time rolled around. Up and down the playing field Favre's indecisiveness went, with some additional comments thrown in about distrust of general manager Ted Thompson, etc. It continued until things became so acrimonious that the damage seemed irreparable.

Some believe Favre was playing a new kind of game - one in which he acted like a prima donna who was trying to call all the shots about his future, forgetting that at the end of the day, he is an employee, pure and simple. Others believe Favre made today's Packers what they are and, therefore, should be given anything he wants, no matter how it may affect, even disrupt, the rest of the team. Whether he was playing a game or was sincerely confused about his desires, he got reinstated, and came back to Green Bay on Sunday, but after meetings that followed said he couldn't get past certain things, left town yesterday afternoon and now has been traded to New York.

While I think Brett Favre is a great football player who did much for the Packers, I happen to be one of those who thinks that more of the blame for the situation we have today must be shouldered by Favre rather than by management. Perhaps one of the best editorials to support that position is this piece by Michael Silver for Yahoo Sports. It pretty accurately sums up how many of us feel about what has happened since March, in particular in the last couple of weeks. It also says something about the fans who would see no wrong in their boy Brett and would diss Aaron Rodgers for something clearly not his fault. After all, no matter where anyone wants to place blame in the Favre Fiasco, I would hope we could all agree that Rodgers is the one person who is totally blameless in this game of drama.