that Favre guy..

Unless you live under a rock, you have heard by now that Brett Favre is about to play football for the Minnesota Vikings.

There is all manner of banter out there about this situation. There are some of us who feel that the guy should just retire. Others think he should be playing for green bay. Still others cheer him for his enthusiasm.

I'm on the fence. Here is what I know of the man.

I remember the first game that he played for the Packers. They kept calling him Brett Favvvray. But they talked about him a lot during the game. I dont recall the score, or even whether they won. I do remember that there was a lot of buzz about this young quarterback.

I remember a ton of risky, and not risky passes that led to interceptions. I remember a lot of those same kind of passes that led to touchdowns.

I remember a player who had so much excitement in him to be playing the game that he never missed a start. I remember a ton of records that were set by number four.

Mostly, I remember a time in my life during which I actually cared enough about the game of football that I didnt miss watching a game. Those of you who know me well also know that it is saying something when you think of me being a religious sports fan.

There is not another venue for football that Brett could have chosen and would have been as successful.

Im talking about the images that football teams carry with them, and the attitudes of the fans here. There are teams out there who are regarded as glamourous. Consistently challenging. Ugly but scary. Daring. The list goes on and on. Picture any NFL team and it seems as though it is easy to come up with some adjective that defines the image and skill of them. The Cowboys have a very glamourous town, They players date movie stars. The team owner, well hell, you get the point. The steelers are one of the most consistently playing teams out there, but it seems as though they wont hire anybody that isnt scary looking.

And then there are the Green Bay Packers. This team is owned by the city. And its not a very big city. The residents of our area are hometown, normal folks. We drive chevrolets and fords. We even wear cheese on our heads and our blaze orange parka's to the game. No place else could have loved a hometown guy like favre the way that packer fans did.

His tenure here was a great era in green bay football. Around here, the term "glory years" comes up in conversation often, and it is because it was a really long time between those times when Green Bay had a really good football team. I consider his stay here to be part of the glory years.

Brett had the ability to make superstars out of every position on the field. His enthusiasm and love for the game was contagious. And it was visible whenever he played.

Shoot, Green Bay invented the Lambeau Leap, and that alone speaks volumes about the relationship between our fans and our players.

So he's going to play football this year. For one of our biggest rivals. Anybody that is upset about this needs to remember that we certainly didnt make him feel as though he could come back and play for us.

This is one of those times when we have to be able to separate our interests. ARe we Packer fans or football fans. If we are Packer fans, we should be cheering Brett on with all our might. We all know that we have never had as much fun as we had watching him play for the Pack, so why not be happy that he is still playing? As foot ball fans, crap, its the same thing.

I say Go Pack Go. And if we happen to beat Favre and the Vikings, which we will, more power to it. At the same time, I wish Brett Luck, and can tell you that I will be cheering the guy on every chance I get. Unless the Packers are on.