More Proof I Was Born 40 Years Too Late

I'm going through a really, really difficult time right now. I'm thinking about giving up watching the NFL for the season. I was thinking about it when Brett Favre retired, and I'm considering it much more strongly now that it looks like he might be unretiring... with a different team.

And I guess this all begs a question... yes, I am in love with him.

In all seriousness, though, this whole issue goes way, way back. Back to 1994 or 1995, when I was kicking ass and taking names on the blacktops of Tolenas Elementary school. I wasn't much into sports (unless you count Four Square and Jail Tag), but at some point I started reading the sports page, and checking the box scores, and noticing Green Bay at or near the top. So when I started watching football with my dad, I was watching the Packers. And when I watched the Packers, I watched Brett Favre.

The day he retired, I was eating breafast, turned on ESPN, and got blindsided by his press conference. He was in tears. The whole thing resulted in two things: I was almost late to class, which happens all the time; and I almost cried, which almost never happens (in fact, maybe I even did cry and just refuse to remember it).

It was a weird day.

The more I thought about it, I realized that it was the end of an era for me... and not as a Packers fan, or as a football fan, but as a sports fan. Football was the first sport I watched, and when I started watching it, I watched it for Brett. I've long told people he was my favorite athlete of all time - not football player, but athlete - because for me, he was the embodiment of everything I loved about sports. He was tough, he was flawed, he was rash, he was talented... and he loved to play, and never took that for granted. I got older, and got more into sports, and starting watching other games and other teams, but my sports life has always revolved around fall, football, Lambeau, and Brett.

So this year, I realized, was going to be my first season as a sports fan without Brett Favre. I wasn't sure if I could do it... and I'm still not sure if I can, no matter what happens. But the reality is that things got a lot uglier when the unretirement stuff started happening. When reports surfaced that Brett felt an "itch" to play again, I think I handled it with a little more cool than most Packers fans did, because, after all, how could you expect a guy who'd been playing a game he loved for his whole life not to miss it when the new season rolled around? It only made sense. And besides, I have to admit, I honestly thought Brett liked being with his family and riding around on his tractor too much to let the itch bring him back.

Nevertheless, before long, the itch got stronger, more reports surfaced, and things started to get surreal. We started to hear about phone conversations, and text messages, and Brett's agent, Bus. Finally, Brett himself came forward to speak, on Fox News - Fox News! - and talked about an irreparably damaged relationship with the Packers organization.

I think that might be when things got to be too much for me. And here's why: this situation is a about a whole lot more than whether or not a surefire Hall-of-Famer will come out of retirement with the only team he's ever really played for, or with another team. See, anyone who watches football, or maybe even just follows sports in general, will without a doubt tell you two things about Brett Favre:

1. He's fun to watch because he is always having fun; he loves to play the game.
2. He's a throwback.

I don't think that going to a different team will change (1). That is something completely intrinsic to Brett, and I'll continue to admire it, even if he plays for another team (if I'm actually watching football, that is).

The problem is with (2).

For me - and I'd guess that this is true for most football fans - Brett Favre has always been the last bastion of what sports used to be. He is decidedly different from most modern athletes:

He goes home with his family in the off season - to ride a tractor and take care of his land. Reminds me of Red Grange, who stayed strong in the offseason by delivering ice in his home town.

He isn't a sculpted athlete with a superhuman body manufactured by relentless hours in the weight room and other "substantive" practices. What he is, on the other hand, is tough and gritty. There's a lot of stories about this, but my favorite, probably, is the time he got a concussion, left the game, put himself back in the game without getting cleared by the medical staff, and then threw a touchdown on his one play before they noticed and yanked him for good. Oh... and he didn't remember the play after the game.

He is an old-fashioned player, a true pocket passer. He didn't have to prove his NFL legitimacy by showing that he could run and throw. He is in the tradition of Elway, Marino, and Montana - and I don't think you can really say that about anyone else left playing. He's the last of that breed.

He doesn't play by a code of maximized expected value. In other words, he doesn't have any aversion to risk-taking, even when its not the best idea. Too many teams and coaches in the current NFL would rather play it safe at every turn, because there is too much scrutiny not to. But not Brett. He throws way too many off-the-back-foot, into-too-small-a-window passes to ever have stood a chance at not becoming the all time leader in career interceptions. But we love him for it.

He is human. I'm sure Brett's agent does damage control like every other agent does. But we know Brett was addicted to painkillers and checked himself into rehab to save his marriage. We know how hard he took it when his father died, and when his brother-in-law died, and when his wife got cancer. We relate to the guy. We feel like he's one of us, the same way Steelers fans did with Terry Bradshaw.

At this point, I don't think its irrelevant to bring up the father-son factor, either. Maybe its a cheap trick, but its a valid one too, dammit. For all little boys who love sports, the story of their love of sports is really the story of their relationship with their fathers. And because of all the things above, Brett Favre was the one athlete who really connected me to the sports my dad watched, and who really connected me to him. My dad and I could love Brett together, my dad feeling like I was understanding what sports meant to him, and me feeling like I could idolize someone my dad did as well. And that, in a nutshell, is how sports connect fathers and sons.

All of that said, what is (hopefully) becoming clear is that the current "Favre Fiasco" is troubling to me because, when it comes down to it, it is the result of everything that Brett Favre represents running full steam ahead into modernity. In the past, all we knew of Brett's offseason was that he was in Kiln, Mississippi; all of a sudden, we know the content of his text messages! In the past, Brett's press conferences were only after games and were conducted in the same old Nike golf hat; now, he's airing his dirty laundry on "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren." That kind of stunt should be left to T.O. and Chad Johnson.

There's one more thing, and it deserves its own paragraph. Back in the day, you rooted for a team because that team represented your city. It was made up of men who gave their blood, sweat, and tears for your city. Pro sports started as localized clubs who played one another, and for a long time, athletes played for one team for their whole careers. They became heroes to their cities, their histories forever intertwined. But eventually, like everyone else, athletes started to follow the money. One of my favorite authors, Chuck Klosterman, likes to point out the absurdity of the fact that in modern sports, we are really just rooting for a jersey. We can't be rooting for a city's pride, let alone a team's identity, when that identity changes every year. But Brett was never a part of that. He was traded once, before he'd played even one meaningful game. His career was the Packers. He took a once-proud franchise to the top of the heap, and even if he only came out on top once, he kept them up there. He gave them back their pride and restored them to a place of honor they had long lost. And he only did it for them. But now, it seems, Brett would like to ply his wares for another team; to offer his services elsewhere for another shot at being King of the Hill.

To be honest, I can't fully blame Brett. He loves the game, after all, and that's what we love him for. I can blame him for not standing by the decision he made in March, or for announcing his decision before his mind was made up, or even for trying to leverage his legend status against Packer's management. But I can't blame him for wanting to keep playing.

What I can do, however, is mourn the passing of the last true throwback in major sports. I'm not sure if I'll actually be able to do that by not watching football for a whole year. But I do know that the mourning will take place. It'll take place when I refuse to talk to friends about the situation, or when my dad and I look at each other and shake our heads, or when I sit and look at my Brett Favre bobblehead, signed plaque, posters, or Sports Illustrated covers. Yes, the mourning will happen one way or another. And that's not a bad thing, because its justified. After all, it is the end of an era.

And I suppose the end of an era always marks the beginning of another one, and this new era will have its own heroes... it's just that, right now, I wish I had spent more time living in the last one.