Favre: when you’re brett, you’re a jet all the way

The Brett Favre “un-retirement” story may have reached a merciful conclusion after the Packers found a team even more desperate than the Tampa Bay Bucs to take their franchise QB turned albatross off their hands. Favre was dealt for a 4th round draft pick that escalates to a higher round based on certain performance characteristics. The Jets also released Chad Pennington to make room for Favre and he’ll presumably be the team’s starting QB, though for now they’re giving some lip service to an “open competition” between him and Kellen Clemens.

If more evidence were needed as to just how far Favre’s stock as a “character guy” has sunk, the Packers were so concerned about the potential for being “sandbagged “that they took the trouble of inserting a “poison pill” into the deal. Were the Jets to turn around and deal Favre to the division rival Minnesota Vikings they’d owe the Packers three first round draft choices.

Packers officials did manage to release this hastily worded statement with some semblance of a straight face:

"Brett has had a long and storied career in Green Bay, and the Packers owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude for everything he accomplished on the field and for the impact he made in the state”

Favre’s leadership skills will be put to the test on the NY Jets, a team that’s going nowhere fast. The Packers were a borderline playoff team, Favre’s “plan b” was a mediocre team in the Bucs and now he’s on a bad team that won’t be giving him any help. From the Jets’ standpoint, its not a bad move—they’ve now “bought themselves” a season to try and figure out how to rebuild the team with the Favre circus keeping the fans happy and excited, at least for the time being. Favre didn’t have a lot of options, but in the short term the fawning New York media and fans should be able to keep his “its all about me” ego gratified.

The big winner in the whole mess may be Chad Pennington, a heady veteran QB almost certain to land on his feet. With plenty of teams wanting depth at QB entering the season Pennington’s cell phone should be ringing frequently over the next week. Ultimately, he’ll be one injury away from a starting job on a better team and a perfect chance to revitalize his career.

Back in Green Bay, the consensus among the entire Packer organization is that they’re glad for their role in the fiasco to be at an end:

"The players want resolution, they want what everybody wants. To come out here every day and talk about somebody that is not here and then shows up, it's gone on too long, and understandably so. They want to play football."

In other words, the Green Bay Packers are once again happy to be a football team instead of the supporting cast in Brett Favre’s ego driven soap opera.