‘The Gunslinger’ Favre says he’s hanging it up for good

Where have we seen this before?  A year after retiring for the first time, then ‘un-retiring’ in a plodding “will I or won’t I play?” display, then forcing the Green Bay Packers to peddle him off to the New York Jets, then all but forcing the Jets to fire head coach Eric Magnini, Brett Favre has retired again.  This time, however, “The Gunslinger” says it’s for good.

Favre contends that even heading into his original retirement press conference—the one last year with all of the tears while he was still a Green Bay Packer—he knew that he was retiring too early.  This time, the Jets have already placed Favre on the ‘reserve’ list meaning the paperwork has already been filed with the NFL.  Favre played poorly down the stretch as he suffered from a number of physical ailments.  This time around, he sounds much more serious about leaving the game:

"I have family and friends who are like, 'All right, Brett. Is this the real deal. To me, it is. It is. Believe me. It's been a wonderful career, I couldn't ask for anything more. It was worth a shot for me to go to New York. I wish I could've played better down the stretch. I didn't.

"It's time to leave."

He also addressed the effects of his shoulder injury on his play down the stretch:

"It's something that obviously I was able to play with. I don't think I was nearly as productive as the season progressed, but it very well could be fine next year. I'm well aware of that. But then again, it could linger and bother me throughout the year and I just felt like it was time. I think that, to me more than anything, was a wakeup call."

He also said that had his physical pain not been so acute that he may have reconsidered:

"Emotionally, I'm OK with it," said Favre, who spent the day on his bulldozer and doing yard work on the grounds at his home in Kiln, Miss. "I really felt like it was time. Obviously, the circumstances last year were a lot different. Physically, if I felt better, we may not be having this conversation, but I think that's more than anything the writing on the wall."

Jets owner Woody Johnson maintained that acquiring Favre was the right thing to do:

"With Brett, there was always the possibility that he wouldn't play the second year. We were hoping to get one good year out of Brett Favre. We picked him based on, in our opinion, his giving us the best chance to win last season. We were disappointed not to have made the Super Bowl, but we did some very good things with Brett."

The Jets’ QB job is now wide open, with Kellen Clemens, Erik Ainge and Brett Ratliff all expected to compete for the starting position.