Zero2Cool
I own a website
By Pete Dougherty
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As team Chairman and CEO Bob Harlan waited in the Soldier Field tunnel for the Green Bay Packers players to pass through after their victorious regular-season finale at Chicago on New Year’s Eve, he saw quarterback Brett Favre on the field surrounded by a cluster of reporters.
Harlan didn’t hear Favre’s interview with ESPN’s Andrea Kremer, when Favre made an ominous statement that his good play that night made his decision about whether to play in 2007 more difficult. That seemed to imply he was leaning toward retirement.
So after observing Favre’s ordinary behavior in the locker room that night, and even after hearing about the interview a little later that evening and then seeing segments on television the next morning, Harlan predicted Favre will return for his 16th season as the Packers’ quarterback and 17th in the NFL. Harlan says that remains his gut feeling today, though he hasn’t talked to Favre or discussed the issue much with General Manager Ted Thompson and coach Mike McCarthy.
“I felt that night in the locker room and I still feel today that he’s going to come back,” Harlan said Thursday afternoon. “I really have to be honest with you, I was the same way last winter and I never changed last winter. People say, ‘What makes you say that?’ and I guess just because he’s such a competitor. I guess as we get closer to (decision time) the competitor comes out in him and he wants to come back and do it again.”
It’s been 18 days since the Packers’ season ended, and both Favre and team officials have said he’ll decide his future much earlier than last year, when he informed the Packers the week of the NFL Draft, in late April, that he was returning in 2006.
In that same interview with Kremer, Favre said he’d decide in “a couple weeks” whether to retire this offseason. All signals from him and the Packers suggest he’ll give his answer by early-to-mid February, well before the start of free agency on March 2.
“Couldn’t tell you a timetable,” Thompson said, “but I think everyone’s clear that it will be soon, relatively speaking.”
McCarthy said early this week he hadn’t talked to Favre since the week the season ended, when he and Thompson told the quarterback they definitely want him back at his $11 million salary. Thompson said he hasn’t talked with Favre recently but expected to check in with him soon.
“I would think I’d either speak with him or he’ll call me within a few days,” Thompson said.
Sources who know Favre say he’s going through much the same soul searching as last year, when he weighed his desire to play the game he still loves against enduring yet another arduous offseason and training camp that goes with an NFL season, along with the time away from his family.
By all accounts Favre is confident that at age 37 he’s still playing at a high level, and he has more invested in returning this year after going through the growing pains this past season with two and often three rookies on his starting offensive line. He’s believed to be excited by those rookies’ development last year and potential for the future, and also for the team’s overall potential to improve.
The team also is more stable after going through a coaching change last year, and he knows he’s wanted.
“Brett’s still a good player,” Thompson said. “We wouldn’t ask him to come back if we didn’t think he could still play, I think that’s evidence enough.”
Last season also was more enjoyable overall for Favre and his wife, Deanna, who went to more road games than in previous years. The two had far less stress in their personal lives than in recent seasons, and Deanna had more fun because she did less entertaining of the family and friends who regularly come to Green Bay for games.
She and other family members are believed to be hoping he’ll play another season and reminding him of what former NFL quarterback Phil Simms said last year in a radio broadcast that made a strong impression when Favre heard it: When he retires, it’s over for good, and he’ll have the rest of his life to not play football.
However, other factors still weigh against Favre’s return.
For one, he no longer has any close friends his age on the team, which has taken some of the fun of the game from him. His two main golfing partners, Doug Pederson and Ryan Longwell, left the team the last two years, and he recently cancelled his membership at Oneida Golf & Country Club because he only played about three times last year.
Also, he’s been playing football for as long as he can remember, and aside from his own offseason conditioning work, the commitment to come back presumably includes attending all minicamps for veterans and most “organized team activities” in June, as well as a full training camp. He’s already been through that routine 16 times as an NFL player.
Favre also has become more family-oriented as he’s gotten older. He’ll see his oldest daughter, Brittany, off to college this fall, and has a second daughter, Breleigh, who is 7.
“I think when he says (family’s a part of the decision), that it’s true,” Harlan said.
Though Favre’s seemingly foreboding post-game interview with Kremer stunned many members of the Packers’ organization as well as his family and friends, most now are writing that off as him getting caught up in that moment, when even the thought of not returning brought out raw emotions.
Harlan said that in the locker room after the interview, Favre joked with teammates and showered with his usual post-victory demeanor, and made no announcement. So Harlan assumed nothing of note came out in the interview and is sticking with his gut instinct that Favre will return.
“I don’t know why,” Harlan said of his gut feeling. “I have no other answer than that he’s just such a competitor and wants to battle people.”
Kind of a weak article based on assumptions of knowledge, but not a bad read from the quotes from Harlan.
