As everyone knows, Green Bay Packers president Mark Murphy announced that the number retirement ceremony for a certain ex Packer will not happen this year. That leaves just one year left (2015) before his induction into the Hall of Fame, an arbitrary deadline set forth by those pushing for the Packers to retire Brett Favre’s number.
At first glance, this latest installment of the Favre drama seems only to promise the postponement of what is perceived to be inevitable. In many ways, this is bad news because it just postpones the inevitable, distasteful affair in which droves of Packers fans, and to an even greater extent, Favre fans who donned enemy colors not too long ago get to celebrate their traitorous hero. I can just see those cretins now, who desecrate the Packers uniform by gerrymandering it with a purple Vikings one. Having seen too much already, the mere thought is enough to make me want to tear my eyes out.
In actuality, it may prove that the man’s inability to acknowledge his past actions in any meaningful way may prevent this from ever happening. This is because the man seems to demand absolute, lockstep adoration from all those in attendance, or at least from a vast majority to render any dissent invisible and unheard. One JSOnline commentator, PackfanNY, described the very crux of the matter quite succinctly:
When he walks on the field, most people will cheer him, some will boo him, and then it will be over, as it should be. Brett — you were an all time great NFL player. You should be honored as such. But you also have to respect those people who were upset by some of the things you did and said during your career. (emphasis added).
The last sentence seems to set forth a conditional proposition, namely that IF this man is to come back, he must acknowledge and respect the fact that some of us, the precise number of which cannot perhaps be properly ascertained, are rightly upset and will not shamelessly pander to Brett Favre like slobbering lapdogs after he waged a personal vendetta against our Packers. This is because we are not going away. This condition may never be met, because so far the man has proved incapable of doing precisely that.
From those who really want this to happen, Berty Judas is coming across as a baby. Steve “Homer” Treu has said as much. Bill Michaels characterized it as the same sort of egoism run amok that Berty put this fan base through for years. Of course, one marvels why there is such a hue and cry to bring a man back with such a long history of such unsavory behavior.
Pundits are now guesstimating, with no factual basis, that about five percent of fans likely to attend the game featuring such a ceremony will be those who decline to be so forgiving of such lechery. However, the comments sections on various articles are running about 60-40, maybe 70-30. I believe that this is the hard floor now after several years since the man retired — in enemy uniform, of course.
If this is true, Favre will not come back precisely because he demands absolute adoration from the vast majority of fans, while refusing to set forth any sort of genuine, meaningful mea culpa, or to even acknowledge those who rightly refuse to turn the other cheek. We may not need to petition Mark Murphy at all. Just make our voices heard. Write what you will on comments sections, Facebook, Twitter, or what have you. Call into those radio shows. Make your voices heard! As long as that voice is heard and heard loud, Favre won’t be coming back. To quote Bob Slydell from Office Space, in the end “it’ll just work itself out naturally.”
And that last demonstration of egosim from the greatest fucking asshole who ever lived might be the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back. The Packers and a majority of Packers fans wanted to honor him, even after such unprecedented betrayal and backstabbing, and he again let them down. It again proves what that Minnesota sports columnist gloated in Last Day at Lambeau: “Brett Favre does not care about you, Packer fans.”
Even the slow horse finishes the race. Choose not to be a slow horse more than you already have been, Packers fans.