False story? Favre did use the phone to contact the Vikings. The Commish simply ruled it didn’t amount to tampering.
I think people are expecting Favre to show loyalty to the fans, I guess. Perhaps that’s unrealistic, but the fans in Green Bay kept cheering for that guy through lousy seasons, and they didn’t force him to retire, and now he’s paying them back by doing his best to piss on their memories of him by going to a rival.
That’s an emotional response, of course, and you and I can rationally agree that Favre doesn’t really owe anything to the fans, but at the same time they don’t owe anything to him, either. So he can take out his anger at Ted Thompson on the Packer fans, and he’s within his rights, but the cost will be a little part of his legacy with those same fans.
Whoever said being a fan was about being rational?
Well, sure, but no team is going to trade for him without asking if he wants to come there first anyway.
His trade value is more or less immaterial. He’s a 39-year-old player; it’s not like the Colts sending Marshall Faulk to the Rams so much as the Saints sending Ricky Williams to the Dolphins. Whatever you can get for a guy who’ll play one year, you take.
There was no team cell phone. Both Favre and Ted Thompson are saying that story was false.
God damn I am enjoying this saga. It just keeps getting better and better.
A small part of me hopes he ends up on the Vikings just so that Bernard Berrian’s fantasy value will go through the roof. Keeper baby!
As I said earlier, I think athletes are entitled to say in where they are playing or who they are playing for, because everybody else who works for a living has that right. But that changes when they start making moves that screw over their current employers - like making it clear in public that you will only play in certain places, thus putting your longtime and current employer over a barrel by preventing them from getting much in return for trading you. Favre has definitely moved into that territory regardless of whether or not he actually made the “beat their asses” comment.
Looks like some bridges have been burned, or nuked. McCarthy is now saying he doesn’t think Favre wants to be part of the team.
Anyone know why the Falcons seem to not be interested? He seems to be a perfect fit there. He’d be a short timer allowing Matt Ryan time to prepare and observe. Favre would be close to home. The Falcons might not be an immediate Super Bowl contender but they’d certainly be in the mix in that mediocre division for a playoff spot. Plus it makes a nice little marketing strategy with him going back to the team that drafted him, somewhat putting a bow on his legacy.
I hate the guy, so him going to the Vikes and fucking the Pack over while simultaneously imploding in the Metrodome where he’s historically struggled is the best outcome, but the Falcons seem like they’d at least be in the discussion.
It probably has more to do with the fat that Brett Favre would not beinterested in the Falcons.
Man, Brett Favre is pissed. I can’t possibly see a happy outcome in all this. The Packers can’t trade him to the Vikings or the Bears now. Do they pay him his salary and leave him on the inactive list all year, thus just eating $13 million?
Doesn’t explain why there hasn’t been a request. If you’re the Falcons it’d be good PR following the Vick scandal.
The latest rumors are to Tampa Bay. I don’t really see the Bucs as a Super Bowl contender, but they are reasonably close to Mississippi.
What is point of getting a no trade clause (He has some sort of no trade clause right? I’ve seen conflicting information.) if you aren’t able to use it?
The point of having a no trade clause is you don’t get traded if you don’t want to be. And yes, it also allows the player to accept a trade only to places he wants to go - we just saw this happen with Manny Ramirez, too. But when the player starts making it clear he’s only going to accept a trade to one place, the market is cornered and I think that makes it much harder for his current team to make a closer-to-fair trade. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth when that happens. When a top of the line player demands a trade, it’s one thing. When he demands a trade, which is going to hurt is own team in the short run and does it in such a way that it also hurts them more in the long run by giving them a lower return on the trade, it bothers me.
Meanwhile, it sounds like the newspapers in Green Bay and Tampa Bay are saying Favre has changed his mind and is okay with a trade to Tampa, which should be done within a day. I guess the Pack did hold firm on not trading him to Minnesota.
But there’s nothing stopping Tampa from flipping Favre right back to the NFC North, right? Once the Packers deal is done they get no more say in the matter. I can see Gruden going along with something like that just for fun.
Being a Packer fan living in Minneapolis I think Brett Favre going away to Tampa would probably be best for my enjoyment of the game.
The opening day game with the newly improved Tavarius Jackson led Vikings vs. the young Packer team led by Aaron Rogers guarantees a real football game where I can see how these teams are gonna fair for the season.
Put Brett Favre in the mix as QB for either team and all it’s going to be is the Brett Favre show.
If you’re a Bucs fan I hope you’re ready for a non-stop Favre blitz everday while all the other players take a back seat on page 9.
I’d be stunned - I mean, really, stunned - if that happened. This isn’t a local fantasy football league, where everyone involved is trying to needle each other at every opportunity. If Jon Gruden and Bruce Allen did something like that, Ted Thompson would never deal with them again. Other GMs - not every other GM, but at least some - would cast a wary eye in their direction, as well. Both Gruden and Allen might some day be unemployed themselves, and burning bridges with other professionals in your field just “for fun,” without even real on-field benefit, would be spectacularly foolish.
Not to mention, adding Favre to that Bucs team makes them considerably better. And in the NFC, “considerably better” could easily mean “Super Bowl contender.” I don’t think Gruden’s going to abandon that possibility just to spit in the eye of a colleague.
Fair enough, but dress it up a little differently. Pose it as the Vikings really WANT Favre and offered Tampa a trade that they couldn’t turn down, something with a bit more of a long term feel to it than a one year guy who might play like shite so that they’re “making the right decision” for the team, and presto. You could have an NFC Favre without rubbing anyones nose in it.
That could happen, but Jon Gruden has become famous for stockpiling quarterbacks. So if he trades for Favre I am sure he’s keeping him. Sounded like Chris Simms was going to get cut or traded, though, and they might have to get rid of whatever other third-stringer they had.