Channel 12 WISN just reported that they saw Frank Winters show up at Favre’s house recently - I believe right after TT and Mark Murphy left this afternoon. I’m comforted that Winters is there right now - hopefully he might be able to help bring Favre closing to a resolution of some kind.
Okay, if you’re still reading then you’ve got low standards. Good. Roy Cummings with the Tampa Tribune is reporting that Brian Griese is unexpectedly missing from the Buccaneers practice this afternoon, something he says could mean that Griese is involved in a trade with the Packers for Favre.
But Cummings caveats the heck out of his speculative report and earlier this afternoon he wrote a lengthy post about why a trade to the Bucs was unlikely.
Is there anything to it? We link, you decide.
Okay, we’ve got typos in our copy every now and then and they’re writing on deadline. But these guys are professional journalists
Brett Favre and Packers coach Mike McCarthy agreed the record-setting quarterback’s presence at the team’s training camp in Green Bay, Wis., was “a distraction.”
Favr eleft the Green Bay practice facility this afternoon and did not attend practice, according to ESPN. The network also reported the team will hold a meeting at some point to disucss traded possibilities. The Packers do not want to trade Favre to the Vikings or another NFC North team, which is where Favre has said he wants to go.
Oh, it’s the Minneapolis Star-Tribune…
UPDATE: Comment of the year so far comes from Triple D: “I’ve said ‘disucss’ all along. I still think disucss. I hope disizovasoon.
Kevin Seifert, who runs ESPN.com’s NFC North blog, reports that Brett Favre and Ted Thompson are at Favre’s house talking about potential trades. Seifert also reports on the scene at Lambeau, where some fans are chanting, “We Want Brett!” and one shouted at Mike McCarthy “You’ve got nowhere to hide!
It seems to me that the fact that Favre and Thompson are talking about trades makes a deal with Minnesota less likely than a deal that sends him elsewhere. Favre has said that he’d like to be traded there, most recently this morning, and if the Packers had worked out a trade that would give him his wish, I doubt he and Thompson would bother getting together at all.
I hope that Ari Fleischer has at least told the Packers that whatever they say in meetings such as this one is likely to be distorted and then made public in an effort to make them look bad. For some strange reason, Thompson has not yet figured that out on his own.
I’m still thinking the Bucs but Sirius NFL radio is reporting that the Jets are not out of the mix yet.
It is no secret I want Favre on the field. But his inability to communicate anything privately is inexcusable. His ESPN interview is a joke. Sir Stephen Hayes is dead-on about the growing pile of BS Favre is dumping on Lambeau. He says he wants punchers chance at the starting job. They apparently offered it — and now he thinks that is not best for the team. I don’t think even old Bus Cook could stop himself from choking on that line.
I know Favre is posturing - and much better than TT and Ari at doing so. But it’s hard to read his comments and think he will be back on the field anytime soon. Consider this:
“The problem is that there’s been a lot of damage done and I can’t forget it. Stuff has been said, stories planted, that just aren’t true. Can I get over all that? I doubt it.”
Favre says the unforgivable sins were leaked stories such as the one that he considered unretiring in March, which I think the evidence proves is largely true, and the cell phone scandal, which the evidence shows was false.
“Then,” Favre said, “they tried to buy me off to stay retired.”
Why can’t he keep his mouth closed for one day to see how the meetings proceed and progress. If he wants a trade - and it is clear he wants to play for the Vikings - then his best bet is to dupe the Vikings into forking over a round one pick now. He won’t accomplish this by disclosing through his spokemen, I mean ESPN, that he plans to force his way out of town.
Cooler heads can still prevail, and I certainly hope they do. But TT and Favre are like a divorced couple who beat and battered each other and lost all capacity for context and forgiveness. And it us, the children of the Pack, who suffer.
For a month Brett Favre has maintained that he just wants to return to the Packers and chance to compete to be the starter at quarterback. And for a month he has thrown the team into chaos to get what he wants. And now that Mike McCarthy has essentially given him what he wants, Favre has changed his mind. Again.
“Mike told me, hey, we’re a better team with you on it but wanted to know if I have a problem with an open competition,” Favre said. “I don’t have a problem with competing — you know that, but Aaron should be the starter right now because he’s been out here all this time. This is more than about an open competition and I can do that, absolutely, but this is going to be mass confusion and that’s not good for this team.
So now he’s concerned about the team? Does he expect anyone — even the most diehard Favre lover — to believe his nonsense?
Here is what he said to Greta Van Susteren two weeks ago, when she said “I take it you like being a Packer.”
I can’t imagine being with anyone else, or haven’t envisioned being with someone else. That has always been my focus. As I said then, I will say now, really as I’ve said my whole career, playing in Green Bay is … there is nothing like it. There is nothing like that. It’s one of those things, it was destiny. A kid from south Mississippi, a lot like Bart Starr. Who would have ever thought that I would go to Green Bay and have the career I had?
And it’s unfortunate that it’s come to this. I’m sure there are a lot of fans that are thinking, from what they’ve heard, that Brett is a traitor, he wants to go play elsewhere. That’s not true. I was told that playing in Green Bay was not an option. Regardless of what you hear from up there. I’m not making it up. I was told that playing in Green Bay was not an option. Then I was told that we can’t envision you playing for another team as well.
Got that? You fans who thought — “Brett is a traitor, he wants to go play elsewhere” — Favre thinks you’re stupid. And now, by his own account, the Packers have offered to open up the quarterback competition which Favre, by his own account, would win — and he doesn’t want to do it.
And then, in the very same interview, he reiterates his desire to play for the Minnesota Vikings or the Chicago Bears.
Good riddance, Brett. Good riddance.
In his comments to ESPN, Favre also said that the Packers “tried to buy me off to stay retired.”
He seems to think the offer was insulting. But why, then, did we see several stories — sympathetic to Favre and almost certainly leaked by his camp — reporting first that he was considering the offer, and later that he was trying to squeeze more out of the Packers. This guy is unbelievable.
ESPN is reporting that the Packers and Brett Favre are at a “stalemate” and that Favre believes the best thing is for them to “part ways.”
This report at profootballtalk.com, citing NFL Network’s Adam Schefter, claims that the Packers were discussing potential trades with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers yesterday. That’s encouraging, if true, and consistent with Mark Murphy’s bizarre statement from Sunday that the Packers would turn this situation to their advantage.
The mere fact of such a report is a good thing if the Packers are also talking to the Vikings, as it could potentially drive up his value.
I still see some kind of a trade involving Chris Simms, whom the Bucs want to dump, and a conditional mid/late round pick as a strong possibility. It gets the Packers their veteran backup, gets Simms out of the Bucs’ hair, gets Favre out of Green Bay to a playoff contender, and depending on Favre’s play, gets Ted Thompson some kind of draft pick to justify all of this crap.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell — apparently busy not suspending players like Marshawn Lynch for leaving the scene of an accident and refusing to talk about it for weeks — has inserted himself so far into the Packer-Brett Favre controversy that he is now telling the Packers how to characterize their quarterback battles. According to this item from Tom Silverstein, Goodell “urged” the Packers to characterize their quarterback situation as an “open competition.”
How is that his job? First, Goodell instructs the Packers to “accelerate” their efforts to find a suitable trade for Favre — a move that effectively announces to the other 31 teams in the NFL that the Packers would be holding a quarterback fire sale. Now he’s telling them how to talk about their quarterback competition?
What if the Packers have decided, for whatever reason, that Aaron Rodgers will be their starter? Does Goodell want the Packers to lie? Is he encouraging them to misrepresent what they’re doing in the media?
Goodell should go back to his crackdown on NFL thuggery — which will reportedly include the reinstatement of Pacman Jones on September 1 — and let the Packers run the Packers.
