After reading some of the quotes from Brett Favre posted last night by Rosenthal, we started to wonder whether Favre truly appreciates the size and ferocity of the hornets’ nest into which he’ll be poking a large stick today.
“I understand we’re the visitor. And every time we take the field, I don’t expect a standing ovation,” Favre said.
Surely, he won’t getting a standing ovation any time he takes the field. Though he won’t be introduced by name before the game, he won’t be hard to find with his gray head and his white jersey with a “4" on the front, back, and shoulders.
And, undoubtedly, he will be booed. Loudly.
Even though we continue to believe that the Packers nudged him into retirement and then bolted the door and pushed furniture in front of it once he was gone, the perception remains that Favre is a traitor.
Given that he’s showing up today as a member of Green Bay’s division rivals, it’s hard to say the perception isn’t accurate.
I told Peter King yesterday that, during the Stanley Cup Finals, the home crowd in Pittsburgh loudly booed Marian Hossa every time he touched the puck -- and Hossa had barely a cup of coffee with the 2007-08 Penguins. Favre jumped to the Vikings after 16 years in Green Bay. So whenever he’s on the field, there’s a chance that the assembled fans will engage in one continuous -- and audible -- boo.
While the Cheeseheads might let bygones by bygones a few years from now (but only if the Vikings don’t win a Super Bowl with Favre), we’ve got a strong feeling that Favre doesn’t fully appreciate the degree of animosity he’ll encounter as the Prodigal Son returns home not to stay, but to steal the fatted calf and take it back to Minnesota.
His best move would have been to take out a full-page ad in the Friday and/or Saturday edition of every local newspaper containing a heartfelt expression of gratitude for everything the fans have done for him over the years.
Only then might he have softened enough of them to make today’s experience somewhat bearable.
