King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Goodbye, Favre? The NFL's most beloved and interesting star says he's retiring, and a sports media that craves personalities doesn't want to believe him.

Read more: Sports, Football, NFL, King Kaufman, Sports Daily

March 5, 2008 | You know what would have been funny? If Brett Favre had signed a one-day contract with Atlanta so he could retire as a Falcon.

He announced Tuesday morning that he was retiring as a Packer after 17 seasons, the last 16 in Green Bay, during which he quarterbacked them to two Super Bowls, won one of them and became the most loved and admired football player of his generation.

Without quite being a Michael Jordan- or Wayne Gretzky-level player -- no football player has been, though Jerry Rice may have been close -- he reached their level of esteem. Cynical backlash stuff aside, Brett Favre has been beloved in a way that few athletes are anymore.

That love for him may have led to the almost funereal tone to Tuesday's coverage of the very-much-alive quarterback's announcement of a career change. ESPN and the rest of the sports media flipped into full-coverage mode, alternating between paeans to Favre's undeniable wonderfulness and glittering achievements and speculation about whether he's going to stay retired. He's not really going to retire, is he?

The first stage of grief, they say, is denial.

He's possessed of an everyman charm that few athletes even attempt to fake in this age of corporate-automaton superstars who, following Jordan's example, desire above all else not to offend, lest they endanger their endorsements.

Favre was happy to sell you something, mostly blue jeans and trucks. But his much-celebrated enthusiasm for the game, his Mississippi drawl, his sense of humor and his forthrightness and willingness to talk about his weaknesses and foibles have all made him seem more like that guy who lives down the street than some sort of icon. The guy who lives down the street might sell you a truck too.

He also had the streak. He started 253 consecutive regular-season games, a lap-the-field record for NFL quarterbacks. He passed Ron Jaworski's old record of 116 in what turned out to be the first half of his career. Considering the length of their respective sports' seasons, Favre's streak was almost exactly as long as that of Cal Ripken Jr., and, as with Ripken, it earned him the admiration of millions who trudge off to work every day without being celebrated for it or rewarded so handsomely.

Favre seemed to lack the sense of entitlement that most even semi-elite athletes carry around. Fans spend a lifetime listening to ballplayers whining about this thing or that and we think we'd trade places with them in a heartbeat and we wouldn't be like that. We'd appreciate the amazing abilities we had and the awesome gifts those abilities bring.

Of course most of us would be like that, because most of us complain plenty despite our own good fortune. Try living in, say, Burundi sometime.

Next page: Who could have had more fun being Brett Favre than Brett Favre?