Favre isn’t over, no matter how much you or I may want it

by Adam Reger

Following, inevitably, off this post and its naive tone of finality, I and every other media outlet was duped by the Brett Favre retirement announcement. It doesn’t take heavy psycho- or media analysis to figure out why: when a good friend says she might leave your party, you inveigle, cajole, persuade her to stay just a little longer; when a jerk says he may leave, you slap your thighs, stand up, and say it was great to see him and here’s his coat. Re: Brett Favre’s retirement, this classic dorm-room poster said it best.

If someone with no interest or background in American sports, and professional football specifically, were to read this, he or she would quite reasonably wonder, whither all the bitterness and schadenfreude? It’s one of those deals where the answer is long and convoluted, if you wanted to really convey the worst of this affair, which—for my money—is the long, drawn-out nature of it; it’s not only lasted through the entire off-season, it’s happened the last three+ seasons.

Now, just in time, there’s an interactive graph that illustrates the absurdity. Via Slate, three years worth of waffling