Superville Review

(Sports Illustrated Photo)

Brett Favre is one of the NFL's all time great Quarterback's that is not up for question. With his swashbuckling style, strong-arm confidence, emotional toughness and improvisational approach to the game Favre generated a nation of fans not just in Green Bay, but across the country. A good ole' boy, with a man-child shrug and grin appealed to football fans tired of the modern era, high maintenance, primadonna persona of NFL player. Who knew Favre was no different?

For the past several seasons Favre has turned his possible retirement into a soap opera that extended well beyond the NFL draft and into OTA's that are used to build team chemistry and chart an organizational strategy for the coming season. Favre traded on his legendary status and general likeability to hold the Packers hostage to his decision on stay or go. This off-season was no different except for the fact that Favre decided early in the process that it was time to call "game." Through tears and wistful deep breaths he thanked everybody and their mama for the good times, the memories, the camaraderie and the support. He went into the sun chin up, chest out and still loved by the media, the league and his fans. His early decision, unlike previous seasons, allowed the Packers to prepare for the future; preparing Aaron Rodgers to take the reigns as the number one and drafting Brian Brohm, the Louisville gunslinger holding more than a passing resemblance to Favre's big arm tactics. But of course it was too good to be true.

The Packers just recently cleaned out Brett Favre's locker. And only after news reports painted the picture of the organization as embarrassingly unable to let go like the guy who had the dime girl, until she moved on, but couldn't let go and let everybody know the power she still had over him. But actually, last season the world could have seen the Favre's selfish nature. After another slow build-up of deciding on play or retirement Favre started getting called out in the media about quickening his decision. His response? Favre said, "what are they gonna do? Cut me?" Favre is that gridiron dime piece who knows his status and used it with abandon. So is it really any surprise that after holding that epic press conference in Green Bay back in March that he would change his mind?

Latest reports have Favre changing his mind after catching an itch on his back that told him he still wants to ball. His family vouches for his good shape and his undiminished ability. Favre calls it all a rumor to newspapers in his native Mississippi. Yet ESPN is reporting that Favre has contacted the Packers front office about a possible return. So what do the Packers do now? Pull Aaron Rodgers, a man who was already under the heaviest pressure to perform well in replacing a legend, and re-insert legend himself? This would delay the Packers, the NFL, fans and Rodgers himself from seeing if he's up to being number one in Titletown. It would also push back the development of Brian Brohm.

Favre, as great a signal caller as he was, is showing himself to be all about Brett. And if he hasn't noticed, it's really not. The Packers should tell him thanks, but no and send him back to his deep south farm life to tip a beer and wheel his tractor.

Labels: Aaron Rodgers, Brett Favre, Brian Brohm, ESPN, Green Bay Packers, NFL

A recent discovery that the team doctor of the Pittsuburgh Steelers ordered $150,000 worth of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and Testosterone has raised a question to the National Football League that Major League Baseball has been grappling with, in the public eye, for the past several years. And that question is blunt and unflinchingly direct: is the game clean?

Athletics from the mythological times of the first Olympiad, on to Rome where man battled beast and the approval or disapproval of Caesar and into the inventions of baseball, basketball and football as we know them, has taken on a luster of fan appreciation and obsession. Witnessing the men and sometimes women who perform deeds with their bodies that the average citizen can only imagine accomplishing sets athletes on a pedestal that is so sturdy at the base that not even a hint of a storm could topple it. However, this fact might be changing rapidly.

In this era of digital news no information falls on deaf ears or blind eyes. As America and the world becomes more familiar with technology and the way it speeds the flow of information, people will begin to find out more than they ever wanted to know about their athletic heroes and the games the play and fans love. The implications for the NFL, that the Steelers, one year off a Super Bowl trophy, could become embroiled in a shocking scandal for illegal, performance enhancing drugs, are numerous. The implication for fans, though, has more of a depth; are fans ready to acknowledge that the most popular sport in America is rife with "cheaters" and "cheating"? Are Americans ready to appreciate the game for what it is, but dismantle the idols they placed on top of pedestals of their own making?

Football is a great game, graceful, brutal and strategic. Now, with millions on the line, coroprate sponsorships, million dollar salaries paid and received, is it farfetched to expect the players to do everything they can to be bionic men; bigger, stronger, faster and for coaches and owners to turn the other cheek so they can say they had no knowledge?

In the weeks to come the NFL might have a gigantic problem on its hands as will sporting society in general. Question: is the game clean? And if not, how many players, coaches and owners have their hands dirty? Once these questions are answered the bigger question is how many fans will continue to patronize an establishment that prepares its product without washing their hands of cheating?

Labels: HGH, Human Growth Hormone, NFL, Pittsburgh Steelers, Testosterone