I was uncharacteristically quiet about football on facebook this week. There are 3 reasons:
1. Ohio State played a night game against Indiana. Indiana isn't a big enough deal to make anything of in the morning, and I didn't get to facebook much throughout the day...ironically, unlike a lot of people, I tend to stay away from facebook on weekends because I find myself there a lot of the week, while I'm working... sometimes it's for work, sometimes it's to kill time...it's often in between.
2. The Packers didn't play yesterday, they play today.
3. I am a big bag of mixed emotions about tonight's game and that's why I'm even writing this right now. Well, that and it's very on my mind and I budget 4-5 each day to write if there isn't anything else that must be done by the end of the day.
As you probably know, if the title didn't keep you from reading this, Brett Favre used to be the quarterback for the Packers. That's an understatement though... he wasn't just the quarterback for the Packers, not to me. He really was a childhood hero. I've loved the Packers since I loved football, which has been most of my life but not all of it. God was kind enough to let me be born at the perfect time, when the Browns wouldn't exist as I came of Football-fan age, and I was sort of a fan free-agent... it was the year before the Packers made it to their first superbowl with Favre, and I always heard about Reggie White in church, so I decided I liked the Packers.
Initially, and still to an extent, I was a defense guy. My favorite player was Reggie White, then LeRoy Butler. But of course I loved some guys on offense too... Bubba Franks, Dorsey Levens, Ahman Green, Antonio Freeman, Javon Walker... Samkon Gado even I loved all those guys, some of them more than Favre at times. But Favre always stuck around. He was the superman... the constant that delivered when others left or retired. And he became a thing of personal legend and mythology. When the critics said he was washed up, the Packers got back to the NFC championship game. It's been said, a lot, that he throws a lot of interceptions but makes a lot of great plays, so "you live and you die by him." That happened a lot, and I think part of the love I have (or had?) for Brett Favre was having to live and die by him, every Sunday. It wasn't easy to lose on his interceptions, but it was better than having a sterilized, weak, cautious guy with no superbowl rings by a long shot.
But now he's a Viking. In my lifetime, the Vikings are the Packers' biggest rival. Sure, it will always be the Bears, but they haven't been too great for awhile and there's a certain respect between the Bears and Packers... but the Vikings are the team the Packers hate, and I think it's mutual, because the rivalry isn't something of old... it comes from trading blows and ruining seasons year in and year out.
I should feel really heartbroken, really betrayed.
Part of me does.
A lot of me doesn't (and part of that a lot is the part that acknowledges it's just football and it's not ever Ohio State).
I find it hard to hate Brett Favre because I don't know if I want to return his disloyalty with my own.... I'm probably far too moralistic about the whole thing, but why return wrong with wrong? There are so many good memories...so many incredible memories... not even just in seeing him play, but in my personal life, largely because of him. I remember how he came through with one of the best games by a quarterback of all time on Monday Night Football while I was in High School, the night after his dad died and one of my friends had me over just to see how I crumbled when the Packers lost to the Raiders. But that night, as much fun as it was seeing that, was more about cultivating and nurturing a friendship I hold to this day than it was about Brett Favre... but it was because of Brett Favre.
It's just hard to hate someone that I feel has done so much for me. And of course it wasn't really for me, and of course he has done things that are just for him and all about him... but even so, I hold a place in my heart for him (my football heart...as much as that matters, which is probably very little) that I can't get rid of... it's kind of like when you break up a great relationship... no matter how bad the breakup is, there's always a little part of your heart that appreciates the good times, even if you could never get back together. At least I do...but I'm highly sentimental, if you haven't learned anything else about me from this yet....
I will be rooting for the Packers tonight... team before individual, and especially team before traitor... but I will always hope the best for Brett Favre, as far as it doesn't hurt the Packers. Unfortunately, as a Viking, that will be rare... and he brought it upon himself.
Follow me on twitter for updates throughout the game (after Heroes...): @dulacian
-Zack
" if it hits, better make it worth the fall"
-Keri Hilson
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