Saturday 07/12 Quickie: Favre Coming Back

Brett Favre is coming back to the NFL. Just not with the Packers.

He wants his release from the team -- he isn't part of the team's plans for 2008 or beyond, unless you count "jersey retirement ceremony" -- and it ensures two things:

(1) He will be playing in the NFL this season.
(2) He will not be playing with the Packers.

This conjures up all sorts of issues:

(1) Who will he play for? (Who wants him? Who needs him? And what jersey will he be wearing on the cover of Madden 09, which is coming out one month from today?)

I could totally see him staying in the division -- heresy! -- and playing for either the QB-challenged Bears or QB-challenged Vikings, both of whom might be one All-Pro unretired QB from competing for the NFC title.

UPDATE: It's important to distinguish between his outright release -- which could trigger the Doomsday Scenario of him landing within the NFC North -- or a trade, where the Packers could ship him out of sight (or at least to the AFC). Imagine the insanity if he joins Bill Parcells in Miami.

(2) How will Packers fans react? (Badly, I'm assuming. Not only is their football god coming back and NOT playing for them, but the team is perceived to have run him off.)

Aside from ruining Aaron Rodgers' psyche forever, I don't understand why the Packers don't bring Favre back; it seems to me that he is more meaningful to the franchise than whatever wins -- and it won't be a Super Bowl win, certainly this year, than Rodgers might deliver.

This isn't a Michael Jordan-playing-for-the-Wizards. At least there, there were a few years between his last Bulls moment and his jump to D.C. With Favre, the proverbial body isn't even cold yet.

I appreciate his interest in unretiring, by the way. Superseding my natural dislike of Favre is my long-standing rule that individual athletes -- and only the athlete themselves -- have the ultimate right to determine their own retirement fate.

Even if it has come across as -- hmm, not wishy-washy... but typical attention-whoring Favre. Celebrate me, I'm retiring! No, celebrate me, I'm unretiring!

That said, I'm quibbling: The drama that this will cause throughout the league -- from the question over who he will play for to the hell that Packers fans will go through watching him suit up for another team -- is instantly the defining storyline of the 2008 NFL season.

More:

OK, it turns out that there will be no Obama NASCAR car. That's too bad. I was all set to plunk down my $100 to be listed on the side of the car as a co-sponsor.

MLB Stud: Roy Halladay, who threw a 2-hitter to beat the Yankees. I'm sure Terry Francona was watching with great interest, in deciding which pitcher starts the ASG on Tuesday.

(For what it's worth, I am a huge proponent of this gimmick that Mariano Rivera should start the game. Hell, ASG SPs don't go more than an inning anyway. This should be a no-brainer.)

NBA Summer League intrigue:
Anthony Randolph: 30 points (!)
Eric Gordon: 23 pts (5/18 FG)
Marreese Speights: 22 and 13.
OJ Mayo: 15 points.
Darrell Arthur: 19 points (9/12 FG)

Scandal Watch: Why would Jim Bowden skim bonus money from poor prospects in the D.R.? He isn't doing well enough for himself?

Meanwhile, it doesn't surprise me that top-level MLB scouts are gambling (on baseball or anything else). It does beg the question of smoke and fire.

More later, but I would imagine that the "Favre Watch" becomes a permanent fixture within sports media between now and... oh, too long to bother figuring out.

-- D.S.