MMQBTE--What I Read During Detention

A break down of MMQBTE, in which PK reveals that he and BF, while not BFF, are BFFib“B”YMtOGCaRAoWftOGitFGCfSI (that is, Best Friends Forever if by “Best” You Mean that One Guy Carries a Ridiculous Amount of Water for the Other Guy in the First Guy’s Column for Sports Illustrated)

So, the big topic this week is that Brett Favre, in a fit of pique because the Packers didn’t acquire Randy Moss—you know, the same one whom the Patriots signed in a deal that can’t work out regardless of the outcome—demanded a trade. Surely, such a selfish act from the fourth most selfish athlete in major American sports (somewhere behind Roger Clemens, Terrell Owens, and Kobe Bryant), would dim the flame of PK’s inordinate love for Favre.

Mapquest tells us it's 1,036 miles from Brett Favre's offseason home in Hattiesburg, Miss., to his in-season place, Green Bay. It might as well be a million miles. Because the one thing we learned from his failure to woo Randy Moss over the last couple of months is this: he may be one of the true legends in NFL history, but he is nothing more than an employee in the eyes of the Packers front office.

I am fucking stupid.

And Peter must have been great at that summer-camp punishment when the counselor makes you hold buckets of water with your arms extended at shoulder-height. Brett Favre is the one employee fucking the Packers more than anyone else in the state of Wisconsin, the mere employee who has been on the fence for two years, hamstringing the entire franchise with his increasingly bad play while leveraging his popularity to his own advantage.

It's now clear that Favre pulled out all the stops in trying to get Moss to team with Donald Driver and Greg Jennings as a potent trio of Green Bay wideouts. He politicked for it internally, had his agent press the Packers to acquire Moss and made it clear that with Moss, Green Bay would be a serious contender for the NFC Central title this year. But as has been the case since he took over, Ted Thompson communicated that he runs the franchise and the quarterback should concentrate on rehabbing his ankle and getting ready for his 17th season in Green Bay.

None of this paragraph makes either Thompson or Favre sound especially unreasonable, but does anyone really think that Brett Favre would ever make a good GM of an NFL team? I’m not sure that I’d trust him to be a QB coach.

I don't know Favre as well as I used to, but I do know this -- this failed dalliance with Moss had to have wounded him deeply. He knows Moss. He knows he would have been able to get Moss to play hard, which is something the receiver didn't do in Oakland the last two years. And I don't think this is a case of Thompson telling Favre that he isn't wanted. Thompson does want Favre ... but as his quarterback, not as his assistant general manager. If Thompson could have stolen Moss, who is a risk by anyone's standards, he would have done it.

Peter and Brett had a falling out when PK refused to draft Moss on their fantasy team. Let’s count the ways in which this paragraph implicitly argues against Brett Favre’s status as GMM (that’s general manager manque) 1) He’s personally wounded that a business transaction didn’t come to pass. 2) He’s relying on his own impressions of Moss’s personality to judge his fitness to play for the Packers, impressions that must be limited because they’ve never actually been teammates (except at the Pro-Bowl, if that counts, which it doesn’t. For anything. In any context. Ever.) 3) He’s indulging his own ego by assuming that Moss wouldn’t dare slack off around the great Brett Favre. 4) Remember that PK has insisted on multiple occasions that Moss will not be good (even if he plays fantastically) for the Patriots, so surely PK would have to find fault with Favre’s pro-Moss mission.

There's one thing Favre has missed in this whole drama. I think that once the Patriots were in the picture, Moss didn't care about the Packers anymore. If New England hadn't been involved, Green Bay probably would have gotten Moss and Favre would be a happy man today.

I just listed four things that Favre missed, but I agree with Peter, so this would make five. Why would Moss play for a piddly-ass Green Bay team that in no meaningful way will compete for the Super Bowl any time soon?

But the Packers aren't going to win the Super Bowl this year. The Patriots might. And if you're Moss, and the only thing you really care about right now is trying to win a championship so you can shut the people up who are ripping for you for taking a dive last year with Oakland, there was only one team to go to this offseason. That's New England. Once the Patriots showed even a flicker of interest, Moss would have walked to Foxboro.

Hey, I was right.

And now to some reader email:

Brian Gridley of Atlanta: "As a life-long Packers' fan, I'm sad Ted Thompson has decided to waste the final years of Brett Favre's playing career. Thompson, who inherited a playoff team, has done nothing to ingratiate himself to Packers fans, and the recent comments by Favre certainly won't help. Thompson may have some plan to build the Packers for what looks like a far-distant future, but if the team takes a step back this year (which looks likely), the public pressure to get rid of Thompson is going to be intense.

Just like last week, the first emailer has things backwards (switch Brett Favre with Ted Thompson and change final to first and you’ll be pretty close to the right sentence). And what, exactly, has Favre done recently to ingratiate himself to Packers fans? That guy is coasting on beloved-by-all capital.

I don't agree. Now if the Packers go 2-14, there's going to be pressure to fire everybody who works at Lambeau Field, but I don't think club president John Jones is going to give Thompson so little time to rebuild the team in his image. I do think it's sad Thompson and Favre don't have a better line of communication. Favre will go down as one of the great players in NFL history, and I think he and the GM should make a better effort to get on the same page, and soon. But as far as Thompson's job being in jeopardy this season, I don't see it.

At what point does a player get to start authoring the page onto which he and the GM are supposed to get?

STEELER NATION MAY SIDE WITH FANECA. From Melissa Pust of Pittsburgh: "Great story on Mike Tomlin -- enjoyed hearing that he is ready to work and think he'll bring a freshness to the Steelers. That being said, don't be too surprised if the fans here support Faneca. You'll recall that when Hines Ward was redoing his contract the fans were vocal that the team pay him more money. Do you think they can get a deal done or is Faneca already packing up his locker for greener ($$$) pastures?"

Good for you, Melissa Pust, though you could stand to get a better surname. I mentioned this very issue last week, so I’m glad to see some follow-up. Peter is less player-friendly, though,towards Faneca (if only he were more Southern, charming, quarterbacking, car flipping, small-intestine losing, and painkiller abusing).

After spending time with Tomlin, I found it extremely interesting that he has this "what-me-worry" attitude about Faneca's contract situation. Tomlin told me that when you've been a position coach in pro football for a while (and for five years he was Tampa Bay's secondary coach before moving to Minnesota as defensive coordinator in 2006), you constantly hear players moan about their contracts. He told me he listened to Ronde Barber and Brian Kelly, Bucs cornerbacks, complain about being underpaid for two years and it's just a way of life in the modern NFL.

Yep, employees bitch and moan about money. Why, even our favorite everyman scribe routinely bitches about cable packages and satellite dish prices.

Regarding Faneca, he simply feels there's no need to create a problem before one surfaces. If Faneca isn't there at the start of training camp, that's when Tomlin is going to start worrying about it. Not before then. This is a good attitude for a coach in 2007, because there's nothing Tomlin can do to make Faneca happy other than to pay him $7 million. Maybe the Steelers will, eventually. Faneca is a great player. But every contract impacts every other contract. And with Troy Polamalu and Ben Roethlisberger deals to be made in the next year or so, the Steelers are going to have to be picky about who they make gazillionaires.

One, gazillionaires is a wild exaggeration, especially since PK has already named the dollar figures involved. Two, the real “gazillionaires” are those who CTC for millions of dollars to would-be millionaires. Three, maybe, just maybe, Faneca et al. have something to do with making the Steelers profitable, hence making themselves millionaires.