things kevin hates

There was much joy in New Orleans last night. The city’s beloved and long-beleaguered football team, the Saints, made history by reaching their first ever Super Bowl. After a giddy ride home through streets filled with cars and buses blaring their horns in celebration, past sidewalks crowded with revelers standing in their pickup trucks, past people waving and screaming from their doorways, I turned on the TV to see what the national media had to say about the game. The one thing they talked about most? Brett Favre! How on earth does the losing quarterback get so much airtime? Well, because he’s an attention whore who has the media eating out of his hand, hanging on his every word, and fawning over his every move. This had been pissing me off for a while, but last night was the last straw.

For most of my childhood I’d say I was a Brett Favre fan—not a huge one, by any stretch, but I liked to see him do well. He’s a fierce competitor who hails from a small town just 60 miles away. And clearly, he’s established himself as one of the all-time great quarterbacks. But things started to turn once he started the annual “Will he or won’t he?” game. (Follow along at this USA Today timeline or Favre’s Wikipedia page.)

Favre managed to spend almost his whole career with a single team. After an inconsequential stint with the Falcons (where he went 0-for-4 with 2 INTs in a little bit of garbage time in his rookie season), he spent 16 years with the Green Bay Packers, winning one Super Bowl and two NFC Championships, piling MVP trophies atop Pro Bowls. But even after a 13-3 season in 2007 with Favre at the helm, the Packers seemed ready to move on to their quarterback-in-waiting, Aaron Rodgers. Favre announced his retirement in March 2008, then, in July, he thought about coming back to the Packers, but the organization wanted to stick with Rodgers, and eventually forced a trade to the Jets, where he went 9-7 but missed the playoffs.

In February 2009, he retired again and told ESPN “there’s no way” he’d play again. In April he said he had “no intention of returning to football.” Then in June Brad Childress shows some interest, and the next thing you know Favre seems interested, even as he says, “I know people are tired of it, really.” He promises to let the Vikes know before training camp starts, says he’s not coming back, then joins the team on August 18th, just weeks before the start of the season.

It’s not really that horrible that he can’t make up his mind. What’s horrible is the fact that the media will do anything for Brett Favre. You’d think no other quarterback exists. The media’s obsession is never-ending. And Favre, much as he may deny it, certainly feeds the obsession with his (admittedly very funny) Sears commercial:

Or this Letterman interview (skip to 5:25 for the “retirement” talk):

I just wish the media would put things in perspective and not talk about Brett Favre all the damn time. The Saints had just made it to the Super Bowl—I wanted to hear about the football game, not about whether Brett Favre will be back next year. Besides, experience tells us you’re not going to get a straight answer from Favre until, oh, the first game of next season.