Clash Of The Titan Egos

By now, every blogger and sports announcer and news show has the latest chapter in the Brett Favre/Green Bay Packer saga. In summary, Favre changed his mind again, and now wants to play. The Packers have said, "Fine, but not with us." Now it looks like Favre will either stay retired, or become active to be traded to another team.

But how did this come to pass, and who, if anyone, is to blame for this fiasco.

Many people are upset with Favre. He has a very big ego, but it is a well-deserved one. He has broken just about every record there is for a quarterback to break, has won three MVPs, has won a SuperBowl and played in another. And who can forget that Monday night game against Oakland, the day after his father passed away.

So, yeah, he has been a bit of a diva, but he has earned that right. To a point. And I think that the last few years of will he/won't he retire business is a small part of manipulation on Favre's part to force the Packers to build a stronger team around him. It's also probably a little bit of the fact that he is getting older, and every season is taking more and more out of him. Most of it, though, was just media hype to get people to pay attention to their TV news shows/radio stations/newspapers.

And for many years, Favre got away with that kind of manipulation. That seems to have come to an end this year. But it's end was foreseeable.

Ever since Ted Thompson became general manager of the Packers, he's made it abundantly clear that he wants to make the Packers "his team," and is trying to eliminate any remnants of Ron Wolf's legacy. Even Favre.

So, he did things his way, and wanted to build up a team that he envisioned. I will say that I personally think that many of his moves stunk, and he has a long history of bad decision-making. Furthermore, he made it perfectly clear, he did not cherish Favre as much as the Packer Nation did. Favre alone was the entire Lombardi era Packers rolled up into one man with a strong competitive nature and a boyish face.

Thompson has not done one thing to make Favre feel like he was still part of the team, gently nudging him towards the door. I'm sure Thompson was silently jubilant on the day that Favre told the world he was going to retire. This gave him the opportunity to once and for all remove any traces of Ron Wolf, and to create his own legacy.

In this ongoing battle between the irresistible force and the unmovable object, it appears Thompson will win. Only time will tell if the cost to his reputation as the man that drove Favre away was worth it.

The only thing for sure, is that due to these battling egos, it is the Packer fans that lose. One small thing that we can console ourselves with is that it looks like the Cowboys' star quarterback will have his "good luck charm" around for quite a while.