I'm going to keep this direct and to the point. I'm going to tell everyone why they should be rooting against Brett Favre in the NFC Championship Game this Sunday.
It's not because Favre betrayed the Packers by donning the purple. It's not because Favre flipped his middle finger right in the face of his legacy in Green Bay, failed to once acknowledge the emotions and feelings of Packers fans (except by stating that "true Packers fans would understand," whatever that meant) and spent an entire season giving smug, self-gratifying interviews about how he'd proven himself.
Yes, these are all good reasons to hope, as I do, that Favre humiliates himself in the Superdome, ironically the venue of his greatest achievement in football to date. When Kurt Warner was knocked sillier than a Bourbon Street drunk by a Saints defensive lineman last Sunday, I'll admit I began salivating over the thought of that being Favre instead of Warner.
But this goes far beyond these types of bitter, vindictive emotions against Favre. And it goes far beyond the opposite side of The Great Debate, the faction that desperately loves Favre and wants him to stick it to Ted Thompson in a manner more painful than when Frank Costanza took an un-fortuitous fall on Fusilli Jerry.
The bloodlines run much, much deeper than that. It goes back to what Favre once meant to Wisconsin sports fans and what he COULD still mean in the future. And there's a reason I said COULD. See, if Favre wins a Super Bowl with the Vikings, his Green Bay legacy is gone. Caput. Vanished. Nothing. He will mean absolutely nothing to the Packers' organization anymore. Just a blip on the radar.
Michael Hunt wrote a compelling column in the Journal Sentinel recently postulating that if Favre won it all with the Vikings, he would officially sever his ties with the Packers for good. That his legacy and his career would ultimately lie in Minnesota. Even Favre himself seems to suggest this. In a recent column by ESPN's Gene Wojciechowski, Favre admitted that, "now I know when I look back at my career I will remember the 40-year-old year. No doubt."
In other words, Favre will remember his one season with the Vikings, not his 16 with the Packers. And while Hunt theorized that Favre winning the Super Bowl would actually be the only positive outcome of all this, for Favre to put closure on this whole mess by officially severing his ties with the Packers, I couldn't disagree more.
Favre winning the Super Bowl as a Viking would make true what all of us, whether we pledge our allegiance to the franchise or to Favre, deep down inside fears the most: Brett Favre totally rewriting his legacy from being a Packer to being a Viking. And that's exactly what would happen. You think everyone would forever be talking about the '96 Packers being Favre's defining team anymore? Nope. For as long as people still care about football, they'll talk about Favre walking away from the game twice, only to come back at the age of 40 on his high horse and win a franchise's first-ever Super Bowl (and maybe literally save the franchise in the process).
"And, oh yeah," they'll say. "He also played 16 years for the Packers."
For nearly two years now, we've argued, fought and agonized over Brett Lorenzo Favre. We've called each other names, drawn lines, become antagonists and somewhere, I'm sure, people have even physically fought over it. But at the bottom of it all, no Packers fan ever wanted this to happen. Nobody ever wanted to see Favre win a Super Bowl with another team, especially the freaking Minnesota Vikings.
As much as I despise Favre now and love our new quarterback in Aaron Rodgers, I can certainly tell you that I never wanted it to come to this. The most painful part of the Vikings' run hasn't been watching them win, it's been watching the player I once loved the most do it with them. And as much as you may hate Ted Thompson, you can't honestly wish the end result of all this was Favre winning the Super Bowl with the Vikings. If you insist that you did, you're a liar. Or you were never a Packers fan in the first place.
And as far as legacies go, I want to make my final point.
People will relentlessly defend the legacy of athletes who switch teams or repeatedly come out of retirement by saying, "It's their legacy. They can do whatever they want with it." That's nothing more than a gigantic crock of bull. A player's legacy isn't only his, whether he likes it or not. It's the legacy of all the diehard fans who watched him play every game, exalted through the wins, suffered through the losses, shared in both the triumph and the tragedy. For 16 seasons, we did this with Favre. He once represented us, PLAYED for us, more than any athlete in the history of sports, I believe. For some, like myself, we grew up with him, going from a young kid to a college graduate. So even though I hate Favre at the moment, I eventually want to remember and savor those great moments again. I want to savor watching Favre walk across Lambeau Field to cheers once again in a jersey-retirement ceremony, shake hands with Rodgers (who by then I hope will have a title or more under his belt) and make me feel like all is right again. But he's two wins away from erasing all those feelings permanently.
Mostly, I want Brett Favre's legacy to remain OUR legacy. Wisconsin's legacy. But if he wins two more games, he's the Vikings' legacy. Minnesota's legacy. We're left to remember 16 seasons as an afterthought.
If that's not enough for you to root against Favre this Sunday, then I don't know what is.