We're finally getting full stories and not just AP wire blurbs. Apparently ESPN.com's Chris Mortensen spoke with Favre's agent Bus Cook and this article has this:
"I talked to Brett this morning and I told him 'nobody forced you to make this decision to retire, but the flip side is nobody encouraged you to play,'" Cook told Mortensen. "Two years ago, Ted [Thompson, the Packers' GM] encouraged him to play, but there was nothing this time around from them offering encouragement or him to come back."
I think that says a lot about the new management of the team and the new direction of this club.
Now that's not to say that the new management is necessarily wrong. All Packer fans need to come to terms with the fact that we were running on borrowed time and this hullabaloo every off-season had to be trying for the club and the team. Whether it was last year, this year or next year, eventually the Brett Favre era has to come to an end. The man is more myth than fact and no one can live like that forever.
I know there are people out there that are fully distraught today and I find that just a bit over-the-top. Am I sad? Sure. This team isn't going to be as fun to watch for a few years to come. The Packers have been The Land Where Brett Favre Tread for so many seasons that I think the team is going to have a bit of an identity crisis and may struggle and stumble for a few seasons trying to figure out what the Packers can and will be without him.
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The fact is that for a couple of decades, the Packers were a small-time team in a small town. No one took much notice of us and we struggled in anonymity. Brett Favre literally "made" this team in this generation. Super teams need SuperStars and without Brett we don't have that. We don't have a "face" of the team and we're going to struggle until we have that leadership.
That's not to say that there aren't leaders on this team. Maybe Aaron Rodgers can be the new leader. He proved himself a bit in Dallas this season. But even if he becomes a really good quarterback, I'm not convinced that he can become an icon.
Certainly Donald Driver is the other most recognizable face on the Packers lineup, but I can't imagine he'll be with the team much longer, either. He's had a spectacular run, but where he had Brett before, he is now the lone ranger of the old guard.
It's a new time and hopefully we'll be able to be the phoenix and become a new team.
