sportsblog

It’s still baseball season and I haven’t delved too far into the NFL yet, but I did have some thoughts on two stories in the past couple of weeks: Brett Favre and Caleb Campbell. I won’t be the first or last to comment on either, but since neither situation was handled all that well they deserve some commentary. (Not nearly the amount of comments that Favre has gotten over the past month, but some anyway.)

The Favre situation was handled so poorly from both sides that it just blows me away. I really can’t believe that both sides treated the other the way that they did and thought that everything was going to work out exactly how they wanted. There was lying and mind changing and posturing and negative things said by both sides. From the beginning there was no way this was going to work out. Both sides are really at fault but two people really stand out as the worst offenders: Ted Thompson and Favre himself.  Thompson, his crazy Vince McMahon eyes and Favre kept trying to one up each other and kept ending up in deeper trouble.

Thompson kept trying to call Favre’s bluff and Favre wasn’t going away. Favre wasn’t going anywhere and knew that Thompson didn’t want him to come back. Thompson and the Packers wanted Favre to stay retired and acted as such (even acting as though he was definitely going to stay retired) even though Favre had no intentions of staying retired. That much was fairly obvious from the start, but no one on the Packers seemed to get it, especially Thompson. They certainly did not treat him with the respect that Hall of Fame quarterback deserves. If there is even a chance that he may come back, you at least welcome him back and let him compete for the job that he gave up. You say, “Brett, Aaron has been in here all summer and committed a lot to this team so we are going to let him compete against you for the job.” Obviously in an open competition, Favre is most likely going to win and in that situation everyone wins (even Rodgers is shown some confidence by the team allowing him to compete). That was the easy solution to the problem and Thompson and the Packers really let that get away from them.

Favre is in no way blameless in all of this. He has been waffling on retirement for the past 4 years and constantly holding the Packers hostage in their quarterback situation. Yes, he is a fantastic quarterback and yes he deserves some special treatment, but this has gotten a little ridiculous. He keeps talking about retiring every year and this year he went through with it. Then he thought he may want to come back and the Packers said they would take him back, let’s get this done and he changed his mind again. At this point, the Packers really needed to move on and get the football team ready for the season. Then Favre changed his mind again and tried to hold the team hostage again. The PAckers just couldn’t wait for Favre to make up his mind anymore. If he was going to play, he was going to compete for the job that he had given up months ago. If he came in with the right mindset, the job was probably going to be his. As Mike McCarthy said in the press conference the other day, Favre came in with the wrong mindset and was unwilling to compete for the job. That forced the trade. Favre wasn’t the only one at fault in this situation, but he certainly didn’t help it out. The Packers esentially got what they wanted (not originally, but as the situation went along) with Rodgers being the starting QB and not having to worry about Favre unless they both get to the Super Bowl. Favre gets to play this year, but by not coming into camp with a chance to compete for a starting job on a team with a real chance to get to the Super Bowl, he’s on the Jets, stuck in the same division as the Patriots and Tom Brady, probably the worst possibility he had.

The Favre situation was hardly the only situation in the NFL that was handled poorly over the past month. I had kind of forgotten the Caleb Campbell situation about a week after it happened, but Rick Reilly wrote a column this week that really reminded me of the whole situation and how poorly the DOD handled the situation. Here is a guy that the Army (hell, the nation) could be proud of and he was doing something that his fellow cadets could really get behind and enjoy watching him do. What he was doing was great for morale in the Army and the country. It was something that we could all feel good about. Somwhow that wasn’t good enough for the DOD. I know that Campbell signed up knowing what he had gotten himself into and these are the terms of going to West Point (or the Naval Academy or the Air Force Academy), but the policy mix-up had given him the chance. Then the DOD decided (with plenty of pressure from the Navy and Air Force) that their policy needed to be enforced over the Army policy. This took all of the hope that Caleb Campbell had built up in the past few months and took it from him. This is something that the DOD should have handled well before Campbell even had the chance to get drafted. They had time to take care of this. Once he got drafted, the window for them to renege should have been closed, but since they are the US military, the window is never closed. It truly is a shame that something like this had to happen. I couldn’t be prouder of Caleb Campbell and happier to have someone like him defending my country. He has handled this whole situation with dignity and complete class. I am extremely disappointed for him and in the DOD. He deserved better. We all did.

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