Comebacks and Brett Favre

Let me start this off by saying that Sage Rosenfels is from my hometown. So I am a little biased on this. It was announced last night that Brett Favre is returning for another year to the Vikings. What Favre has done the last few years by extending his career with special treatment, has really set an elitist tone for the country.

Favre returned to Minnesota last night with the usual press coverage including the local traffic helicopter from one of the Minneapolis media outlets. One wonders how traffic flow went with out the helicopter covering it. Or maybe traffic was held up with a tax payer funded motorcade to get Favre to the practice facility?

Now it may sound like I am not a Favre fan. I actually am, and love to watch him play football. But I think you get to an extreme when it comes to some things and in the Favre case this is it.

Sage Rosenfels has been in the NFL 10 years. He has paid his dues. Everywhere he has gone he has always been stuck behind another Quarter Back that was paid more and they have had to play the higher priced QB. Or he has ended up in the situation he is in now behind a Hall Of Famer, despite good results when he has played. Just last Saturday Night Sage led the Vikings to a victory with over 300 yards passing, and 3 TD passes. Sage is ready to be a full time NFL Quarterback. Has been for several years.

I do not expect Favre to go through the usual schedule of training, etc required of all NFL players to play the game. Favre even admits he can't do it anymore. But what happend to the American Tradition of sportsmanship and fair play? Farve has been given special treatment to continue a Hall of Fame career and is not required to match the same standards as his NFL contemporaries. As much as I like Brett Favre. There comes a time when you have to say I have had my shot, and I need to make room for younger people who can do it.

The same thinking that has enabled Brett Favre to continue playing, has crept into our political system. We have a Governor candidate trying to make a come back. This candidate has had a hall of fame career. He has won four Super Bowls, three more than Brett Favre, and many fans of his team are excited to see him play one more season. They can't see anyone else who can do the job. His franchise tried many younger Quarter Backs who performed well and were capable of taking over, but for some reason they want him back in there.

Just like Brett Favre. I like this candidate very much, and consider him to be a good guy. Way better guy than his other opponents in the league. For the most part this guy is an honest guy. One of the players on his team asked him recently why the front office was ignoring them despite the fact that they were on the same team, and he gave her an honest answer. He said look. I know this person will not be as good as you when I take over the Quarter Back position. But only so many people from one team can win every season, and your position has been penciled in to be filled by the other team. I mean come on the people backing your competitor for this job, hold a big block of season tickets in this league, for both home and away games, and we are certainly not going to tick them off.

Just like poor old Sage, this talented new comer to the league is being slighted by the front office despite obvious qualifications. This also happened to the other Governor candidates in training camp who were new and their chance had come up to become the starter. For some reason the front office ignored the standards required of a starting role and went with the veteran who was maybe past his prime.

Thank you Brett Favre for creating the mind set that maybe it doesn't have anything to do with performance. That it is who you know. Not what you know. Thank you for reminding us that here in America we work hard for an opportunity, access that opportunity, and then move on to a new opportunity, so that some one younger has a chance at it.

I will still back the Vikings because of Sage Rosenfels. I may even watch more football this fall and not even pay attention to the Governor Bowl. I may tune in for the half time show, but the ads aren't even going to be interesting.